US Veterans Applauds Israeli Soldiers Who Refuse to Murder in Gaza
Image by Patrick Fore.
The US organization Veterans For Peace has issued a statement in support of Israeli soldiers who are refusing to fight in Gaza.
“You are doing the right thing,” the veterans group writes, while applauding the Israeli military reservists who are calling for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, and who say they will not participate in genocide. “Your courageous stance may be answered by official threats and even imprisonment, but you will never regret refusing to kill innocent Palestinian men, women and children.”
“I am deeply moved by the growing number of Israeli young people who are refusing to be inducted into the IDF. Their decision to live out their values is deeply inspiring to me as a Jew,” said James M. Branum, an attorney who works with US service members struggling with issues of conscience. “I am also quite concerned about reports of mental trauma and suicide among Israeli soldiers,” said Branum, “something with which we in the US are all too familiar.”
The ongoing US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza is a “stain on human history, and it must be ended,” said Veterans For Peace, with chapters in over 100 US cities, and several international chapters.
When US bombs stop falling on Palestinian children, the genocide will end
Veterans For Peace has consistently called for an end to the genocide in Gaza, for a permanent ceasefire, and most importantly, for an end to US arms shipments to Israel. “When US bombs stop falling on Palestinian children, the genocide will have ended,” states the group.
Veterans For Peace has meticulously documented the US laws that the Biden Administration is breaking when it sends weapons to Israel while it is bombing and starving innocent civilians. As the slaughter in Gaza has continued and escalated, the veterans have sent Open Letters to the State Department, to President Biden, to Vice President Harris and to the Justice Department.
Call for US GI’s to Resist Illegal Wars and War Crimes
The 39-year-old veterans’ organization also called on US GI’s to carefully consider their participation in the widening war in the Middle East.
“As veterans who have participated in too many illegal and immoral wars, we also want to address our young sisters and brothers, daughters and sons in the U.S. military. The U.S. has 40,000 troops deployed on ships and at bases throughout the Middle East. President Biden recently sent 100 U.S. troop to be stationed in Israel just as Israel is preparing to attack Iran and is bracing for Iran’s promised response. The U.S. is also backing Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The U.S. military itself has recently dropped bombs in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Now there is active discussion about waging war on Iran! Are U.S. troops being purposely deployed where they will be targets and casualties? Is this the way that the Biden Administration will back us into a war with Iran?”
‘It is right to resist unjust wars and illegal orders,’ stated the group. Veterans For Peace has joined with several other organizations to promote the Appeal for Redress (v.2), an opportunity for active-duty GI’s to safely present their concerns to their Congressional representatives. The group refer GI’s who are thinking about becoming Conscientious Objectors to the Center on Conscience and War. They can also refer people to a GI Rights attorney.
“While it has often been customary in our society to demonize war resisters during conflicts, history ultimately reveals the righteousness of their cause,” said VFP Vice President Joshua Shurley. “Those who refuse to partake in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people will be especially vindicated for their courageous stand.”
You can read the entire Veterans For Peace statement here.
Will the Phoenix Rise Again in Palestine?
Image by Resource Database.
In recent days, various plans for the control and reoccupation of Gaza have begun appearing in the US and Israeli media. Naturally, none of these proposed plans mention are considering what the bulk of Palestinians want. Instead, they reflect the ambitions of the US and Israeli governments; in short, they are plans to colonize Gaza. It seems fair to assume that not only have these proposals been discussed for awhile and will be easily overlaid on the West Bank and southern Lebanon should they be successful in Gaza (and maybe even if they are not).
One proposal supposedly touted by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken would give the authority to oversee the colonization to the monarchs of Saudi Arabia. This plan, which is somewhat similar to that advocated by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and was an essential part of the Abraham Accords, would rebuild Gaza and turn it into an “enterprise zone” and tourist spot, with most of the workers being Palestinians from Gaza. If other such zones in other sheikdoms are any indication, this means that the wages would be low, no unions would be permitted and the conservative version of Islam practiced by Saudi Arabia would dominate the cultural sphere. Of course, given the Muslim Brotherhood roots of Hamas, it seems reasonable to assume that this vision would not be installed without a fair amount of opposition.
Almost everything Israel is doing in its colonial war against Palestine and Lebanon has been done before in history. When Israel’s opponents and those against war and imperialism search for historical analogies, most mention Nazi Germany. Some mention the genocide of the indigenous peoples in the Americas. Very few consider more recent US history: Vietnam, Iraq, Central America. This is despite the obvious – Washington is an active participant in Israel’s war. I wonder as to why this occurs. Do those in the antiwar/Free Palestine movement not know about the nature of those wars of Washington’s empire? Or have the subsequent decades bleached the national memories to such a degree that the murderous nature of the US war machine in those theaters has been replaced with a “good war” set of lies?
