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veterans for peace
Veterans Group Calls for Grand Jury Probe of Blinken for Enabling Israel's Genocide
"Members of the Biden administration unwilling to rein in Israel and furthering its genocide in Gaza need to go to jail," said the human rights attorney representing Veterans for Peace.
Sep 30, 2024
An organization representing anti-war U.S. veterans urged the Justice Department on Monday to immediately impanel a grand jury to investigate—and, if necessary, indict—Secretary of State Antony Blinken for lying to Congress, unlawfully refusing to cut off American military aid to Israel, and "conspiring to cause genocide of Palestinians."
The call from Veterans for Peace (VFP) comes days after the investigative outlet ProPublicapublished a detailed account of how the U.S. State Department submitted a report to Congress that contradicted the findings of the department's own experts and those of other agencies.
The Blinken-led State Department's May report concluded that Israel was not "prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance," despite internal assessments from State Department experts and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) arguing that Israel had deliberately impeded American aid shipments to Gaza and that weapons transfers to the country should be cut off in line with Section 620I of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act.
In a letter addressed to the Justice Department's Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and U.S. District Attorney Matthew Graves, VFP specifically cites ProPublica's reporting and states that "Blinken's failure to implement U.S. federal law and halt weapons shipments to Israel touches upon both domestic and international law."
"Secretary Blinken's lack of candor with the Congress to continue the provision of military aid to Israel meant concealing the existence of the USAID and State Department reports showing repeat violations of aid requirements," the new letter reads. "The concealed reports explicitly recommended the immediate cutoff of military aid to Israel. By allegedly lying to Congress, Secretary Blinken caused ongoing genocidal acts and war crimes against the Palestinians by continuing the supply of weapons and munitions to Israel."
"The Israeli military continues detonating massive bombs in southern Beirut—bombs they would not possess but for Antony Blinken's repeated violations of federal laws."
The letter also points to the role of U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew in ensuring the continued flow of American arms to Israel even as human rights organizations accumulated overwhelming evidence that Israeli forces were using the weapons to commit horrific war crimes in Gaza. According to ProPublica, Lew "sent Blinken a cable arguing that Israel's war cabinet... should be trusted to facilitate aid shipments to the Palestinians" and "recommended continuing to provide military assistance."
"The alleged wrongdoing of Secretary of State Blinken of lying to Congress, supported by what looks like willful provision of inaccurate information from Ambassador Lew, combined to save Israel from interruption of U.S. provision of weapons and munitions," VFP argued in its letter. "Thus Israel was able to continue to perpetrate war crimes and genocidal acts."
The group wrote that Blinken and Lew "appear to have violated the objectives of U.S. foreign policy against fomenting war, against allowing war crimes, and against the commission of human rights violations," which "enabled Israel to breach the Genocide Convention and the orders of the International Court of Justice."
Terry Lodge, VFP's human rights counsel, said in a statement Monday that "the Israeli military continues detonating massive bombs in southern Beirut—bombs they would not possess but for Antony Blinken's repeated violations of federal laws aimed at halting human rights and war crimes violations."
"Members of the Biden administration unwilling to rein in Israel and furthering its genocide in Gaza need to go to jail," Lodge added.
VFP's letter came days after the U.S. and Israel reached a deal for an additional $8.7 billion in American military support, even as the Israeli military continues to obstruct aid deliveries in Gaza, bombard the enclave's starving population, and expand the assault on Lebanon.
In an appearance on MSNBC last week, USAID Administrator Samantha Power brushed off host Andrea Mitchell's question about ProPublica's reporting, downplaying her agency's assessment of Israel's aid obstructions as "a report from months ago."
ProPublica reported last week that USAID sent Blinken "a detailed 17-page memo" that "described instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots, and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine."
Susan Schnall, VFP's president, said Monday that U.S. military aid to Israel amounts to "a theft from millions of Americans who have none of the health insurance every Israeli enjoys; from millions of Americans living in horrific housing while Israel builds thousands of upscale homes on land stolen from Palestinians; from millions of young Americans can't afford college because America's top priorities are weapons and death, not human needs."
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Join Us to Expose and Oppose the US and Israel’s Flouting of International Law
From September 10-30, we will gather before the U.S.’ U.N. Mission and the Israeli Consulate demanding both nations desist from further massacres, forcible displacement, and the use of starvation and disease as weapons.
