People of Gaza, We Hear You

I'd been thinking vaguely about writing some kind of account of what I've been up to lately, about what's been going on for the past six weeks in Israel / Palestine, and not just in Gaza but in the West Bank, too.

Then this afternoon, this video popped up first in today's TikTok feed. I'm so glad it did, because as I wrote in 5 languages in text and WhatsApp messages I sent with the link to friends and family, it re-lighted the fire that's been burning under my ass for weeks now. Before reading on, please watch it. No dead bodies (visible), no screaming injured children; just a guy talking about what happened Nov. 18, 2023, in his home-town: Khan Younis, Gaza, Occupied Palestine. Watch it here.

About five or six times in the past couple of weeks, after clocking out around noon from the café where I work, and retrieving a sign that I made, I've walked around downtown for an hour or so, holding the sign above my head (with my hands; it's not on a stick), before calling it quits, and driving back home to let out the pooch.

Twice I walked up to the Texas State capitol: 3 blocks from where I work, and (incredibly) at the center of a demonstration last Sunday, with crowds said to have numbered 15,000. But weekday lunchtimes the capitol grounds are fairly deserted, so instead I'm now walking down Congress Ave. to Cesar Chavez St., and the river.

The second time I walked with my sign around the capitol, I spotted a bunch of 12- or 13-year-old kids and their chaperones milling around a couple of buses they'd just gotten off. Slowly walking toward them, sign held high for maximum visibility, I gave them as much time as they wanted to read the side with the shorter message, before flipping it and showing them the other.

The side with the shorter message (left) boasts 46 peel-and-stick letters in 6 neon colors, and I'm happy with the way it came out. But its message, comparing leaders and events of World War II with what's happening today, is one I think many are not getting.

The other side (right) has four boxes, the first of which says: 1/2 of Gaza's 2.1 m {I've also heard 2.4 m} citizens are CHILDREN! US taxpayer support now tops $4 billion/yr to Israel: NO STRINGS ATTACHED

The third has a bullet-list: Collective PUNISHMENT / FORCIBLE TRANSFER / MASS MURDER of CIVILIANS / USE of WHITE PHOSPHORUS > WAR CRIMES > GENOCIDE

Finally:WHATEVER HAPPENED to NEVER AGAIN!

About 90% of reactions from people on the street and passing in cars has been supportive. Those in favor of genocide have so far done their angry shouting and name-calling from the safety of passing cars.

One day last week, instead of the sign I went out instead with a small bag of jumbo chalk, and wrote between the white bars in crosswalks: CEASE FIRE NOW! and RUSSIA > UKRAINE / ISRAEL > GAZA: What's the difference?

A young man came up to argue with what I was doing. He said, What about the hostages? I said, Dude, no one is arguing the hostages should be held on to. At the time I thought touché, but later realized I'd missed my chance to point out how a cease-fire would be the best thing to save hostages from being blown to bloody bits by Israeli fighter jets.

More than one thanked me; one young woman pointed to the example others were seeing. They witness my bearing witness.

One message I have for others is: you don't need to wait for the next demonstration. A thousand ways exist to show that you too bear witness; that you too are opposed to ethnic cleansing; that you too will add your voice to the millions of others all over the world who demand that the United States -- beginning with President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken, but including all officials at federal, state and local levels -- must use its considerable leverage as Israel's biggest supporter in the world to make it clear that the unmitigated destruction of the people of Gaza must stop NOW.

American Complicity in Israel Impunity Must Stop, NOW. The rule of international law only means anything when it is enforced, stood up for, and protected.

Cease fire NOW! The wanton murder and burying of children in collapsing apartment buildings, hospitals, ambulances, schools and United Nations centers must end NOW!

Genocide has rarely been so well-televised. Please tell everyone who will listen and those who will not: This Horrific. Violence and Brutal Bloodshed. Must. Stop.