Gaza Burns as Wall Street Booms

WAR RACKET--CATASTROPHE CAPITALISM, 21 Oct 2024

The Wire | Jewish Voice for Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service

Photo: Sophie Hurwitz

15 Oct 2024 – Right now, Palestinians are being burned alive by Israeli bombs.

For over a year. U.S.-based defense contractors and big banks have seen profits soar.

Yesterday morning, 500 Jews and allies shut down the New York Stock Exchange to demand the U.S. stop arming Israel and profiting from genocide.

Clad in red t-shirts bearing the messages “Not in our name” and “Jews says stop arming Israel,” protesters chanted “Endless war, profits soar” and carried signs that read “Gaza bombed, Wall Street booms,” “Fund FEMA, not genocide,” and “Jews say divest from Israel.”

Protesters blocked the entrance to the New York Stock Exchange, refusing to leave, with some chaining themselves to the doors. Hundreds of peaceful protesters were arrested. Police bound their hands with zip ties, dragged them out by their arms and legs, and carried them away as they screamed, “Let Gaza live.”

Gaza burns…

For over a year, Palestinians have livestreamed the genocide being carried out against them, documenting horror after horror. Now, as Israel expands its campaign of terror and destruction to Lebanon and the entire region, the Palestinians who remain in Gaza’s north are trapped in “a genocide within a genocide.”

Palestinians inside the besieged Jabalia refugee camp say bodies litter the streets. Ambulances are unable to reach them, for fear of being targeted by the Israeli quadcopter drones hovering overhead and snipers stationed nearby, who fire on anything that moves.

As the Israeli military carries out airstrikes across the north, ground troops are laying siege to Gaza’s three northernmost cities. Food, water, and medicine haven’t entered since October 1, and the Israeli government has ordered 400,000 Palestinians to flee to the south, knowing there is nowhere safe to go. The Israeli government’s aims are clear: to ethnically cleanse the remaining Palestinians from north Gaza, and to slaughter every human being who refuses to leave.

Hours after Israeli tanks shelled a U.N. school sheltering displaced people inside Nuseirat refugee camp, located in central Gaza, the Israeli military launched two missiles at dozens of displaced Palestinians sheltering in tents inside Al Aqsa Hospital, located in Deir al-Balah, also central Gaza. Videos of the attack showed a Palestinian in a hospital bed being engulfed in flames, his arm still attached to an IV. That man has since been identified as Shaban al-Dalou, an engineering student. He was only 19 years old.

This isn’t the first time patients in their beds and terrified families sheltering in makeshift tents have been burned alive by Israel bombs  — and it will continue to happen, again and again, until the U.S. government stops sending those bombs.

…and Wall Street booms

Five of the six largest defense corporations in the world are based in the United States. For these corporations’ billionaire CEOs and their Wall Street shareholders, forever war means endless profit.

Two weeks ago, as Israeli troops launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon, Lockheed Martin, RTX, and Northrop Grumman — the three biggest defense corporations in the world — saw their stocks soar.

These weapons manufacturers exercise enormous influence over U.S. foreign policy. At least 50 members of Congress own stocks in defense corporations, and in 2023, Lockheed Martin spent over $14 million on its congressional lobbying efforts. The CEO of Lockheed Martin, the biggest defense corporation in the world, sits on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.

JVP shut down Wall Street, the epicenter of global capital, to call out these defense corporations, big banks, and billionaire CEOs profiting from Israel’s genocide, and to demand that the U.S. government listen to the people and stop sending weapons to Israel.

Arming Israel was never about Jewish safety.

Arming Israel was never about Jewish safety. That was clear as police at the NY Stock Exchange dragged out peaceful Jewish demonstrators by their arms and legs, arresting hundreds. What the U.S. government and the billionaires who influence U.S. foreign policy do care about is protecting their own interests.

For the U.S. government, that means ensuring U.S. dominance in the Middle East region, of which Israel is a key ally. To prop up an indefinite military occupation over millions of Palestinians is to sanction endless war — and that’s music to defense contractors’ ears.

That’s why the Biden administration has signed off on $18 billion in U.S. weapons and military funding to Israel since the genocide began. It’s why top Biden officials greenlit Israel’s war on Lebanon, which has only brought more death and destruction, and why the administration is now sending one of its most advanced missile defense systems and 100 U.S. troops to Israel. And it’s why they’ve refused to force the Israeli government’s hand on a ceasefire, even as Israeli officials drop any pretense of caring about Israeli hostages and pursue the illegal annexation of Gaza.

We refuse to allow Israel’s genocide of Palestinians to become the new normal. We will keep crying out with everything we have to demand that the U.S. government stops arming Israel; to disrupt business as usual for the institutions and individuals who profit from and are complicit in this horror; and to continue the essential work of moving the people in our communities to join us in this fight.

__________________________________

Jewish Voice for Peace is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of U.S. Jews into solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. We envision a world where all people live in freedom, justice, equality, and dignity and believe that through organizing, we can and will dismantle the institutions and structures that sustain injustice.

Go to Original – jewishvoiceforpeace.org

Share this article: email mastodon facebook 🔗 copy link

DISCLAIMER: The statements, views and opinions expressed in pieces republished here are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of TMS. In accordance with title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. TMS has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is TMS endorsed or sponsored by the originator. “GO TO ORIGINAL” links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the “GO TO ORIGINAL” links. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

There are no comments so far.