Aug 31, 2024
During a week of action focused on United Nations potential to end Israel’s genocidal attacks, I was part of a coalition that met with 12 different permanent missions to the U.N. We urged that if countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention or the Geneva Conventions stop trading with Israel as international law demands, (cf. the July 19 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice), the genocide will end quickly.
In each encounter at a Permanent Mission to the U.N., its staff asked if we, as U.S. citizens, have addressed our government’s unwavering support for the genocide against impoverished and forcibly displaced people.
It was a deeply meaningful moment when the Irish Ambassador to the United Nations showed our delegation a miniature replica of John Behan’s poignant statue depicting the Irish exodus—it showed weary, hungry people disembarking from a boat after a stormy ocean voyage.
“You have to see each one of these as a human being,” he said.
The U.S. government is complicit in genocide, and we, in whose name it is acting, are also complicit if we remain silent.
My mother was an Irish indentured servant first in Ireland and then in England. As things go, she was among the more fortunate. She never endured being chained day and night in the Middle Passage of a slave ship carrying captives here, or in a human trafficker’s overcrowded, lethally airless truck container. Nor did she have to cling to the remains of an overcrowded ship to keep from drowning after it capsized in the Mediterranean.
Life in Gaza is a desperate moment-to-moment ordeal of clinging to such wreckage, trying to stay above water, to stay alive, while both major U.S. political parties struggle to push you under.
In an article published by
The Guardian, Israeli-American Omer Bartov, an eminent Holocaust historian and expert on genocide, lamentedthe unwillingness of many Israelis—some of whom are his friends, neighbors, colleagues, and even former students—to see Palestinians as human beings. He comments: “Many of my friends… feel that in the struggle between justice and existence, existence must win out… it is our own cause that must be triumphant, no matter the price… This feeling did not appear suddenly on 7 October.”
Is it futile to ask Israelis to reconsider this vengeance—avenging hundreds of civilians with several hundred thousand, half of them children—while the U.S. continues to arm Israel for the task?
Bartov continues:
By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that… Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal actions… the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words… as the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention puts it… Israel was acting “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part,” the Palestinian population in Gaza, “as such, by killing, causing serious harm… inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction.”
How can United States citizens cope in a nation not just gone mad on war, but gone mad on genocide? We do not have to cope with lingering, state-enforced starvation or the memory of our lifeless children pulled from under rubble. But we must cope with our complicity.
When we can, we must act.
We cannot say we did not know. The United Nations member states watch the entire edifice of international law crumble as a genocide is broadcast across our screens. Israeli military forces may have killedclose to 200,000 Gazans although only 40,000 bodies have been recovered for counting. The Israeli government’s siege is starving Palestinian children and has brought Gaza to the brink of a full-blown famine. Meanwhile, polio has made a return.
From September 10 to September 30, World BEYOND War, Code Pink, Veterans For Peace, Pax Christi, and other coalition partners will leaflet, demonstrate, and nonviolently act to expose and oppose Israeli and U.S. actions that flout international law. We will gather before both the United States’ U.N. Mission and the Israeli Consulate demanding both nations desist from further massacres, forcible displacement, and the use of starvation and disease as weapons.
We will remind people that Israel possesses thermonuclear weapons but refuses to acknowledge this fact and thereby avoids any assessment or safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Association and any involvement in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
We will express earnest concern both for Hamas’ prisoners and the more than 3,000 Palestinians incarcerated without charge by Israel, including women and children.
Currently, the United States and Israel have effectively decided on death for the remaining hostages rather than a settlement that would free Palestinian women and children. In a reckless bid to spark a U.S.-Iran war, Israel recently assassinated, in Tehran, the chief Hamas negotiator for a hostage release.
And still the U.S.’ arms flow continues.
Last week, the world watched as the Democratic Party leadership, at its convention, squelched voices of the Uncommitted delegates. DNC speakers repeated the lie that their party was seeking a cease-fire, while flatly refusing to stop replacing the guns and missiles Israel has used to shed blood and destroy infrastructure.
We all should rely on the covenant virtues of traditional Judaism, those virtues celebrated as essential for survival: truth, justice, and forgiving love. We should appeal to secular and faith-based people across the United States as we face precarities of nuclear annihilation and ecological collapse. Securing a better future for all children requires bolstering respect for human rights, searching always for ways to abolish war.
