By Michael Bassett, DC Chapter
VFP members peacefully gathered before the White House to perform democracy’s most sacred and patriotic duty –- holding the government accountable for its own conscience and integrity.
VFP views the U.S. government’s credibility in the world as a National Security issue, and we believe that being on the right side of history goes hand in hand with promoting peace. Supporting and launching wars without being attacked, and/or without any clear and present humanitarian “benefit to war” causes the world to question what type of a relationship they want with us. We fear an America in global isolation may be in store for our future generations if we continue down our current trajectory.
And so today, VFP took a stand with Code Pink and Answer Coalition against “our greatest ally,” just like when America Declared its Independence from Britain. We can no longer be silent as this “ally” drags the country we love into the sewers of history in its genocidal quest against the State of Palestine. We call on American leadership to be brave in this turbulent time and stop funding PM Netanyahu’s genocidal War Crimes / Crimes Against Humanity.
Samuel Adams, an original anti-tyranny and corruption dissident, instructed us resolutely in this duty: “If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.” As we at VFP approach Armistice Day, we aspire to live and breathe the responsibilities we carry as patriotic American’s who love – and have sacrificed – for OUR country.
In our brief time as an organization we have observed a slow but ruthless genocide against the people of Palestine which has significantly increased under the leadership of PM Netanyahu. We do not blame Palestinians or Israeli’s for his actions, and we take no side in the conflict beyond the side of peace.
We stand firmly with voices on both sides that support peace; voices that have been largely sanitized out of the debate by an authoritarian media network owned and operated by the same special interests who’ve long benefited from the profit and power derived from the senseless brutality of this unending conflict for “sacred” – albeit blood-soaked - sand and dirt.
Please see here for a thoughtful documentary about how the conflict got to this point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUUAVt8enVE
“Largely due to special-interest lobbying, U.S. taxpayers give Israel an average of $8 million per day” to carry out this senseless brutality. Americans may not be complicit in where every dollar their taxes goes, but the fact that our money goes towards such acts indicates our entire country as complicit in them. But as the genocide continues and awareness of it grows, so does international community pressure on the United Nations to hold all complicit parties accountable.
In recent weeks, as TruthOut shows, “an increasing number of videos and images representing summary or extrajudicial executions and other forms of violence against Palestinian teens by trigger-happy Israeli state agents, settlers, vigilantes, mobs and bystanders have gone viral on social media.”
As a result of increasing international awareness, a UNHCR report “broadly restated international consensus on the illegality of Israeli settlements.” This significant reframing of the language grants the Palestinian State its own authority and recognition which therefore can be used to invoke the Rome Statute and use the International Criminal Court as a resource.
"The Rome statute establishes the international criminal court's jurisdiction over the deportation or transfer, directly or indirectly, by the occupying power of parts of its own population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory," said the UNHRC report.
It added: "Ratification of the statute by Palestine may lead to accountability for gross violations of human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law and justice for victims."
As a result of this new reality, Washington realized the same threats that VFP recognized, and it poignantly began reformulating its policy toward Israel; with senior officials now advocating a “One State Solution” whilst it scrambles to mold new ties with Israel. If the blows to PM Netanyahu following his unwelcomed visit in February shook him, today’s scurry to the White House reveals that he’s nearly knocked out.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has repeatedly said that he does not want a one-state solution and a bi-national state. So the real question is: What concrete steps and policies are they prepared to take to avoid that outcome?”
PM Netanyahu has surely come crawling to the White House to emphasize why America should not abandon support for him, but we at VFP encourage the administration to listen to the voices of thousands in the international community over the voice of one genocidal madman who does not even represent the majority of his people in his approach to this conflict.
Only a One State Solution can end the brutality and stop the genocide. But more importantly, the Administration must abandon support for this war criminal in favor of making hard choices to be on the right side of history because that is the right thing to do, the moral thing to do, and in the best interest of American National Security.
In conclusion, we remind President Obama, his Administration, and all in Washington of the following Constitution excerpt which all VFP members have sacrificed to uphold and defend:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”