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arms embargo
The People's Arms Embargo
Palestine Action, the direct-action network founded in the UK in 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, is built on a simple theory of change: If governments won’t stop arming Israel, activists will go after the companies that do it for them.
Sep 02, 2026
For nearly three years, foreign ministries in Washington, London, and Brussels have debated arms embargoes on Israel in committee rooms, largely without result. Meanwhile, a much less formal network of ordinary people has been trying to accomplish the same goal from the ground up—one factory gate, one shareholder register, and one pension fund at a time.
Palestine Action, the direct-action network founded in the UK in 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, is built on a simple theory of change: If governments won’t stop arming Israel, activists will go after the companies that do it for them. Its central target has been Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, which supplies the bulk of the drones, munitions, and surveillance equipment used in Gaza and the West Bank.
But the network’s real innovation is how it maps the entire supply chain—not just Elbit’s factories, but the banks that hold its shares, the recruiters that staff it, the cleanroom contractors that service its subsidiaries, and the local landlords who rent it space. Every link has become a pressure point.
How the Network Actually Works
Palestine Action isn’t a single organization so much as a constellation. Its hub-and-spoke structure includes a UK core, plus franchises, affiliates, and offshoots that have adopted its name, its tactics, or both. These affiliates include Unity of Fields, formerly Palestine Action US, and sympathetic cells in Canada, France, and Germany.
A war sustained by a transnational arms and finance network, in other words, is being contested by an equally transnational, but far more improvised, citizen network.
Tactics range widely. Some are the kinds of action that make headlines: blockading factory entrances, occupying rooftops, spray-painting military aircraft. Others are quieter and far more replicable by an average person—researching a company’s supply relationships, showing up to a shareholder meeting, filing a public-records request on a pension fund’s holdings, or simply refusing to bank with an institution that finances the war.
This second track has produced some of the most durable wins. In 2026, for instance, Urbana, Illinois became the first Illinois city to bar its pension investments from the top 100 global arms producers; Burbank, California divested from Caterpillar and Honeywell after a local coalition campaign; and the state of Maryland’s pension fund sold off 85% of its Israeli bond holdings—about $62 million—after more than a year of sustained pressure. None of those campaigns required anyone to climb a fence.
Palestine Action’s campaign against Elbit’s UK operations has been credited with forcing the closure of the company’s London headquarters, the cancellation of Ministry of Defence contracts, and the loss of its UK recruitment partner. Barclays bank—long a target of Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s parallel boycott—stopped holding shares in Elbit in 2024, something campaigners point to as evidence that sustained pressure, even short of full divestment, moves institutional money.
None of this has stopped the war. But it has made doing business with Israel’s arms industry measurably more expensive and more reputationally toxic, which is precisely the mechanism that sanctions and embargoes are supposed to achieve when foreign ministries won’t act.
The Safety Question
In July 2025, the UK government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization under the Terrorism Act 2000, making membership or expressed support punishable by up to 14 years in prison. A High Court panel ruled in February 2026 that the ban was disproportionate and unlawful, noting that only a small fraction of the group’s actions met the legal definition of terrorism, and that ordinary criminal law was already available to prosecute any violence. The government appealed, and in June 2026 the Court of Appeal reversed that ruling and upheld the ban. More than 1,600 people have been arrested in the UK simply for expressing support for the group since the proscription took effect, and four activists convicted only of criminal damage at an Elbit factory were sentenced on the basis of a “terrorist connection.”
That is a genuinely severe legal environment, and it is specific to the UK. Direct action involving property damage or blockades carries real prosecutorial risk anywhere, including the United States, where Unity of Fields and similar groups are not proscribed but individual activists can and do face criminal charges for actions like the 2023 blockade of Elbit’s Cambridge, Massachusetts office.
The boycott, divestment, and shareholder-pressure (BDS) track—writing to a pension board, organizing a bank boycott, supporting BDS-endorsed campaigns—carries none of that risk and remains fully legal free speech and civic organizing in the United States and most of Europe. The two tracks get conflated constantly, including by the UK government itself, but they are not the same thing. This kind of conflation is exactly what makes proscription such a blunt instrument: it criminalizes a banner alongside a blockade.
One Person Still Matters
Much of this network’s actual leverage comes from single, unglamorous decisions. Huda Ammori didn’t wait for a government to act; she and a handful of others started a campaign against one company in 2020 that has since reshaped how a much larger movement thinks about supply chains. The Boycat app, the closest thing the BDS movement has to an official target list, exists because someone decided that consumer choice needed better information, not more slogans. A single city council member willing to bring a divestment resolution to a vote in Urbana did something no protest outside a factory could: moved actual pension dollars.
None of that required anyone to risk a UK terrorism charge. It required deciding that a supply chain is not too complicated, or too far away, to trace and interrupt.
A war sustained by a transnational arms and finance network, in other words, is being contested by an equally transnational, but far more improvised, citizen network. The citizen network’s most effective tool so far hasn’t been confrontation, it’s been documentation. Knowing exactly which bank, which pension fund, which subcontractor is implicated—and saying so publicly and persistently—has moved more money than any single blockade. This tactic is the most likely one to still be legal, and successful, in the near future.
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Calls for 'Full Arms Embargo' Against Israel as Lebanon Massacres Imperil Ceasefire Hopes
"The United States and all other countries need to cut off weapons to Israel immediately."
Apr 09, 2026
Fresh demands for a total arms embargo against Israel emerged Wednesday as the country's devastating onslaught in Lebanon—leveling apartment buildings and killing more than 250 people—threatened to derail tenuous progress toward a deal to end the US-Israeli war on Iran.
"The United States and all other countries need to cut off weapons to Israel immediately," said Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the US-based Center for International Policy. "Full arms embargo."
