In appreciation of the Bellingham City Council’s willingness to address a resolution offered by Veterans For Peace on ending the violence in Israel/Palestine, I wish to share just two of my thoughts about why I believe it is appropriate for our city council to pass such a resolution for the sake of America.
Although I abhor and speak out against war and structures of injustice and violence, and I know that VFP speaks out on most such issues, the Israel-Palestine conflict represents arguably the world’s greatest source of instability, and a specific danger to the United States.
When one’s own government provides the weaponry and a documented 8 million dollars a day to a state which by all accounts and for whatever reasons is week upon week bombing and strafing a non-state people under its siege and occupation (whether still “official” or not), and killing innocents while targeting hospitals and refugee areas, I as a citizen of the country of that government have a profound moral obligation to call upon my representatives to demand an end to the violence.
City council is my closest part of that government; they are my most immediate representatives. May they, and may a thousand councils, show the world who we Americans really are.
The author of this letter to the editor is Ellen Murphy, long-time peace activist and associate member of Bellingham, Washington's Veterans For Peace Chapter 111.
Although I abhor and speak out against war and structures of injustice and violence, and I know that VFP speaks out on most such issues, the Israel-Palestine conflict represents arguably the world’s greatest source of instability, and a specific danger to the United States.
When one’s own government provides the weaponry and a documented 8 million dollars a day to a state which by all accounts and for whatever reasons is week upon week bombing and strafing a non-state people under its siege and occupation (whether still “official” or not), and killing innocents while targeting hospitals and refugee areas, I as a citizen of the country of that government have a profound moral obligation to call upon my representatives to demand an end to the violence.
City council is my closest part of that government; they are my most immediate representatives. May they, and may a thousand councils, show the world who we Americans really are.
The author of this letter to the editor is Ellen Murphy, long-time peace activist and associate member of Bellingham, Washington's Veterans For Peace Chapter 111.