Statement on Gaza from the Loaves & Fishes Community

There is a genocide in Gaza, and we are powerless to stop it. For over a year it has been obvious to anyone listening to the statements of Israel’s leaders that they seek a Final Solution in Gaza, to ethnically cleanse the country of its inhabitants by forced population transfer and/or mass slaughter. And they have been succeeding. The world has failed to save the people of Gaza.

Words have failed. Since the beginning of Israel’s relentless assault on the people of Gaza, Palestinians and activists all over the world have warned that Israel’s ultimate goal is genocide. Every day voices fill the streets of cities in every nation calling for an end to the killing. Speeches are made and statements are issued condemning the murderous Israeli leadership. Members of our own community have written articles and attended protests in an attempt to stop the horror. Yet we fail.

Actions have failed. Many brave people have attempted to take direct action against the genocide and to save as many lives as possible. Humanitarian convoys have approached Gaza in an attempt to bring aid, but they have been turned back or detained. Groups like Palestine Action in the United Kingdom have engaged in industrial sabotage of military machinery, only to be labeled a terrorist organization and persecuted to the full extent of the law. In this country brave college students have shut down their campuses demanding their administration divest from Israel. They too have been beaten, arrested, called terrorists, and in some cases sent to concentration camps by ICE, our nation's gestapo. So many have bravely put their bodies on the line. Yet we fail.

Our democracy has failed. Our broken constitutional system, our diseased media ecosystem, our rapacious greed-fueled economy, open corruption, a cynical electorate, and exorbitant campaign spending have all conspired to put a deeply evil man in the White House. And as satisfying as it would be to lay the blame for this squarely at his feet, that would not be honest. There was not an option to vote against genocide in the last election. The nominal “liberal” party in this country made it very clear that they backed Israel to the hilt, and that the slaughter would continue no matter who was in office. The truth is the murder and violence this country unleashes overseas has long been a bipartisan project. There is no peace party. There is a straight line from the Cold War, to the War on Terror, to now outright genocide, supported all the way by our most “respected” leaders. We are always asked to make the smart choice with our ballots, to do the least harm. And most of us do. Yet we fail.

At Loaves and Fishes, our community is paralyzed by the crisis in front of us; our focus is on concrete actions that improve our city and the lives of our neighbors. We know how to provide hospitality, how to advocate for our neighbors, how to organize events and rallies and protests, how to form coalitions with like minded organizations, how to petition our elected leaders and get results that are real and good. We’re used to winning, at least a little bit. Even when we are stymied at a larger political level there are so many small victories to be found in our work. But there is no small, personal, moral victory to be found in Gaza. Only pain and death and chaos and tears. Our options are very limited. At times it feels like all we can do is continue to love. To love all the people of Gaza and every Palestinian throughout the world. And it is hard when the people you love are dying tortuous deaths every day. But we must not let the pain we feel lessen our ability to love even a little bit. We must hold fast and keep the torch of love burning bright within us everyday. And we must remember the heaviness of this loss, the beauty that was taken from the world, and the faces of evil. We must remember better than we have remembered the lessons of the past. Hopefully someday soon there will be an opportunity to make a difference, to put the fires of our love and the weight of our memory to good use. Until then all we can do is burn.