Note: This letter arrived too late to be published before Athens City Council met on Monday, Feb. 19, when it approved a resolution calling for a ceasefire.
To members of Athens City Council:
I know it’s easier to say this is not our work, our responsibility, and that the violence in Palestine/Israel doesn’t concern the work of the city.
But I want to question that way of dealing with this. People in Germany, when Hitler was coming to power, thought the same way, either saying, “this isn’t such a big deal, and will go away,” “this doesn’t concern us,” or that “it isn’t in our power to change it—”someone else will take care of it before it gets too bad.”
This is not over sensationalizing this issue. Something like what Hitler did, has already been underway against the Palestinian people. At this time, Israeli forces have killed over 28,000 Palestinians, displaced 80% of the population of Gaza, gutted most of the medical and social infrastructure, and have set off a catastrophic humanitarian crisis (and much more). And this is being paid for and supported by our government, with no sign, so far, that this will be stopped until all Palestinians will be removed from Gaza, either by being killed or pushed out into other countries that don’t want them, to the fate of living as refugees.
Yes, we do care about Israelis who have been killed, abused, or taken hostage (though the information on this has also been distorted by the Israel public relations agency.) But even the worst of what Hamas did, doesn’t begin to justify the horrific, violent destruction perpetrated on all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in retaliation—supposedly to get rid of Hamas.
In my work on a peace team in the West Bank between 2002 and 2019, I’ve personally seen what these years of violent, oppressive occupation of the Palestinians have been meant for them on a daily basis. I know that this is what has fueled the anger behind the Oct. 7 attacks. I have seen how even nonviolent resistance to Israeli violence (directly killing and terrorizing and humiliating Palestinians, as well as systematically demolishing Palestinian homes and confiscating their land property, suppressing their economic life and ability to travel for work, worship, or visiting family, etc.) have seen how Israelis met even nonviolent resistance to this with violent repression. It is clear to me that this “conflict” was not started by Hamas on Oct. 7, but by Israel even before 1948, when Israeli insurgent groups went in and started killing and terrorizing Palestinians in preparation for the violent establishment of Israel in 1948.
It is also clear to me that neither Israelis or Palestinians will be able to live in peace and security until a solution that involves justice for Palestinians is embraced. It is fruitless for us to be supporting violent solutions that continue the suppression, as it will only continue the cycles of violence.
It is time that we as citizens stop buying the misinformation Israel has been feeding us, and that what they are doing is for defending themselves, find out what is really happening in Israel/Palestine, and speak out in any way we can, as individuals, as well as through the voice of our cities, states, and country. It is our responsibility, and we should not use artificial boundaries of written responsibilities of governing bodies or finding the perfect statement, to prevent us from doing this.
I urge you as city council members to not hide behind written artificial parameters of your role, but do what is human and right. This is our time. We are the ones, now, to challenge the violence and oppression that our country is supporting.
Peggy Gish
Athens, Ohio
