Almost forty years ago, Brooklyn For Peace launched with the commitment to eliminate war and the social injustices that are its causes, and to promote peace where its existence is threatened. Today we react with horror to the violence and revenge that are occurring in Israel and Palestine, and specifically now in Gaza. We cannot isolate what occurred from its roots, and we cannot end the slaughter without examining these roots. Failure to do that will only be a failure to prevent repeated events.
Brooklyn For Peace condemns the indiscriminate violence and war crimes carried out by any party against both Israelis and Palestinians. Peace and justice cannot be achieved through shooting civilians, conducting airstrikes, taking hostages, or depriving millions of people of food, water, electricity and medicine. We call for all parties to this violence to be held accountable for the suffering they have caused.
To prevent further loss of life in this immediate crisis, particularly what is developing as a genocide in Gaza, we urgently call on members of Congress to co-sponsor Rep. Cori Bush’s Ceasefire Now Resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Occupied Palestine and for humanitarian assistance to be urgently delivered to the 2.2 million people under siege and trapped in Gaza.
The horrific events that have unfolded in the past few days have not occurred in isolation - they are a response to over 75 years of Israel’s colonization, oppression, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through military occupation, siege, displacement, massacres, raids, bombing campaigns, imprisonment, and a system of apartheid. Many Palestinians maintain that the Nakba, the catastrophe of Israel’s 1948 ethnic cleansing campaign, continues to be their daily reality.
While members of Congress rightfully condemn Hamas’ violence against Israeli civilians, Congress’ decades of inaction on the vast suffering of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state, military, and settlers is a shameful failure of U.S. foreign policy and a failure to uphold the most basic values of human rights. We reject the notion that U.S. support for Israel is “unwavering” and “ironclad.” We reject empty calls for peace that do not affirm Palestinians’ full and equal rights and freedoms under international law. We reject any narratives that seize on Hamas’ violence in order to widely demonize the Palestinian people and their long struggle for liberation. We reject the organized efforts to silence Palestinians’ many forms of nonviolent resistance through education, art, grassroots advocacy, boycotts, divestment, and international accountability.
Israel has enjoyed impunity for its decades of human rights violations, enabled by billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money and by the U.S. policy of providing diplomatic cover for Israel at the United Nations. As long as the U.S. continues to fund the Israeli apartheid state with $3.8 billion in military aid every year, it is ensuring the continuation of ethnic cleansing. Every person, Palestinian and Israeli, deserves to live in peace, freedom, dignity, and equality. This cannot be achieved as long as Israeli apartheid continues. To that end, Congress must end U.S. military aid to Israel until Palestinians’ full and equal rights under international law are realized.
Congress cannot continue to downplay or ignore the Palestinian call for freedom, justice, and equality. As a diverse network of Brooklyn residents, we call on President Biden and members of Congress, and specifically New York Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and Brooklyn Representatives Jeffries, Velázquez, Clarke, Goldman, and Malliotakis, to take these actions toward a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis.
As of this writing, Representative Nydia Velázquez (NY - 07) has signed the Ceasefire Now Resolution. We call on New Yorkers to encourage their representatives to join her in signing.
Statement adopted by the Brooklyn For Peace Board of Directors on October 20, 2023. | 