Avi Lewis, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, wrote on social media that "Canada must bring sanctions against Israel, cancel the Canada-Israel free trade agreement, implement a real two-way arms embargo, and use every diplomatic and economic tool at our disposal to rein in Israel."
"US-Israeli impunity has shredded the international order," he added. "Canada should lead in rebuilding it."
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that he "will be offering a resolution to stop US military aid to Israel" when Congress returns to session next week. The US is Israel's chief arms supplier; recent data shows that 99% of Israel's weapons imports are from the US and Germany.
Israel launched its barrage of airstrikes on Lebanon, including busy areas in central Beirut, just hours after US President Donald Trump, Iranian leaders, and Pakistani mediators announced a two-week ceasefire agreement aimed at providing space for a lasting resolution to the war that the US and Israel launched in late February.
Pakistan's prime minister said explicitly that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire agreement, but the Trump White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted the country was excluded, prompting fury in Iran.
"If this isn’t yet another case of the US early reneging, then what is it?" asked Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry.
US Vice President JD Vance claimed Wednesday that there was a "legitimate misunderstanding" about the terms of the ceasefire, saying the Iranians "thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn't."
"That said, the Israelis have actually offered to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful," Vance said.
More Israeli airstrikes were reported in Beirut as Vance made his comments.
More Israeli airstrikes in Beirut #Lebanon just as VP Vance says Israel will show restraint. “Israelis have actually offered to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon …to make sure that our negotiation is successful.”
This is in sheyyah area tonight pic.twitter.com/F4ZFrlKS52
— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) April 9, 2026
Israel's assault on Wednesday marked the deadliest day for Lebanon during the latest round of bombing, which began days after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. Lebanon held a national day of mourning on Thursday as rescue efforts continued across the country.
One woman, identified as Haniya Faraj, told The New York Times that nine of her relatives were wounded in an Israeli attack on a neighborhood in central Beirut.
“I don’t know if there are more, my head is about to explode," she said. "I can’t reach all my family members."
The Associated Press reported that its journalists "saw charred bodies in vehicles and on the ground at one of Beirut’s busiest intersections in the central Corniche al Mazraa neighborhood, a mixed commercial and residential area. Using forklifts, rescue workers removed smoldering debris and sifted through ruins for survivors."
Heba Morayef, Amnesty International's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement that the Israeli government "has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful attacks in Lebanon and displaying a callous disregard for civilian life, fueled by the impunity Israeli officials feel they enjoy."
"These attacks are a reminder that states must immediately halt the transfer of arms and weapons to Israel, given the overriding risk that they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law," said Morayef.
European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, condemned Israel's massive bombardment of Lebanon and reiterated that the country must be included in the ceasefire agreement.
"We condemn these strikes in the strongest possible terms," said Macron. "They pose a direct threat to the sustainability of the ceasefire that has just been reached. Lebanon must be fully covered by it."
Sánchez, who has vocally condemned the Iran war from the start as illegal and immoral, went further, urging the European Union to "suspend its Association Agreement with Israel."
"There must be no impunity for these criminal acts," said Sánchez.
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Canada, Stop Using the US to Launder Complicity With the Gaza Genocide
Canada, despite claiming to have imposed an arms embargo, continues to fuel the violence unabated, its factories producing fighter jet components, explosives, and munitions that move through US channels directly into the assault.
Jan 11, 2026
For decades, Canada has carefully cultivated a global reputation for principle, human rights, and moral clarity. However, that image is now cracking, and cracking fast. For too long, Canada has cloaked its inaction and complicity, rather spectacularly, behind political correctness. But as the global crises grow more brutal—and more visible—it has become harder for Canada to maintain this facade.
Canadians and people around the world are catching on to the gap between what the country claims to stand for and what it actually does. That gap is just impossible to ignore when it comes to the situation in Gaza. Since October 2023, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed over 80,000 Palestinians—and that figure represents only the confirmed deaths, excluding those trapped beneath the rubble. Experts have estimated that nearly 600,000 total Palestinians have lost their lives, including thousands of children, and nearly 2 million more have been displaced, an overwhelming portion of the strip’s population.
United Nations experts and international human rights organizations have increasingly raised alarms, calling this horrific massacre what it is: a genocide. Gaza now lies beneath 68 million tons of rubble, roughly the weight of 186 Empire State Buildings—enough debris to spread 215 pounds over every square inch of Manhattan. Meanwhile, the United States continues to ship to Israel, and Canada, despite claiming to have imposed an arms embargo, continues to fuel the violence unabated, its factories producing fighter jet components, explosives, and munitions that move through US channels directly into the assault.
The latest Arms Embargo Now report documents hundreds of shipments of Canadian-made fighter jet components, explosives, and propellants flowing through US facilities to Israel. Shipping data, contract records, ports of exit, and delivery timelines confirm that Canadian military goods are directly sustaining Israel’s assault on Gaza. Between late 2023 and mid-2025, over 360 shipments of Canadian aircraft parts reached Lockheed Martin's F-35 assembly plant in Fort Worth, Texas. Analysis of commercially available shipping data revealed that at least 34 shipments were forwarded from US facilities directly to Israeli military bases and defense firms. Canadian explosives and propellants, including the M31A2 triple-base propellant and TNT, transshipped through the Port of Saguenay, Quebec, were routed through US munitions plants to produce bombs and artillery shells used in Gaza.
Why is Canada so determined to continue funneling weapons parts and ammunition to the US, unquestioningly, even as it allows itself to be used as an accessory to Israel’s genocide and deepens dependence on a country that has openly entertained annexing Canada?
