Photo: Mara Hazel.
Indianapolis Liberator editorial note: The following speech was delivered on October 22, 2023, at one of the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in Indianapolis history.
Good evening. My name is Eli Morey and I am here on behalf of ANSWER Indiana. ANSWER stands for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.” Our group originally formed on September 14, 2001 because of the need for a peace movement at a time when the U.S. government and media apparatus were pounding the drums of racism, Islamophobia, and war. Here we are, once again in 2023, and once again protesting the powerful ruling class that is rushing into a headlong war by endorsing and supporting escalating violence against the Palestinian people.
Over 4,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, have already died as a result of Israel’s most recent relentless bombing of Gaza, one of the most densely populated territories on Earth. Instead of calling for an end to the bloodshed, our government and our mass media are giving unconditional diplomatic support and military aid to those who are dropping the bombs and chemical weapons.
The poisonous anti-Islamic and anti-Arab rhetoric used in the media not only serves to justify war crimes in Gaza, but also stokes the flames of bigoted violence here in the United States. We need only to think of the disgusting attack in Chicago last week, where 6 year-old Wadea Al Fayoume was stabbed 26 times by his family’s landlord. The Zionist and anti-Palestinian rhetoric of the corporate mass media incited this child’s killer; his young blood is on their hands, too.
There might be some of our coworkers or neighbors, friends or family, who want us to think that this issue doesn’t affect us, that it doesn’t have anything to do with us. But our tax dollars are funding the Israeli military, U.S. bombs are leveling neighborhoods in Gaza, and the entire Israeli state is propped up by a government that speaks in our name but does not represent us.
As death and destruction rain down on innocent Palestinians, President Biden is calling for an an extra $14 billion in military aid to Israel on top of the billions that the U.S. government gives them every year. Indiana alone gives over $51 million dollars to the Israeli military annually. We should ask them: do we support our tax dollars being used to pay for war crimes against the Palestinian people?
We are here today to demand an immediate end to the bombing in Gaza. The people of Gaza have suffered enough already under an illegal occupation and a vicious siege. The people of Gaza are already living under total land, sea, and air blockade in what amounts to the world’s largest concentration camp. How many more children need to die? How many more bombs, funded by our tax dollars, need to rain down on Gaza? How many more homes need to be destroyed?
We’re here today to demand the bloodshed end.
- End the bombing of Gaza!
- End the occupation!
- Free Palestine!
