2025 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary

June 8th – 2:30 PM – Pilgrim Congregational Church, West 14th St. Cleveland

This is a fundraiser for the communities of Masafer Yatta

It was fun chatting with Ellie and her daughter, Linda, who are sympathetic with my peace message. I also enjoyed talking with Nancy and her husband, Jim, who I first met when they were shopping at the West Side Market during my weekly Saturday morning peace vigil. I said to the couple today that in the past some people have asked me why there are no stars on my peace flag, I have said, “The stars are in hiding. They are ashamed, embarrassed and disgusted with all the death, destruction, instability and chaos we have caused in the Middle East.” I said to the couple that whenever I respond to someone unhappy with my message, the recipients of my perspective are quiet. They have nothing to say, but I know I have given them something to think about. To people who mentioned they were in the Air Force or the Navy or the Marines, I said, “We were on the same team. We just played different positions.” They would smile, even if they were uncomfortable with my peace flag. 

Today’s students, including Students for Justice in Palestine and allied student groups, stand in a long tradition of legitimate on-campus protest, going back at least to the Vietnam War. Editors at the Observer have recently made a compelling case for student free speech on campus. Retribution by the Administration or onerous rules that block any prompt response to breaking news, inhibits free speech and betrays the University’s role as place of open inquiry and dialogue. The Administration must recognize the legitimate right of all students to express their political views, unhindered, at this crucial moment in U.S. history.

There are better ways of handling highly controversial issues like Israel-Palestine. Universities, above all our institutions, should be bastions of free speech. If students are demanding divestment from Israel because of its policies and actions, why not have campus-wide open discussions of the issue, viewed from all sides? Pledging this very thing led students at Brown University, Northwestern University, and the University of Minnesota to dismantle their encampments last Spring.

Suppressing free speech on campus will not resolve tensions around this issue within the University community. And preventing discussion in our society, of the complexities of the Israel-Palestine relationship, will only delay any movement towards resolution and peace. Universities like Case Western Reserve must take the lead.

Demanding No U.S. defense of the Israeli Genocide!, this afternoon Veterans for Peace and Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition staged a demo at the entrance to the Toledo Air National Guard base at Toledo Express Airport this afternoon. As we arrived at 3 PM, I delivered a letter of demands to a sergeant who tried to explain to me that he was not authorized to accept mail. He finally took it as we departed.

See Toledo Blade coverage for photos

We arrived with five people who were willing to risk arrest. The entry drive to the base was very wide, and flat, and when activists refused to budge to allow incoming traffic to go in, drivers drover across the grass at the far edges of the drive to get in.

About half a dozen Air Natl Guardies finally came out to the entrance, including one guy with the obligatory AR-15.  Five deputies also showed up and were initially nasty, but after 20 minutes, must have been told to stand down. They gently would push demonstrators aside to let traffic in, but when that didn’t work, they literally left about half the entrance way to demonstrators who would not move, and they created a narrow passage at the edge of the drive on the opposite side.

It was a hot, sunny day, and once the tone was set — that apparently there were to be no arrests — the police mellowed and friendly conversations (!) started to take place. The police even offered bottled water to us! The troops also got a little nicer and a little defensive about what they do. The ANG base is an F-16 squadron; 4 F-16s took off for practice runs while we were there, loudly breaking the sound barrier. The base does a great deal of mechanical work on F-16 engines and delivers planes globally for US Air Force purposes. We think Toledo ANG pilots also have been involved in the US air defense of Israel’s genocide when Iran undertook its multiple missile counterstrike last April, and possibly in August, when there was tension about an Iranian and Hezbollah counterstrike. There are 14 US bases in the Middle East, all of which have air power.

We ended the demonstration at 4:30 and the deputies actually suggested if we have another demo at the base, that we call them so they can make sure traffic moves safely. “Irony” doesn’t begin to describe this day.

 Our movement in Toledo is diverse, age-wise, racially and from religious and gender perspectives. Today was good for us to better get to know one another and forge group identity. There are some very courageous young people showing leadership.

View on YouTube

Panel discussion Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 7 pm. In person at Pilgrim Congregational Church, 2592 W.14 St, Cleveland, OH 44113 and on Zoom

Panelists:
Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association, Washington, DC
Terry Lodge, Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition and Cleveland Peace Action
Kenneth Mayers, Co-founder, Santa Fe Chapter, Veterans for Peace

We live in dark times, and we feel like the blind are leading the blind. Thoughtful voices are drowned out by quick war-related soundbites used to capture headlines. It is easy to feel hopeless about taking any steps that might change the rising bloody tide. Our work for a just peace is important, though, and we think there are at least a few rays of light in the darkness. Today we want to take a moment to reflect on our ability to alter the course of events, even in the midst of the greatest obstacles. 