The report further shows that many of these controlled military components were transported from Canada to the United States as cargo on commercial passenger flights, departing from major airports such as Toronto Pearson and Montréal-Trudeau. These components support both new aircraft production and ongoing maintenance, keeping Israeli F-35s operational during the Gaza assault, while the use of civilian airlines blurs the line between ordinary passenger travel and an active military supply chain. Every shipment appears to flow through a calculated, politically engineered pipeline fueling war.
This evidence exposes a stark truth: Public assurances by Canadian officials are incompatible with reality. Former Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly promised that Canada would not allow “any form of arms or parts of arms” to reach Gaza, directly or indirectly. Her successor, Anita Anand, repeated similar commitments. Yet the shipments continue. Canada has not stopped sending arms; it has simply outsourced accountability.
The government’s defense relies on the so-called US Loophole: Military exports to the United States are exempt from Canada’s permit requirements and human rights assessments. Once in US hands, Canada claims no responsibility for where the arms go next. However, international law does not vanish because weapons cross a border. The Arms Trade Treaty prohibits authorizing transfers when there is a substantial risk of facilitating serious violations of humanitarian law. Knowledge, foreseeability, and contribution still matter.
The pattern of misrepresentation is clear. From December 2023 to January 2024, officials, including former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and GAC Assistant Deputy Minister Alexandre Lévêque, claimed no arms exports or permits had been issued to Israel, a statement contradicted by nearly $30 million in new export permits. Early 2024 saw a pivot to “non-lethal” exports, with night-vision goggles and protective gear cited to obscure lethal shipments of bomb accessories and explosives. Parliamentary motions and public statements claiming a halt to arms exports were largely symbolic, leaving the vast majority of existing permits intact.
By 2024-2025, claims that exports were restricted to “defensive” uses, such as the Iron Dome, or would not reach Gaza, were impossible to verify and did not prevent Canadian-made components from being incorporated into Israeli munitions. The government’s narrative meandered endlessly, offering Kafkaesque explanations that dissolved accountability into legalistic semantics.
If Canada were truly innocent, it would have promptly and publicly refuted the findings of the Arms Embargo Now report. Instead, it has responded with silence. Even after Member of Parliament Jenny Kwan introduced Bill C-233 in September 2025 to close the US loophole and impose meaningful parliamentary oversight on arms exports, the bill has been left to languish untouched. This legislation offers a straightforward safeguard to prevent Canadian weapons and components from being routed through the United States to fuel conflicts abroad, yet the government refuses to move.
If this were merely bureaucratic oversight, and if sending arms indirectly to Israel were not the objective, why has there been no momentum on a measure so clearly aligned with transparency and human rights? Why is Canada so determined to continue funneling weapons parts and ammunition to the US, unquestioningly, even as it allows itself to be used as an accessory to Israel’s genocide and deepens dependence on a country that has openly entertained annexing Canada? And why do weapon components and ammunition continue to flow even as Canadian representatives and humanitarian delegates are barred from entering the occupied West Bank, prevented from witnessing conditions on the ground themselves?
At this point, one can only wonder how much longer Canada’s moral facade can plausibly endure. As Aldous Huxley once observed, “The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing.” This appears to be the goal here. The government has offered no coherent defense, only theatrical explanations in which responsibility dissolves into process and legality is reduced to paperwork. There is no counterstrategy, no rebuttal, and no attempt at persuasion. There is only silence, complexity, and delay.
Perhaps the unspoken calculation is that this response will be enough. After all, when public schools report alarming declines in reading and comprehension skills, critical engagement becomes harder to sustain. If citizens struggle to parse policy documents or follow supply-chain evidence, denial need not be convincing; it merely needs to be exhausting. In such an environment, ignorance becomes not a failure of governance, but a quiet line of defense.
In light of all this, recognition of the State of Palestine now reads like a scripted apology: Yes, we see your suffering, we hear your cries, but don’t worry, we’ll keep arming your oppressor through the US. Meanwhile, Canadian factories quietly churn out fighter jet parts, explosives, and munitions that fuel Israel’s assault on Gaza. As Joseph Heller observed in Catch-22, “The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.” It is a brutal reminder that, regardless of what the government says, Canada’s military industry has reduced Palestinian lives in Gaza to expendable instruments, sacrificed to preserve contracts, alliances, and profit. Words without action are meaningless; they are a costume of virtue, while the violence continues unabated.
Canada’s reputation cannot survive on statements alone. It rests on the belief that credible evidence of mass harm would prompt action. That belief no longer holds. The facts are documented. The loopholes are exposed. The silence is deliberate.
History will not remember Canada for its statements or parliamentary motions. It will remember the arms it allowed to flow, the civilians killed with its components, and the moral compromise it has embraced. Canada’s rhetoric of principle is a veneer, one that is cracking as a majority of Canadians now demand recognition of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Behind this veneer lies complicity, deliberate and undeniable.
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Military Budget Bill Would Ramp Up Israel Aid to Fill In 'Gaps' When Other Countries Impose Embargoes Over Genocide
The House Armed Services Committee said in September that the measure "combats antisemitism."
Dec 09, 2025
A little-reported provision of the latest military spending bill would direct the US to create a plan to fill the "gaps" for Israel whenever other nations cut off arms shipments in response to its acts of genocide in Gaza.
As Prem Thakker reported Monday for Zeteo, the measure is "buried" more than 1,000 pages into the more than 3,000-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is considered by lawmakers to be “must-pass" legislation and contains a record $901 billion in total spending.
Republicans are shepherding the bill through the US House of Representatives, where—as is the case with most NDAAs—it is expected to pass on Wednesday with Democratic support, even as some conservative budget hardliners refuse to back it, primarily over its $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine.
Since the genocide began following Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023, the US has provided more than $21.7 billion to Israel, including hundreds of millions that have been supplied through NDAAs.