The U.S. government is complicit in genocide, and we, in whose name it is acting, are also complicit if we remain silent.
It is time for the United Nations to liberate itself from a Security Council structure giving five permanent, nuclear-armed members a vise-like grip on the world’s ability to counter the scourge of war. We must join with the call of the South African government, which bravely upheld international law. We must clamor for the General Assembly to enact the “Uniting for Peace” resolution.
As the forthright Jewish delegate at last week’s DNC, after he and two others unfurled a banner reading “STOP ARMING ISRAEL,” said, “Never again means never again!”
We invite you to join us. https://events.worldbeyondwar.org/
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Former Israeli and Palestinian Fighters Join With US GIs to Call for Peace in Gaza
Soldiers from all sides of this conflict are sickened by a war run by tyrants benefiting only weapons makers that is both morally repugnant and violates U.S. laws with every weapons transfer to Israel.
Aug 21, 2024
A group of former fighters from Palestine and Israel plus active duty U.S. GIs announced last week why they decided to stop participating in war and urged U.S. military members to tell Congress to stop funding Israel's genocide in Gaza via the " Appeal for Redress v2."
The online news conference was organized by Veterans For Peace and featured a former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) special forces member, a young Israeli who just finished 85 days in jail for refusing to join the military, a former Hamas youth activist, and three active-duty U.S. military members who are awaiting discharge as conscientious objectors.
Elik Elhanan is a former special forces soldier in the IDF who, from 1995-98, served in south Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza. In 1997, his 14-year old sister was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. He joined Courage to Refuse in 2002, co-founded the Israeli-Palestinian group Combatants for Peace in 2005, and now serves on the board of American Friends of Combatants for Peace.
He said: "My service made it clear that violence became an end rather than a means. In nonviolence I found a language for community building that allows for self-expression and exchange, while engaging in fierce resistance against the hegemonic discourse." Elik received his PhD in Middle East studies from Columbia University and is currently teaching at City College, New York.
"All we want is to live together without fear."
Sofia Orr, 19, spent 85 days in an Israeli military jail for refusing to join the Israeli Defense Force. Granted conscientious objector status and released in June, she wrote in her statement of refusal: "I refuse to enlist in order to show that change is needed and that change is possible, for the security and safety of all of us in Israel-Palestine, and in the name of empathy that is not restricted by national identity... I want to create a reality in which all children between the Jordan River and the [Mediterranean] Sea can dream without cages."
Ahmed Helou, now 52, lives in the West Bank and is a member of Combatants for Peace. He said: "I was born to a refugee family that was forced to flee from their home in 1948. Most went to Gaza while my parents fled to Jericho. They told me how Palestinians were killed right in front of them and how they passed by many bodies as they ran for safety."
"At 15, I was invited to join a group called Hamas, to fight for the freedom of my people. It was 1987, the First Intifada. I threw rocks and made Palestinian flags. In 1992, I was sentenced to seven months in an Israeli military prison as a political detainee. When my parents visited, they told me about the Oslo process and I couldn't stop thinking about how we could have another life."
"In 2004, a friend invited me to participate in a workshop with Israelis. I was shocked and angry. How could you ask me to meet my enemy who killed my people, took my land, and made me a refugee? By the fourth day, I found myself asking them, 'Are you really Israelis?' I had never met any who were not in uniform or carrying out violence–until then, I could not see their humanity. After the seminar, I wanted to know more about the 'other side,' to hear their stories, and understand them. Then I found Combatants for Peace."
"My wife and I have lost over 80 members of our extended family, including parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins in this war. My one remaining sister, Eman, and her five children are still alive. We are desperate to save them. Every day we awake in fear of what news will come. I hope I will be able to reunite with my sister and her family and be able to live together in peace, safety, and security. All we want is to live together without fear. We are scared for our children's lives and are doing all we can to protect them from the violence."
USAF Senior Airman Larry Hebert said: "As an active duty servicemember who joined believing our military was a force for good in the world, I'm horrified by the position of the United States government to fully support the genocide and occupation of civilians in Palestine. I'm also horrified by the true nature of war and its motives. The men and women who recognize their morals and beliefs and act on them are sometimes mistakenly taken as emotional. The truth is that having morals and standing firm on them is a sign of moral intelligence that many people seem to lack. Our complacency toward human suffering while seeing who profits from it is intolerable. I extend my heart to Palestine and those suffering from the country I used to have pride in. These are my views, not those of the Department of Defense."