In Cleveland Peace Action’s latest statement on the conflict in Palestine, we condemned both the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel’s overblown response, targeting not just Hamas but the Palestinian people themselves, an attack we are calling “genocide.”  When we made that statement in December, 17,000 Palestinians had been killed. That number is now over 31,000. With the United States fully funding and arming the genocide, and with President Biden’s complete embrace of Israel’s Netanyahu regime, it seemed that nothing would stop the killing from engulfing the entirety of Gaza.

When the conflict began, Pres. Biden gave full, unquestioning support to Netanyahu and his pro-Zionist strategy of annihilation in Gaza. Biden and his administration not only gave public moral support to Netanyahu, but made plans to increase Israeli military aid, with little resistance in Congress.

However, letters to editors, public outcry in public arenas and protests of war crimes and genocide of innocents, within the US and Israel, as well as from all over the world has, perhaps, given US policy-makers pause, made them take a deeper gaze into this catastrophe, and, hopefully, will force them to see what literally billions of people really desire: an easing of the indiscriminate violence. In recent weeks, Biden himself, has said Netanyahu has taken it too far, and administration officials have signaled for a change in course. An aggressive signal came from VP Kamala Harris who, in a speech on March 4, called for an outright cease-fire in the conflict.

In a bombshell widely-circulated speech in mid-March, US Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, sharply criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict, saying Netanyahu had “lost his way.” He also stated that the far-right leadership of Netanyahu’s cabinet “has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza. Although aid has remained seriously inadequate, Harris’ and Schumer’s remarks have helped shift the focus of the discussion to humanitarian aid in Gaza and an ending of violence. 

As evidence of the impact of this call for peace, just on March 21, the US has drafted a new UN security council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza linked to the release of hostages. The US previously vetoed similar security council proposals. Unfortunately, Russia and China vetoed the US resolution. Regardless, it is a major shift in the administration’s stance toward Israel’s war policy and puts at least some emphasis on the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinian people. 

The most significant catalyst in creating this change in policy has been the collective voices of the U.S. American people. For months, the Biden administration turned a deaf ear to the chants of protest. Recent actions have finally made them listen: surprise votes for “uncommitted” in Michigan, Minnesota and a string of other states in the Democratic primaries sent a clear signal to the administration. The city councils of over seventy US cities have called for a ceasefire. And a constant barrage of pro-ceasefire protests before Biden’s State-of-the-Union speech, at Adam Schiff’s primary victory rally, and hundreds of other events across the country have forced pro-Zionist Democrats to bend somewhat to the will of the people. 

And you, Northeast Ohioans who support peace, have made yourselves part of  this momentum. CPA has contributed through its Community Circle events, by putting pressure on local and state politicians, organizing rallies, holding book clubs on Justice for Some, and by supporting other Northeast Ohio groups (see CPA recent events here) who are engaged in a constant struggle for the cause of peace.

“A republican government is slow to move,” Thomas Jefferson once observed, “yet once in motion its momentum becomes irresistible.” It is in part because of you – all the supporters of Cleveland Peace Action – and all other grassroots activists around the country that this momentum toward a just peace is building . We thank you for all of your actions and let’s  continue to build, brick by brick, until justice is achieved and peace is won. 

1.  Genocide is defined as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” Merriam-Webster.  Also: “The US is ‘Complicit’ in Israeli ‘Genocide‘ in Gaza.” Columbia University professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development Jeffrey Sachs speaks during an interview in the National Review by Haley Strack, March 17, 2024.
2.  Regarding Zionism, we at CPA differentiate between the Zionist movement in Israel and its complicit counterpart in the US this way:  according to the Jewish Virtual Library – AICE – “The term “Zionism” was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum. Its general definition means the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has protected the nation since 1948, when the State of Israel was established. Also, Jewish Civilians calling themselves “Settlers” have taken up arms against assertive inhabitants, in the name of Jewish sovereignty, squatting on the land, building massive colonies in territory they claim in “uninhabited,” displacing the indigenous people, forcing them into “reservations,” and those who protested were killed; similar to how white European settlers displaced, killed and otherwise attempted to wipe out the American Indigenous populations.

In the early morning hours of May 10, 2021, Moussa Hassouna, a Palestinian citizen of Israel was shot and killed by a Jewish settler in Lod, a city 30 miles west of Jerusalem, and one of five Arab and Jewish “mixed” cities. Deemed a martyr, riots break out across the city in Hassouna’s name. These riots turn deadly when, driving home, a rock is hurled through Yigal Yehoshua’s passenger window, striking him in the head. Several hours later he died, but not before his family agreed to donate his organs. Randa, a Christian Arab woman, receives Yigal’s kidney and is compelled to pay her respects to the Jewish man who has given her a second chance at life. She is determined to attend his 30-day shloshim (period of mourning), despite being afraid for her and her family’s safety after reading several racist epiphets posted online. Mourning in Lod is an emotionally stirring account of the fates of three people, their families and a country interconnected by cycles of violence, providing a first-hand account at the way our individual actions reverberate, amplify and shape the course of each other’s lives.