The new NDAA includes at least another $650 million to Israel, an increase of $45 million from the previous one, even though this is the first such bill to be introduced since the "ceasefire" that went into effect in October. This aid from the Pentagon comes on top of the $3.3 billion already provided through the State Department budget.
But this NDAA also contains an unprecedented measure. It calls for the “continual assessment of [the] impact of international state arms embargoes on Israel and actions to address defense capability gaps."
The NDAA directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to assess “the scope, nature, and impact on Israel’s defense capabilities of current and emerging arms embargoes, sanctions, restrictions, or limitations imposed by foreign countries or by international organizations,” and “the resulting gaps or vulnerabilities in Israel’s security posture.”
As Drop Site News explains, "this means the US would explicitly use federal law to step in and supply weapons to Israel whenever other countries cut off arms to halt Israel’s ongoing violations across the region."
"The point of this assistance, to be clear, is to make up for any identified insufficiencies Israel may have due to other countries' embargoing it as a result of its ongoing genocide in Palestine," Thakker wrote.
A similar provision appeared in a September version of the NDAA, which the House Armed Services Committee praised because it supposedly “combats antisemitism"—explicitly conflating a bias against Jewish people with weapons embargoes that countries have imposed to stop Israel from continuing its routine, documented human rights violations in Gaza.
Among the nations that have cut off weapons sales to Israel are Japan, Canada, France, Italy, and Spain. Meanwhile, other major backers, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, have imposed partial freezes on certain weaponry.
While official estimates from the Gaza Ministry of Health place the number of dead from Israel's military campaign at over 70,000, with more than 170,000 wounded, an independent assessment last month from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany and the Center for Demographic Studies in Spain found that the death toll “likely exceeds 100,000." This finding mirrored several other studies that have projected the true death toll to be much higher than what official estimates show.
Embargoes against Israel have been called for by a group of experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council, including Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, numerous human rights organizations, including the leading Israeli group B’Tselem, have said Israel’s campaign in Gaza has amounted to genocide.
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Why I Am Joining the People’s Hunger Strike for Gaza
I have joined the hunger strike in grief at the annihilation of Gaza, and to protest the use of my tax dollars to transform the Gaza Strip into a graveyard for its people and international law.
Sep 25, 2025
On September 25 I will begin a weeklong water-only fast as part of The People’s Hunger Strike that was launched outside the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building in Boston on September 4.
Its goals are to raise consciousness about the deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza and to pressure Massachusetts senators, whose offices are in that building, to sponsor a version of the House "Block the Bombs" bill (HR 3565) that would stop the US from sending Israel the kind of high-impact weaponry being used against civilians in the Gaza Strip in violation of international law.
The Horror of Forced Starvation
The People’s Hunger Strike is the brainchild of a Boston physician Miriam Komaromy. She had not previously been actively involved in organizing for Palestine. But “when forced starvation was imposed on the Gaza population it brought me up short,” she told me. “I said this cannot be. The reality of parents starving and watching their child starve to death—I couldn’t bear it.”
Responding to a Palestinian call urging people of conscience around the world to join a solidarity hunger strike initiated in the West Bank, Dr. Komaromy reached out to members of Boston’s Doctors against Genocide and Healthcare Workers for Palestine-Boston as well as the Boston chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Soon they had numerous cosponsoring groups supporting the planned hunger strike, and some 35 people had pledged to undertake one-week fasts.
Many of those who joined the action were new to the issue; others had long been involved in organizing for Palestinian rights. All were affected by what Jeannie—a hunger striker whose Irish heritage taught her something about deliberately manufactured famine—described in the following way: “For almost two years, we’ve seen the images of the displaced, whose homes, schools, hospitals, water, and entire society have been bombed, as they walk through the rubble seeking food and shelter. The woman whose milk has dried up screaming with grief over her dead baby; the face of a skeletal child, crying and holding out an empty pot; a father weeping over the shrouded corpses of his entire family. These images don’t stop coming.”
The Gaza I knew
Those images and the unfolding genocide that has been meticulously documented by human rights organizations including Israeli groups, genocide scholars and, on September 16, the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry, have overwhelmed me. I have a personal relationship with the Gaza Strip going back to my first visit in 1988 as part of a human rights delegation when Israel was using “force, might, and beatings” (Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s phrase) to suppress the first Intifada, an unarmed uprising of the entire civil society.
"We have a duty to do all that we can to stop the genocide that is funded and promoted by our government.”
During the more than a dozen visits I subsequently made to Gaza as head of a foundation supporting its mental health services, I made many friends and experienced this tiny piece of land as a place of extraordinary hospitality. I saw firsthand how its population was demonized by Israel, imprisoned in what has been called an "open air prison" since 2007, and subjected to repeated sustained military bombardments well before the seismic events of October 7, 2023.
I have joined the hunger strike in grief at the annihilation of Gaza, and to protest the use of my tax dollars to transform the Gaza Strip into a graveyard for its people and international law.
Our Duty to Stop Genocide
Several people I work with in the Boston-based Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine have also joined the fast. Judy, who recently finished her week without food, says she fasted because “I am angry and heartbroken watching the people of Gaza endure forced starvation and seeing what it does to their bodies, spirit, and to their future. I joined the strike to pressure our government to stop sending Israel weapons.”
Jude, who is in treatment for cancer herself, hopes to personalize and make visible the impact of the Israeli-created famine and the long-term harm it is causing. She adds: “I can retreat from this strike at the first sign of harm. This is not true for our counterparts in Gaza who are exhausted; without food, water, medicine, or shelter; and under constant attack. We have a duty to do all that we can to stop the genocide that is funded and promoted by our government.”
