Oxfam states: “We are horrified by Israel’s order to evacuate around 100,000 people and what appears to be an impending invasion of Rafah, despite a universal plea from world leaders urging it to stop its continued, barbaric, onslaught. … For over six months, Israel has deliberately and systematically targeted civilians and aid workers, including in clearly marked ‘safe zones’ and ‘evacuation routes.'”
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor just released the statement “With Gaza’s only lifeline cut off, humanitarian catastrophe looms in Rafah.” Also see the group’s statement “Annihilation of Education” about the “systematic Israeli destruction of Gaza Strip’s educational system.”
MARIONE INGRAM, mi.di@comcast.net
Ingram is a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust and had been participating in the now destroyed encampment at George Washington University. She also has been protesting for months in front of the White House. See her appearance on “Democracy Now.” Students at GWU are continuing with protests. See clip from news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday from one student just after she got out of jail: “We’re coming back ten times stronger. No matter how much they brutalize us, it is NOTHING compared to what’s happening in Palestine, in Gaza, in Rafah.”
MOATAZ SALIM, moatazs97@gmail.com, Instagram: @tazsdc
Salim is a Palestinian graduate student at George Washington University with family in Gaza. He has lost over 100 members in his extended family. He has gone to Capitol Hill to question members of Congress with the peace group CodePink. See a recent interview.
SOFIA MENEMENLIS, smenemenlis@gmail.com, @PtonDivestNow
Menemenlis is a PhD student at Princeton University and organizer with Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest, which has launched a hunger strike. She said today: “We are demanding that Princeton cut financial ties to companies and institutions involved in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, illegal occupation of Arab lands, and apartheid policies. Princeton’s $34 billion endowment is one of the largest university endowments in the world. By refusing to disclose and divest, Princeton remains complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza and in serious, repeated violations of international law.
“We are calling for divestment in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle toward justice and self-determination. At the same time, we are simply asking the university to invest in a manner consistent with its own stated values. Unambiguously, profiting from genocide and human rights violations is against ‘the service of humanity.’ We hope that Princeton will follow its own historical precedent for divestment according to ethical principles: the university has previously divested, at least partially, from South African Apartheid, the Darfur genocide in Sudan, and segments of the fossil fuel industry.”
NORMAN SOLOMON, solomonprogressive@gmail.com
Solomon is the author of War Made Invisible and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He just wrote the piece “War Culture Hates the Ethical Passion of the Young“: “This spring, as students have risked arrest and jeopardized their college careers under banners like ‘Ceasefire Now,’ ‘Free Palestine,’ and ‘Divest from Israel,’ they’ve rejected some key unwritten rules of a death culture. From Congress to the White House, war (and the military-industrial complex that goes with it) is crucial for the political business model. Meanwhile, college trustees and alumni megadonors often have investment ties to Wall Street and Silicon Valley, where war is a multibillion-dollar enterprise. Along the way, weapons sales to Israel and many other countries bring in gigantic profits.
“The new campus uprisings are a shock to the war system. Managers of that system, constantly oiling its machinery, have no column for moral revulsion on their balance sheets. And the refusal of appreciable numbers of students to go along to get along doesn’t compute. For the economic and political establishment, it’s a control issue, potentially writ large.
“As the killing, maiming, devastation, and increasing starvation in Gaza have continued, month after month, the U.S. role has become incomprehensible — without, at least, attributing to the president and the vast majority of Congressional representatives a level of immorality that had previously seemed unimaginable to most college students. Like many others in the United States, protesting students are now struggling with the realization that the people in control of the executive and legislative branches are directly supporting mass murder and genocide.”