"These military members today are following in the footsteps of courageous soldiers before them who are countering the failed narrative that we can bomb our way to peace."
USAF Senior Airman Juan Bettancourt said: "After 311 days, the death toll is appalling: nearly 41,000 innocent lives brutally taken, the majority women and children. Excruciating reports estimate a devastating total of 186,000 deaths, with almost 93,000 more suffering from severe injuries. Stories of widespread sexual violence, merciless executions, torture, and an endless list of war crimes flood the news, and yet our government remains apathetic to the suffering of Palestinians and the cries of millions calling for a lasting cease-fire and justice. As conscientious objectors, as advocates for peace and human rights, as service members with a shred of moral decency left in us, we adamantly refuse to be accomplices in this genocide. We demand an immediate, unilateral cease-fire and the cessation of all weapons transfers to the reprehensible state of Israel. These are my views, not those of the Dept. of Defense."
USAF Second Lt. Joy Metzler said: "As an active duty service member, I have been told repeatedly that military strength is the only way to counteract the threats we face in the world. But once again we see that violence, this time perpetrated by the Israeli government, only leads to death and destruction in an ever growing conflict. Hate begets hate, so I am calling for a cease-fire and an end to the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. These are my views, not those of the Dept. of Defense."
Mike Ferner, special projects coordinator for Veterans For Peace, said: "It is highly significant that former fighters from Israel and Palestine have joined American GIs to say, 'War is not the answer.' A growing number of GIs tell us they are disturbed about being in the military while our government funds the bombing of innocent people in Gaza. Now we can see that soldiers from all sides of this conflict are sickened by a war run by tyrants benefitting only weapons makers, that is both morally repugnant and violates U.S. laws with every weapons transfer to Israel."
Tiffany Goodwin-Van Camp, executive director of American Friends of Combatants for Peace, shared a message from the Combatants for Peace movement: "We refuse to be pitted against each other as enemies. We support peace, freedom, and dignity for all peoples between the river and the sea and an end to the occupation harming both Palestinians and Israelis. Our ultimate goal is collective liberation because we know that the fate of Israelis, Palestinians, and all of us is intertwined. Every day, CfP activists live out the values of nonviolence, empathy, and mutual recognition, holding each other's grief and pain. The trauma is endless and ongoing, but our community provides hope. It shows that another way is possible; that violence is not inevitable but a human choice that we can change. The only real solution is a hostage/prisoner deal now and a political agreement based on our shared humanity."
Civilian defense attorney James M. Branum said: "Too many service members are wrongly told by their commanders that they 'have no right' to speak out about what is happening in Gaza. This is not true as communications to Congress, such as the Appeal for Redress v2, are 'protected communications' under military regulations."
Bill Galvin, counseling coordinator at the Center on Conscience and War, said: "Our office has received calls from six new conscientious objectors in the past week. Some of them have said they feel complicit in the violence happening in Gaza. All of them have clearly said that participating in that conflict is morally wrong. That's why the Center on Conscience and War is supporting this Appeal for Redress."
Ariel Gold, executive director of Fellowship of Reconciliation, said: "Despite the pro-war hysteria that countries use to justify their military endeavors, conscientious objection remains a courageous option for those committed to peace. The Fellowship of Reconciliation supports resistance to war as we know that war is an abomination in the eyes of God and inherently unable to birth peace."
Diana Oestreich, a former Army combat medic in the Iraq War, was a conscientious objector and is development coordinator for Red Letter Christians. She said: "As soldiers we gave an oath to serve our country. Seeing the destruction in Iraq firsthand showed many of us our duty to be a conscience to our country. To stand up, instead of stand down, when lives and our country and faith's integrity is on the line. We are serving our country by refusing war. These military members today are following in the footsteps of courageous soldiers before them who are countering the failed narrative that we can bomb our way to peace."
To increase the awareness of this campaign among members of the military, civilian supporters of the appeal are encouraged to share it on social media and to ask peace and justice organizations to share it with their membership.
Initiated by active-duty military members, veterans, and G.I. rights groups, "Appeal for Redress v2" is modeled after the 2006 Appeal for Redress conducted during the highly unpopular occupation of Iraq, to allow GIs to tell their representatives they are opposed to U.S. policy.
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