An April Day That I Truly Wish To See

An April Day That I Truly Wish To See

No illegal Israeli settlements?

No blockade of the people of Gaza?

And $19.19 sent to you from the State of Israel?

April Fool!

I'm playing a little on a really clever message that was sent today from the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, centered around the fact that U.S. taxpayers will send, per capita, $19.19 this year in foreign assistance to Israel. Much of it goes to underwrite the policies that build and maintain illegal settlements in the Palestinian Territory, and otherwise continue the Israeli policies that deny the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people.

Of course, it's April Fool's Day, the the release is meant in jest. But the continued oppression of the people of Palestine isn't funny at all.

It is also hardly funny that systematic human rights violations committed by Israel are paid for, in part, by money that you and I send to the United States government in the form of taxes. Our elected officials make a big deal-as they should-about the conduct of governments that brutalize, oppress, and otherwise beat down their citizens. But in the case of the Palestinian people, U.S. money is complicit in perpetrating the crimes that other nations are condemned for.

The good news, however, is that there is a rising tide of opposition- from the United Nations to the European Union to faith-based activists from all of the Abrahamic traditions- to the unchecked colonial policies of the Jewish State. It may be convenient to label Muslim critics of Israel as "anti-Semitic", but the canard is harder to stick on the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the head of the European Union.

And as for the tax money we send to support the occupation: It would be sweet if we got that $19.19 back as a rebate, and then sent it on the the let Gaza Live campaign created by MAS Freedom to support efforts to end the embargo of Gaza.

When that embargo ends-and it most certainly will- I will rejoice with the people of Gaza, and all of Palestine.

And that's no joke.