Another proposal is straightforward, simple and probably the most dangerous for Palestinians. This plan involves Israel continuing its military takeover of Gaza and imposing a military occupation on the land and the people remaining. There really are no elements of this plan that would bring anything but more hell to the Palestinian residents of Gaza.
Most recently, news articles are appearing describing a system whereby Palestinians in Gaza will be forced into enclaves guarded by private mercenary forces. Only those Palestinians who allow themselves to be registered by the private forces under the command of the IDF will be in those enclaves and only they will be given rations from aid agencies. All other Palestinians in Gaza will be considered terrorists and shot. The news platform idtechwire.com describes the plan in relatively neutral terms: “Under the plan, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would first secure and clear designated areas in northern Gaza, after which GDC would establish barriers and manage biometric checkpoints.” (10/22/2024) This plan is both a potential means to installing either of the aforementioned scenarios or an end in itself. It is also potentially the most deadly approach for all involved, especially the Palestinians.
In the late 1960s the CIA and other US- led forces established a similar program in southern Vietnam. It was called the Phoenix program. The purpose of the program was to separate the Vietnamese liberation forces (NLF) from the Vietnamese population. Residents of so-called hostile villages—in other words villages where the liberation forces enjoyed popular support—were removed from their residences (usually forcibly), registered, and moved to hamlets built by the imperial forces. They were kept under armed guard, working and living in what were essentially minimum security prison camps. Concentration camps, if you will. The thinking was that, together with various reeducation programs and a fair amount of torture, the Vietnamese civilians would acquiesce to the wishes of US and its affiliates, giving up on the fight for independence. Ed Murphy, a former operative in the Phoenix program once stated, “Phoenix was far worse than the things attributed to it.” Fear, brutality and torture were its essential elements.
This scenario is quite similar to the third US-Israeli proposal noted above. There are a couple twenty – first century differences, of course. One is that the operation of the camps in Gaza would be through the private sector. After all, it is the age of neoliberal capitalism and privatization is how things are done these days. Removing government forces from direct involvement also makes it easier to deny knowledge of and responsibility for any criminal actions undertaken by the security forces on site. Another difference would be in the registration process. All identification elements will be biometric. In other words, it would be retina scans and DNA collection that would maintain control over these camps residents, not id cards or even numbers tattooed on wrists.
According to various news sites, these camps are being portrayed as “humanitarian bubbles” or “gated communities,” both of which might be considered mildly humorous if the facilities were something besides concentration camps. The company currently being touted in the Israeli media to undertake the project is called Global Delivery Company. According to various news articles, GDC is a business whose primary business seems to be removing people (mostly Jewish) from war zones where Washington and Tel Aviv are somehow involved—Syria and Ukraine being two of those locations. The head of the company, Moti Kahana, is portrayed as a philanthropist by the right-wing Israeli newspaper Times of Israel (10/24/2024). In fact, his corporation is an adjunct of the IUS-Israeli war machine. Deceptively calling the hamlets his company would build and move Palestinians to “gated communities,” he goes on to suggest that these hamlets would “spark the interest” of others and be replicated across Gaza. The Times of Israel and other media outlets (idtechwire.com-10/22/2024 and editorji.com-10/23/2024) emphasize that these hamlets will be guarded by mercenary forces from the UK and perhaps the US who are highly trained in lethal and non-lethal crowd control. Most likely, their methods were learned during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, where US-led forces were better known for their quick triggers than for their understanding.
The media sourced here refer to this mission as a way to keep Hamas from stealing aid deliveries. This claim that Hamas steals the aid is repeated over and over in the Israeli media and those sympathetic to Tel Aviv’s slaughter. However, like so many ultimately false claims by the IDF and its propaganda machine, there is no proof offered by those making the claims. Furthermore, anyone who pays attention to the situation in Gaza and/or reads United Nations workers’ reports and statements understands that aid is not reaching the Palestinians because Israel is preventing it from reaching them. In some instances, Israel has destroyed the aid. Hamas and other political wings of the resistance helped distribute food for years before the eruption of violence beginning October 7, 2023. Indeed, it was the infrastructure set up by those forces which helped keep residents of Gaza from starving. Today, the IDF and Washington are intentionally starving the people of Gaza as part of their campaign to re-colonize Palestine for Tel Aviv.
Let me be clear. These proposals have little to nothing to do with stopping aid from being stolen. Just like Washington’s Operation Phoenix in Vietnam was a brutal attempt to separate the Vietnamese national liberation forces (NLF) from the Vietnamese people so Washington and its puppet government in Saigon could destroy the NLF and maintain its illegal regime there, so are these plans attempts to separate the Plasticine resistance forces from Palestinians in Gaza so that Washington and Tel Aviv can eradicate the Palestinian resistance and extend and enforce the Israeli occupation.
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