Kathy hopes that the hunger strike will send a loud message to her elected representative, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), who has not signed onto the House "Block the Bombs" bill despite “countless calls from her constituents over the last two years concerning the weapons the US has sent to Israel with Massachusetts tax dollars. The result has been the extermination of entire generational families living in Gaza, as well as the killing and maiming of massive numbers of civilians including babies, children, courageous journalists, and doctors. We want her to stand with the Congressional Progressive Caucus which has endorsed the Block the Bombs Act.”
It is too late to save the lives of more than 65,000 Palestinians, many slaughtered with US weapons and 83% of them civilians according to the Israeli army’s own data. It is too late to bring back the hundreds of children who have already died from forced starvation. But we hope that the hunger strike will amplify our message: Let Gaza Live!
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Gaza Flotilla Participants Take Great Risks in the Absence of Government Action
Governments should be using all their leverage to prevent genocide by halting weapons sales to Israel, suspending preferential trade agreements, and imposing targeted sanctions against Israeli officials.
Sep 13, 2025
In the absence of international action to stop the Israeli government from continuing its grave crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, people from around the world are embarking on flotillas aimed at breaking Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, delivering desperately needed aid, and demanding an end to Israel’s atrocities.
This week, a coalition of activists spanning North Africa, the Gulf states, France, and Malaysia launched the Global Sumud Flotilla, despite threats and danger.
On September 8, an explosion took place, igniting fires on board the flotilla’s Family Boat. Organizers said an item dropped by a drone struck the boat, a Portuguese-flagged vessel carrying members of the flotilla’s steering committee in Tunisian waters, which they condemned as a targeted act of intimidation. The next day, organizers reported a second drone attack, releasing footage and an image of a burned item found on deck.
More than 63,000 Palestinians have been killed amid Israel’s assault over the last 23 months in Gaza, including over 2,000 trying to access humanitarian aid. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble and, as the population has come under unrelenting bombardment, most have been forcibly displaced at least once.
Flotillas are a means by which ordinary people can peacefully speak out on the world stage against extermination. But there is no substitute for meaningful action by governments to halt abuses and ensure accountability.
Now, as Israeli forces escalate operations in Gaza City and continue starving the civilian population in defiance of orders from the International Court of Justice, it is urgent for states to act.
Governments should be using all their leverage to prevent genocide by halting weapons sales to Israel, suspending preferential trade agreements, and imposing targeted sanctions against Israeli officials responsible for ongoing abuses.
Flotillas come amid governments’ inaction and can put participants at great risk. Some Gulf participants reported being blocked from traveling by authorities and advised not to participate citing safety concerns. Israeli forces intercepted prior flotillas, detaining and deporting most activists. In 2010, when Israeli forces intercepted the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship participating in a flotilla, they killed nine activists. This incident serves as a reminder for the international community to protect flotilla participants, whom Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has branded as “terrorists.”
Flotillas are a means by which ordinary people can peacefully speak out on the world stage against extermination. But there is no substitute for meaningful action by governments to halt abuses and ensure accountability. Governments should ensure that participants are not obstructed, attacked, or wrongfully prosecuted and press Israel to end its unlawful blockade of Gaza.
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Will Dem Leadership Follow the Base on Gaza or Get Left Behind?
By appearing to put the profits of arms manufacturers above the lives of Palestinian children, a refusal to condition offensive military aid could subject Israel hawks to primary challengers or result in lower turnout for incumbents in the general election.
Sep 07, 2025
Nearly two years in to the US-backed genocide in Gaza, there are clear signals that the Democratic Party’s base is moving far away from supporting the Israeli government and its war machine.
And while party leadership is beginning to show some hopeful signs that it might be starting to listen to constituents’ changing attitudes on the issue of Israel and Palestine, such a shift wasn’t immediately obvious from the summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in Minneapolis last month.
Recent polls have shown 78% of Democrats support recognizing the State of Palestine, which three-quarters of United Nations member states—including some of the United States’ closest allies—already do. Similarly, 75% of Democratic voters oppose sending additional military aid to Israel, which is already illegal, according to Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars the United States from providing military assistance to countries blocking humanitarian aid.
Still, at its August meeting, the DNC Resolutions Committee voted down a resolution calling for recognizing Palestine and suspending military aid with a decisive margin.
Following the defeat of the resolution, which had been endorsed by College Democrats and other progressive constituencies, and rejecting the sponsors’ offers to compromise on the language, DNC Chair Ken Martin and 17 other top party leaders successfully pushed through a different resolution which, while advocating a two-state solution, insisted the creation of a Palestinian state only come “through direct bilateral negotiations.” Critics, however, note that no such direct Israeli-Palestinian talks have taken place for more than a decade while the current Israeli government categorically rules out Palestinian statehood. Combined with the DNC’s objection to conditioning aid to Israel, this appears to have been a de facto endorsement of ongoing Israeli control over and colonization of the occupied territories.
While the party leadership’s resolution specifically condemned Hamas for its October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, calling the killing of 1,200 Israelis a “massacre,” it did not condemn Israel’s killing of over 50 times as many Palestinians, referring to their deaths in the passive voice and not even saying who did the killing—the resolution only noted the “loss” of tens of thousands of lives in “the war between Israel and Hamas.” The resolution also implied that Hamas was equally responsible for the growing famine in Gaza as was the Israeli government, which is imposing the siege on the enclave. The resolution’s call for a ceasefire was linked to the unconditional release of the remaining Israeli hostages while failing to call on Israel to release the estimated nearly 5,000 Palestinians held without charge in Israeli prisons.
However, that resolution never even made it to the full DNC. Aware of the backlash following the two votes, Martin immediately withdrew his resolution from consideration. Recognizing the vote’s potential impact, the DNC chair for the first time acknowledged that “there’s a divide in our party on this issue,” saying, “This is a moment that calls for shared dialogue, calls for shared advocacy.” He then announced a taskforce “comprised of stakeholders on all sides of this” to help formulate the party’s position on Israel and Palestine.
