What will it take for President Obama to remove his head from his ass and finally denounce the genocide taking place in Gaza? Apparently the inhumane slaughter of 398 Palestinian children is not enough. Nor is the murder of 207 Palestinian women and 74 elderly. How about the destruction of 10,000 Palestinian homes and the displacement of 450,000 people? Nope… that hasn’t worked either. Maybe the 53 daily cases of viral meningitis occurring at the overcrowded Palestinian “safe” shelters will make him denounce the massacre. Nope he doesn’t seem to care about that either.
I know…lets ask the US Legislative branch to help out. With so many elected officials in office, somebody has to care about this tragedy. Nope… they don’t care either. The Department of Defense released a stockpile of weapons for Israeli use on July 30th. The weapons include 120mm mortar rounds, 40mm hand grenades, ammunition, and undisclosed weaponry. On top of that, the Senate voted unanimously on July 16th to send $351 million to Israel to support the antimissile system and has agreed to spend $30 billion on military aid to Israel through 2018.
President Obama publicly released a statement denouncing the killing of 3 Israeli teens. He stated:
“As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth.”
Now, I am not in any way minimizing the tragedy of these teenagers deaths, but I cannot understand how our President can make such a strong statement against the deaths of 3 Israeli children and ignore the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians. To date, there have been 1,712 Palestinian (mostly civilian)deaths since this conflict began almost one month ago. Lets put that in perspective, in the last 13 years of the Afghanistan war, there have been just over 2,100 U.S. military casualties.
This morning, the New York Times reported that Israeli forces struck a United Nations school sheltering displaced Palestinians. 10 people were killed and 35 more were wounded. The massacre continues and our President and leaders continue to look the other way. Why? When will the blind allegiance to Israel end?
CNN claims that Israel is just defending itself against an onslaught of rockets fired from Gaza. Many people claim that Hamas blindly fires crude rockets into Israel and causes terror amongst the Israeli people. Let’s take a look at that claim and assess its validity. Over the course of this conflict, there have only been 59 Israeli deaths (56 of them were Israeli soldiers). That means that the “terrorist” group has only killed 3 Israeli civilians during the entire conflict. Hamas denied any involvement in the killing of the 3 teenagers, yet Israel declared that they will “pay a price” for them.
Why should we care what happens halfway around the world?
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr famously wrote:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
On August 2nd, hundreds of thousands of concerned people gathered around the world to condemn Israel. There were protests in Ireland, London, and all across the United States. Thousands gathered in front of the White House in hopes that Obama will hear their desperate pleas. Unfortunately, nobody was home. President Obama was conveniently out of town that day.
Hundreds of New Mexicans gathered together in Albuquerque for a protest and march organized by the New Mexico ANSWER Coalition. The day began with a group protesting at the opening of Senator Tom Udall’s new office in Albuquerque. Despite his claims to be a progressive democrat, Senator Udall is just another lemming falling off of the Israeli support cliff. He blindly voted to support the Israeli killing machine. The people gathered to say that they have had enough and demand that he denounce Israel once and for all.
Next, the group of concerned people met at the corner of 1st & Central in Downtown Albuquerque. They occupied all four corners of the street holding signs and saying protests chants like:
“Not another nickel, not another dime, not another penny for Israeli crimes!”
“Israel, Israel, you will see…Palestine will be free!”
After nearly one hour of protesting, they gathered peacefully and marched down Central Avenue towards Downtown. The crowd stopped in front of the Kimo Theater to hold a die-in on Central Avenue to symbolize the needless massacre in Palestine. The APD was confused and did not know what to do. They frantically communicated back and forth trying to determine what should be done.
The protestors only conducted the die-in for roughly 5 minutes and then continued their march to Civic Plaza. Across the street from Civic Plaza is a building that is home to Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin proudly boasts:
“Lockheed Martin is supporting the warfighter by providing a wide variety of highly effective and reliable weapons systems to ensure that the right weapon is available for each situation that they may face.”
“Lockheed Martin has a long history of successfully providing its customers with missile and missile systems that are affordable, proven, and in production.”
The protest continued for quite some time, but remained peaceful and powerful. The protestors wanted to remind everybody that Palestinian children bleed red too. They wanted to educate the public on the use of U.S. tax dollars that fund the massacre of so many innocent Palestinians. They wanted to call out for an end to the bloodshed that is unanimousily supported by our elected “leaders” in Washington D.C.
So President Obama, Senator Udall, and unconcerned public members… grow some balls and demand and end to the Massacre in Gaza!
Burque's Daily Loco 
Are you out of your mind? The people of Israel are being told to leave, pay money or die. If I was president of Israel and a bunch of nut jobs hiding behind women and children were lobbing misses at my people, I would gather every Ali I could find and remove the radials off the land of the truly good people left in Gaza. Let them live productive lives in what ever region they choose to do so. It’s disgusting that the media portrays the Israeli people as killing of innocent women and children. If the U.S. was in the same situation, do you think we would say ok we will pay the fine or move elsewhere or die. Don’t you read the international news? Isreal is in a position that they have no other options.
Thank you for the uninformed response to the post. The Gaza strip is only 7 miles wide and 25 miles long. 2 million people are forced to live in this very small area (it is the most densely populated city on earth). Where are they supposed to fight from? Its not like there is an abundance of open space in such a small area. The people of Gaza are treated horribly by the Israeli government and Israel consistently tests weapons and equipment out on the Palestinians.
As of right now, 2100 Palestinians have been killed (80% civilians). 500 of the deaths have been innocent children. 10,500 Palestinians have been injured. This morning, Israel destroyed 2 high rise apartment buildings.
In the past day or so, Israel has conducted 20 air strikes with sophisticated weaponry in response to 3 (yes 3) mortar rounds that did not harm anybody in Israel. The response by Israel is inhumane and wrong.There have only been 67 Israeli deaths in total. Less than 10 of those are civilians (none are children).
Oh and by the way… the people of the US have been subjugated by a an oppressive government and massacred in the streets…its called the American Revolution. Take some time to read about it.