Hi everyone,
It’s time for a long overdue post on a topic that’s very important to me. If you follow me on social media, you know how I feel on this issue, but I realized I need to make a post on the place I own – the place an algorithm can’t take away from me.
This Memorial Day, I remember my grandfather Victor who fought in Europe in WWII to liberate concentration camps. I was young when he passed, but my parents told me he would never speak out about the horrors he witnessed. He found it too traumatic.
We do know that as he led tank battalions across Europe, Victor “edited” the orders he received from his senior commander Gen. George Patton. His troops, of course, were fighting German and Austrian soldiers. He didn’t repeat the instructions he received to fire on women, children, and the elderly. His troops passed through, arriving earlier than expected to liberate the camps, because they weren’t bogged down attacking the innocent.
After the war, my grandfather assisted in rebuilding Nagasaki, which was under US occupation for several years after the atomic bomb. In that time, my grandfather Victor came to believe that dropping the bomb on innocent civilians was wrong. He truly empathized with the Japanese people, writing a strongly worded letter to the US government arguing that the US should never use such a weapon of mass destruction again.
My grandfather passed when I was a teen, but his values have always been a point of pride for me. I’ve always asked myself, what would I do in that type of situation? Would I have what it takes to go against the grain to protect innocent civilians?
Today, I write to you with a heart full of grief at the actions my own government is supporting against the civilian population of Gaza.
There is no excuse for this. No matter what side you’re on, two wrongs don’t make a right. Nothing ever justifies the mass killing of innocent civilians.
I stand for justice. I stand for peace, and an end to the brutal occupation of Palestine. Right now the actions of Israel and the US will lead to neither.
My stance comes from learning about the genocides of the past – including the genocide of the Jewish people – and telling myself all my life that I would stand up against the same thing, if I ever saw it in my life time. It’s not about anti-semitism. My Jewish friends have nothing to do with this – I don’t think of them, when I think about bombing innocent civilians. That’s not what they stand for. That’s not why we’re friends. The way I felt, growing up in school learning about the horrors of World War II, are why I take such a strong stance now.
Right now, Israel is attacking the civilian population in Rafah, which is the last “safe place” the Palestinian civilians were told to evacuate to. There is nowhere left for them to go. Last night, I saw footage of the most horrible crimes anyone can imagine, against defenseless families and children.
This past week, the International Court of Justice of the United Nations ordered Israel to stop its assault on Rafah. Yet Israel, with the US’s support, kept going and committed even more atrocities.
I stand against this. I stand for international law. I do not consent to funding these atrocities with my tax dollars.
We need a ceasefire now.
My Sacroiliac Joint Saga 
Your grandfather was a wise man. I keep thinking the horror will surely stop, but the genocide is there every day, broadcast straight to us. There are no excuses. Take care.
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Thank you for the kind words, Elizabeth. Praying that this somehow ends soon.
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