The willingness to finally challenge the party’s traditional blank check to the Israeli government may be tactical: Increasing numbers of Democrats, particularly younger voters, are not just questioning Israeli policies, but Zionism itself.
There is likely no other issue where the party leadership is as out of sync with its base. Allison Minnerly, a young DNC member who sponsored the defeated resolution, noted how only 8% of registered Democrats support the party’s current position in support of Israel’s war on Gaza. And the defeat was not for lack of mobilization: Members of the committee received hundreds of thousands of emails encouraging support for Minnerly’s resolution.
Harold Meyerson, editor at-large for The American Prospect, noted, “We’ve been here before: widespread Democratic opposition to an outrageous war, particularly among the young, while a good chunk of the party’s establishment remains unwilling to halt US involvement in that conflict. In the ’60s, that was Vietnam. Today, it’s Gaza.”
According to James Zogby, a longtime DNC member and advocate of Palestinian rights, the Minneapolis meeting should be seen in a somewhat positive light as a result of the unprecedented level of debate—and the fact that Martin felt obliged to withdraw his resolution. In a statement following the meeting, Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, wrote that the outcome should be seen as “a recognition of the shifting tides within the party and the reality that the status quo has become unacceptable and untenable. Supporters of Palestinian rights should understand that this was a victory and an important step forward in the long struggle for justice.”
In addition, there are signs of a real shift among Democratic officials, even in Washington. While Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, and most others in the congressional leadership still strongly advocate arming and supporting the Israeli government, for the first time a majority of Democratic senators voted in favor of an unsuccessful resolution earlier this summer to block US President Donald Trump’s proposal to send additional bombs and missiles to further destroy Gaza. As a result of the dramatic shift among Democratic voters in recent months regarding US policy toward Israel and Palestine, it appears that at least some Democratic politicians are now becoming more scared of their constituents than they are of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Notably, increasing numbers of Jewish Democrats in Congress are calling for suspending offensive military aid to Israel, as are some Democrats who previously received AIPAC funding and supported the group’s unwavering support for the Netanyahu government.
Just as Democratic officials became more willing to oppose the Vietnam War once it was being waged by Republican Richard Nixon instead of Democrat Lyndon Johnson, Democratic members of Congress today are appearing more willing to challenge Trump’s support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than they were former President Joe Biden’s.
With over two-thirds of registered Democrats saying Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide or are “akin to genocide” (nine times those saying otherwise), the party’s 2024 platform, which insisted that billions of dollars’ worth of unconditional military aid to Israel remain “ironclad,” is becoming increasingly controversial. And the Democratic Party’s longstanding position of prioritizing the national rights and security interests of Israelis over Palestinians is harder to defend when polling shows only 12% of registered Democrats say their sympathies are more with Israel.
By appearing to put the profits of arms manufacturers above the lives of Palestinian children, this refusal to condition offensive military aid could subject Israel hawks to primary challengers or result in lower turnout for incumbents in the general election.
Liberal Zionist groups like J Street are now for the first time supporting some restrictions on military aid and are trying to push the Democratic Party to take a more critical position against Netanyahu, the war on Gaza, and the occupation of Palestine. A number of state Democratic parties, even in swing states like North Carolina, have gone on record calling for a suspension of military aid to Israel.
Historically, the Democratic Party leadership has initially been out of line with its constituents on key foreign policy issues, including in Vietnam, Central America, Southern Africa, East Timor, Iraq and, Afghanistan, as well as on the nuclear arms race.
The willingness to finally challenge the party’s traditional blank check to the Israeli government may be tactical: Increasing numbers of Democrats, particularly younger voters, are not just questioning Israeli policies, but Zionism itself. There is also a growing sense among progressive Democrats that, with increasing colonization of the West Bank by Israeli settlers, it may be a too late for a viable two-state solution and the focus should be on ending Israeli apartheid and creating a single binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
As a result, there is growing recognition that if party leaders do not explicitly break with Netanyahu, Democratic voters may demand that Democratic candidates in the upcoming midterm elections and beyond take outright anti-Israel positions.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has said that arms transfers to Israel is “going to be a defining issue in the Democratic Party in the midterms and for 2028.” Already, potential 2028 contenders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Khanna, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker have gone on record supporting conditioning further arms transfers.
Meanwhile, in New York City, long a bastion of the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party, Democrats have nominated Zohran Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel, to be their nominee for mayor.
It is not just the undeniable horror of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and increasing settler violence in the West Bank that are responsible for this shift. Credit should also be given to the widespread popular mobilization against US support for Netanyahu, not only from traditional pro-Palestine groups, but mainstream liberal and progressive organizations which had traditionally avoided the subject. Over 20 prominent groups aligned with the Democratic Party have formed the Reject AIPAC Coalition to push Democratic candidates to refuse money from AIPAC, an influential right-wing Zionist organization.
For example, Peace Action, the largest multi-issue peace group, has long taken solid positions regarding Israel and Palestine, but only rarely made it a priority, and their PAC was willing to endorse supporters of Israel’s wars and occupation if they were progressive on other foreign policy issues. Now, however, they have been among the leading groups mobilizing against US support for Netanyahu, having made it their number one issue over the past two years, and are pushing hard to restrict US arms transfers. They are currently spearheading support for the Block the Bombs Act in Congress.
Jon Rainwater, Peace Action’s executive director noted: “How can Sen. Chuck Schumer lead the Democratic Party against Trumpism if he sides with Bibi Netanyahu’s worst authoritarian instincts…? How can someone like Sen. Cory Booker give anti-authoritarian speeches about fighting ‘for the moral soul of the nation’ while he votes to keep the US complicit in starving a people and other war crimes?”
