Washington DC – State lawmakers and Palestinian rights advocates, joined by actress and progressive activist Cynthia Nixon, launched a five-day hunger strike outside the White House to demand a cease-fire in Gaza.
At a press conference on Monday, activists denounced US President Joe Biden’s role in supporting the Israeli offensive in Gaza and called for an immediate end to the fighting.
The hunger strike adds to growing demand for a ceasefire from activists, artists and politicians, as well as personnel working within the U.S. government. But Biden has so far resisted such calls, expressing unwavering support for Israel.
Biden also pledged more than $14 billion in additional U.S. aid to Israel — funds that his advocates say contribute to Israeli violence.
Protesters at Monday’s event pointed out that public opinion polls show most Americans support a cease-fire. They also highlighted the scale of destruction in Gaza, where more than 14,800 Palestinians have died. United Nations experts have warned that the conflict puts Palestinians “at grave risk of genocide”.
“How many more Palestinians need to be killed before you call a ceasefire, President Biden? We can’t wait any longer,” said Iman Abid, organizer with the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).
Israel and Hamas declared a four-day truce in the conflict last week, and on Monday officials announced that the pause in fighting would continue for two more days, to allow the release of more captives Israelis and Palestinian prisoners.
Hunger strikers said the continued pause demonstrates that diplomacy – not bombs – can resolve the crisis in Gaza.
Israeli leaders, however, have hinted that they will resume bombing with greater intensity once the truce expires. They also warned residents of northern Gaza against returning home.
“The area north of the Gaza Strip is a combat zone and it is forbidden to stay there,” Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said last week.
This week’s hunger strike in Washington, DC, is organized by Palestine solidarity advocates, progressive Jewish groups, and Arab and Palestinian-American organizations.
Here’s what some hunger strikers at the White House had to say:
Today we begin a hunger strike in front of the White House to demand a permanent ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/BChpnSJX7z
– Sumaya Awad (@sumayaawad) November 27, 2023
Nixon: “Never Again” Means Never Again – For Everyone
Best known for her work on the television series Sex and the City and her participation in the 2018 New York gubernatorial race, Nixon used her speech at Monday’s event to highlight the carnage in Gaza, including the murder of dozens of journalists and UN workers. like the destruction of entire neighborhoods.
“Our president’s apparent disregard for the incredible human toll that Israel’s far-right government is inflicting on innocent civilians does not at all reflect the desire of the overwhelming majority of Americans,” she said.
“And I would like to make a personal appeal to a president – who himself has experienced such a devastating personal loss – to connect to that empathy that he is so known for and look at the children of Gaza and imagine that they were his children.
“We implore that the current ceasefire must continue and that we must expand on it to begin negotiating a more permanent peace. We cannot continue to let American taxpayer dollars contribute to the murder and starvation of millions of Palestinians. “Never again” means never again – for anyone.
Delaware Congresswoman Madinah Wilson-Anton: Majority of Americans want a ceasefire
Wilson-Anton, a Muslim American lawmaker from Biden’s home state of Delaware, said that while she worries about abstaining from food for several days, her thoughts are with the people of Gaza who are suffering a massacre with no choice or end in sight.
“The majority of Americans support a permanent ceasefire. And it’s unfortunate that our president and our members of Congress are not sensitive to what’s important to Delawareans and Americans in every state,” said Wilson-Anton, a Democrat.
“So I hope that this week we can win the ear of our president and our members of Congress, so that they can actually begin to use their privilege and their position to negotiate a lasting ceasefire. “
New York State Rep. Zohran Mamdani: Negotiations, not war, freed captives
Mamdani welcomed the release of Israelis detained by Hamas and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during the truce.
“We are on hunger strike for a world where everyone is with family. And it is a world that can only be made possible through a ceasefire. It was not the war that brought us these reunifications. These are negotiations; it’s a cessation (of hostilities),” he said.
“We are not on hunger strike because we want to. We are on a hunger strike because we were forced to do so by this president and by our government’s foreign policy. We are on hunger strike because Palestinians have been doubted in their lives and deaths, and their experience has been erased. »
Activist Rana Abdelhamid: Dehumanizing rhetoric normalizes Palestinian deaths
Abdelhamid, a New York organizer, linked the killing of Palestinians in Gaza to rising prejudice against Arabs and Muslims in the United States. She cited as an example the shooting of three Palestinian students on Saturday in an alleged hate crime.
“As someone who has organized against hate-based violence across this country, I am acutely aware that the anti-Palestinian violence and rhetoric we see abroad also affects us here in the United States . These two things are inextricably linked,” Abdelhamid said.
“When our elected officials, politicians and representatives continually dehumanize the Palestinian people and normalize Palestinian death, we get what we got two days ago. In Vermont, three Palestinian students are shot dead simply for wearing a keffiyeh and simply speaking Arabic. »
Sumaya Awad, Palestinian-American writer and activist: the United States is complicit
Awad stressed that the United States is “complicit” in the continued violence against Palestinians. She added that the conflict also had domestic ramifications in the United States.
“I’m Palestinian and I’m New Yorker. I am American and the mother of a 16-month-old child, and I am on hunger strike to illustrate to our government just a fragment, a fragment of what Palestinians endure every day in Gaza,” Awad said.
“I am on hunger strike to demand a permanent ceasefire and to say that we will continue to put pressure on our government by all possible means to obtain this permanent ceasefire, because we are not of mere silent observers. We are complicit in what is happening in Palestine.
“We are on hunger strike because what is happening in Gaza is not far away and with which we have nothing to do. This has real impacts on our lives here in the United States.