KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv@gmail.com, @voiceinwild
Kelly is board president of World BEYOND War. She just wrote the piece “We Must Oppose Israel’s Dangerous Gamble Before It’s Too Late” for The Progressive.
Kelly will be in New York City beginning this weekend, working with Code Pink, Veterans For Peace and others, organizing in-person lobby visits at the United Nations in New York, and vigils outside the United Nations in New York that include fasting.” See: “Pressure Builds on UN to Uphold Court Rulings on Gaza.”
See the World BEYOND War action urging countries to use the UN General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace to uphold the rule of law since the U.S. veto has prevented the UN Security Council from preserving peace and security.
She writes in her most recent piece: “Following World War II, Albert Camus posed a ‘formidable gamble’ to those who had survived a tragedy of immense proportions. ‘We’re in history up to our necks,’ he observed, yet we must wager that ‘words are more powerful than munitions.’
“’Leave or die’ are the horrid words threatening largely unprotected Palestinian civilians in Gaza as dismayed populations around the world demand moral decency, or at least some indication of sanity, from their non-responsive governments.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher. For decades, Israel has flouted international norms by refusing to acknowledge its nuclear weapons arsenal. Nor has it signed relevant treaties governing the biological weapons it possesses. For years, Israel has flagrantly violated the Geneva Conventions and basic principles of customary international law through its forcible acquisition of territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and through its transfer of Israeli settlers into the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
“Now, Israel’s genocidal attacks against Palestinians living in Gaza have cost the lives of at least 39,677 people. Tens of thousands more are believed to be buried beneath the rubble, with at least 90,000 wounded and the overwhelming majority of its displaced 1.9 million population facing starvation.
“Israel’s failure to comply with international treaties and humanitarian law signal an acute need for other countries to organize weapons embargoes, cease trade deals, and provide support for civilian peacekeepers to bring about a permanent ceasefire.
“The United States continues to arm and protect Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians. …
“With a regional war perhaps now unavoidable in the Middle East, the genocidal derangement of the United States and Europe over Israel’s actions may well lead to a nuclear war that ends the human species. Failing to use our words at this most crucial juncture for humanity would be, as Camus said, a formidable gamble indeed.”