There can be major political costs if Democratic candidates refuse to side with the majority of their constituents. Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election due to a major drop-off in Democratic voters from four years earlier. One poll indicated that the single biggest reason cited by voters who had cast their ballots for Biden in 2020 but didn’t back Harris in 2024 was the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, which Harris was seen to support.
Historically, the Democratic Party leadership has initially been out of line with its constituents on key foreign policy issues, including in Vietnam, Central America, Southern Africa, East Timor, Iraq and, Afghanistan, as well as on the nuclear arms race. Eventually, however, the party’s base has been able to force changes in position. It is looking increasingly likely that such a change may be in store regarding Israel and Palestine.
The question is how long it will take—and how many more Palestinians will have to die before it becomes a reality.
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Why the Debate at the DNC Was a Victory for Palestinian Rights
Chair Martin’s decision to withdraw his resolution and create a task force to continue the conversation within the party was a recognition of the reality that the status quo has become unacceptable and untenable.
Sep 02, 2025
While some supporters of Palestinian rights saw the developments at last week’s meeting of the Democratic National Committee as a defeat, it was, in fact, a victory. Here is what happened at the meeting and why I feel that progress was made:
During the party’s Resolutions Committee two separate resolutions were debated. While both called for an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, one, submitted by young Democrats, went further, condemning Israeli actions in Gaza and calling for a suspension of US arms sales to Israel and US recognition of Palestinian statehood. In response to this resolution, the party’s establishment submitted an alternative that included no such criticism of Israeli policies or any mention of stopping US arms shipments to Israel.
There was intense lobbying for and against both efforts, with pro-Israel groups and some elected officials and party donors warning members of the committee that passing the resolution critical of Israel would divide the Democratic Party, costing it contributions and victories in the midterm elections. On the other side, committee members each reported receiving upward of 5,000 emails or phone calls from young Democrats and progressive activists urging them to vote for the resolution demanding an end to US weapons to Israel.
As expected, the establishment resolution won, and the young Democrats’ effort lost. But immediately after the vote, the Democratic Party’s chair, Ken Martin, after speaking with the most critical resolution’s sponsors, rose to announce that he was asking that, in the name of party unity, his resolution be withdrawn and not presented to the entire Democratic National Committee for their acceptance. He further pledged to create a task force of stakeholders in this debate to continue this conversation and find solutions that can be brought back to the party for consideration.
Some advocates, on both sides of this debate, were disappointed. On the pro-Israel side, Martin was derided for his weakness in “surrendering to the far left,” while some supporters of Palestinian rights said that the way the issue was handled would only delay Israel’s day of reckoning, cost more Palestinian lives, and further alienate young voters from the Democratic Party.
Both are wrong. Martin’s decision was politically thoughtful, and in reality, advocates for a change in US policy toward Israel won a significant victory. Before explaining why this is so, one important fact must be understood: The Democratic National Committee is not a legislative body. It doesn’t make policy. Policy is made by Congress and the White House. Even if the committee had passed a resolution calling for ending arms sales to Israel, nothing would have happened. What the party can do is reflect where Democrats stand on critical issues facing the country and help to move forward the discussion of these matters. This is exactly what the resolution critical of Israel had forced onto the agenda last week.
What also must be considered is while the debate over these resolutions was only the fourth time that any such discussion of the Palestinian issue has occurred at an official party meeting during the past four decades, it was the first time the discussion wasn’t in response to a presidential candidate. This debate was a grassroots-led effort.
While pro-Israel groups still have some sway, their clout has been diminished.
In 1984 and 1988, I was able to represent the Jesse Jackson campaign in introducing platform planks calling for Palestinian rights. The issue wasn’t introduced again in a party gathering until 2016, when representing the Bernie Sanders campaign, we again brought forward a platform resolution on Palestine. In all of those previous instances, we lost and no one in the party establishment cared to find a way to accommodate our concerns. In fact, in the wake of the defeat of our 1988 resolution calling for “mutual recognition, territorial compromise, and self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians,” I was asked to vacate my post on the Democratic National Committee because I was told that the presence of a pro-Palestinian advocate would be a liability for the party!
This year’s outcome was clearly different, and it is due to the fact that public opinion has dramatically changed. And while pro-Israel groups still have some sway, their clout has been diminished. Polls show that Democrats are deeply offended by Israel’s actions. They are far more sympathetic to Palestinians and want an end to US military and political support for Israel, often by margins of between 7 or 10 to 1. And as we approach the 2026 midterm elections, the issues of support for Palestinians and ending arms sales to Israel have become litmus tests for Democratic senators and members of Congress.
Given this, Chair Martin’s decision to withdraw his resolution and create a task force to continue the conversation within the party was a recognition of the shifting tides within the party and the reality that the status quo has become unacceptable and untenable. Supporters of Palestinian rights should understand that this was a victory and an important step forward in the long struggle for justice.
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'Let the Public See Where Democrats Really Stand': Full DNC Floor Vote Demanded on Gaza
"We are demanding a roll-call vote so that every DNC member is accountable for where they stand in this historic moment."
Aug 27, 2025
Those hoping that Democratic Party leaders have finally learned some lessons in the political thrashing they received in last year's elections are not yet done fighting for a resolution they argue would put the party back on the right side of moral history and also improve its prospects going forward against an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party led by President Donald Trump.
A day following a failed vote in the resolutions committee, members of the Democratic National Committee and grassroots groups demanding the DNC to take a stronger stand against US complicity with Israel's genocide in Gaza are not giving up—pushing now for a full floor vote to take place Wednesday on a resolution which calls for an immediate ceasefire, an arms embargo, and suspension of military aid to Israel.
"The DNC membership has the power to stand up and let the public see where Democrats really stand," said Allison Minnerly, the 26-year-old DNC member from Florida who introduced Resolution 18 before the resolutions committee, in a statement Tuesday night after the measure was rejected earlier in the day with a voice vote at the party's summer gathering in Minneapolis.
"A roll-call vote is the minimum standard of transparency in a democracy," said Minnerly in her statement, backed by allies within the DNC ranks as well as outside groups.
"A roll-call vote is the minimum standard of transparency in a democracy." —Allison Minnerly
Following the committee vote rejecting Resolution 18, chair of the College Democrats, Sunjay Muralitharan, bemoaned the defeat, including that no chance was offered for friendly amendments. "This move isn't just unjust, it's politically ineffective," he said. "Support for Israel's actions is in the single digits within our party's base. Deeply disappointed in this decision."
DNC chairman Ken Martin, who had introduced a competing resolution, Resolution 3, later took the unusual step of withdrawing his milqetoast proposal on Gaza after it passed the committee. In its place, he called for the creation of a task force to further discuss the issue.
"There's divide in our party on this issue," Martin said as he withdrew his resolution in favor of further discussion. "We have to find a path forward as a party, and we have to stay unified."
Minnerly and her coalition, however, say the issue is too important—and the conditions in Gaza, where a famine has been designated by the world's leading authority on such matters, too horrific—for the full membership of the Democratic Party leadership not to weigh in publicly and on the record.
As the daily massacres and starvation continue in Gaza, the coalition says there is no better moment for all DNC voting members to put themselves on the record.
"Resolution 18 represents the voices of not only young Democrats but all Democrats who believe that Palestinian lives matter too," said Zayed Kadir, chair of the High School Democrats. "It's time for the DNC to stand on principle and stop shying away from the conversation—the moment is now."
As such, in a statement released overnight, the coalition—which includes the American Muslim Democratic Caucus National, Roots Action, Florida Young Democrats, leaders of the High School and College Democrats, and many individual members—is calling for every member of the DNC to:
- Publicly pledge to support a roll-call vote on Resolution 18 from the floor;
- Reject voice votes that hide accountability;
- Stand with Democratic voters, the majority of whom oppose blank-check military aid toward an ongoing genocide.
The coalition began circulating a petition Tuesday night calling on members to tell "the DNC that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza needs urgent attention by sending a letter asking them to bring Resolution 18 back into the conversation and support it tomorrow (Wednesday)."
Aftab Siddiqui, representing the American Muslim Democratic Caucus National, suggested that taking up the resolution by the full DNC at the meeting would begin to show the party is learning from its past mistakes and start forging a new direction.
"Resolution 18 represents exactly the kind of principled politics that wins elections," Siddiqui said. "While Democrats lost ground in 2024 by wavering on core values, New York City's mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, proved that moral courage on Gaza builds winning coalitions. The DNC must learn this lesson."
Ahead of and during Wednesday's plenary session, the coalition said it will publish "a transparency scorecard" to track which DNC members commit to demanding the roll-call vote. Those who do not, the group said, will be noted as opposing transparency.
Polling has shown that Democratic voters strongly favor the demands outlined in Resolution 18, a fact the coalition says the DNC must acknowledge if it wants to represent the people it claims to represent truly.
Nadia Ahmad, a delegate from Florida, said Democrats "cannot claim to stand for justice and human rights while blocking a resolution that calls for an arms embargo and humanitarian aid to Gaza."
The fight before the DNC, she added, "is about whether our party has the moral courage to listen to its members and the American people. We are demanding a roll-call vote so that every DNC member is accountable for where they stand in this historic moment.”
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It Cannot Be Denied: Israel Is Starving Children to Death on Purpose
Starvation of civilians is not an accident of war, it is a deliberate policy.
Aug 22, 2025
In July, major news organizations published the image of 18-month-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a Palestinian child so emaciated that his bones protruded through his back, while his mom cradled him in her arms. Instead of a diaper, he wore a black plastic bag.
Some online commentators have sought to downplay the image’s power by pointing to a preexisting medical condition. But Muhammad is starving as the result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. This is a war crime that is affecting the entire population and, based on my research, is inflicting particularly profound suffering on children with disabilities like Muhammad.
Humanitarian workers told me that restrictions on aid prevent them from bringing in special food that some children with disabilities or medical conditions need, while medical workers warned that children with disabilities are less likely to get care due to the Israeli government’s systematic assault on Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure.
In mid-August, in Geneva, I joined the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for its session focused on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, governments are required to protect people with disabilities in situations of risks, including armed conflicts. The message from disability groups was clear: Governments need to press Israeli authorities to allow unimpeded, disability-inclusive humanitarian access and not leave children like Muhammad to suffer the consequences of intentional starvation.
Muhammad’s image should move world leaders to use all their leverage with Israel, including an arms embargo and targeted sanctions, to stop Israeli authorities’ mass starvation policy.
There are countless examples of Palestinian children with disabilities thriving with adequate nutrition and healthcare. In just one example, 6-year-old Fadi al-Zant, who has cystic fibrosis and was severely malnourished, was evacuated to the United States from Gaza last year and survived. Osman Shahin, a 16-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who had lost 7 kilograms, regained weight after his family left Gaza for Bosnia.
But Muhammed and other children in Gaza do not have that chance. Between April and mid-July alone, more than 20,000 children in Gaza were hospitalized for acute malnourishment, 3,000 of them severely. Starvation of civilians is not an accident of war, it is a deliberate policy.
Muhammad’s image should move world leaders to use all their leverage with Israel, including an arms embargo and targeted sanctions, to stop Israeli authorities’ mass starvation policy. Muhammad’s disability does not make his starvation less cruel or unlawful; it makes it all the more urgent for countries to act now.
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