By Abayomi Azikiwe
Note: This address was delivered during a public forum organized by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition and the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood.
On April 4, 1967, in an address at the Riverside Church in New York City, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the founder and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), told an audience of several thousand people why he had no other choice than to publicly come out against the United States genocidal war and occupation of Vietnam.
This speech was delivered amid the rising tide of urban rebellions across the U.S. where state governments were compelled to suppress the civil unrest with the deployment of National Guard units and later that summer, federal troops in Detroit.
Dr. King said on this significant day that: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.” This sermon was just one of many given by Dr. King in opposition to the Vietnam War during his final year prior to his martyrdom on April 4, 1968.
The SCLC leader outlined what he described as the “triple evils” of the U.S. being racism, poverty and militarism. These prophetic words continue to ring true some 57 years later.
Billions of people around the globe have witnessed the daily massacres in Gaza directly resulting from the carpet bombing of this area which is approximately the size of the city of Detroit. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have occupied Gaza where they have shelled residential neighborhoods, religious institutions, marketplaces, health facilities and schools.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the genocidal onslaught over the last year. The majority of those killed have been women and children. Official statistics supplied by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza say that more than 41,000 people have been killed and nearly 100,000 injured.
Gaza’s 2.3 million population have been left insecure, displaced and more severely impoverished. Healthcare workers, scholars, merchants, students and many other ordinary people are deliberately targeted in the Gaza genocide. In addition to the year-long assault on the Gaza Strip, in recent months the IDF, police and armed zionist settlers, have stepped-up their attacks in the West Bank by evicting, injuring, detaining and killing people in this already contained and deprived area of occupied Palestine.
These actions would not be possible without the funding, coordination and diplomatic cover provided through the taxpayer dollars of the U.S. Despite the fact that the majority people when asked say they are in favor of a ceasefire and the curtailment of military assistance to the settler-colonial state, the administration of President Joe Biden and Congress have continued to transfer the most advanced and deadly weapons to the IDF for the sole purpose of destroying Palestinian communities along with the neighboring states of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
An article published by the Associated Press on October 7 emphasizes that:
“The United States has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project, released Monday on the anniversary of Hamas’ attacks on Israel. An additional $4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up U.S. military operations in the region since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, researchers said in findings first provided to The Associated Press. That includes the costs of a Navy-led campaign to quell strikes on commercial shipping by Yemen’s Houthis, who are carrying them out in solidarity with the fellow Iranian-backed group Hamas.”
The deliberate widening of the war will require additional spending for the deployment of IDF and U.S. troops. In August there was an escalation of Pentagon forces in West Asia bringing the total to 50,000.
An increase in the number of U.S. soldiers will make Pentagon personnel even more vulnerable by risking serious injuries and deaths. There has already been the shelling of U.S. military bases in Iraq, Jordan and Syria.
These expenditures have a direct impact on the domestic situation in the U.S. There are serious economic problems involving the lack of affordable housing, an escalation in energy and food prices and the rapid deterioration of infrastructure. The cost of higher education has grown exponentially while the availability of good paying jobs is declining.
International Solidarity Continues to Grow
During the winter and spring over 100 campuses across the U.S. were the scene of mass demonstrations and encampments demanding the full disclosure and disinvestment of all holdings which underwrite the maintenance of the Israeli regime. These solidarity actions surpassed all other protests throughout the years related to the necessity of ending aid to the settler-colonial state and creating an independent existence for the Palestinian people.
As far as public opinions are concerned in the U.S. and around the world, most people are opposed to the policies of Tel Aviv and Washington. Mass demonstrations are ongoing despite the coordinated crackdown against the Palestine solidarity movement which is obviously the result of the White House and the Justice Department.
The Biden administration continues to express its unconditional support for the zionist entity while the massacres continue. When the primary elections took place in the winter and spring, the movement for an uncommitted protest vote provided a clear signal of the potential political failure of the Biden White House.
As Biden’s rating continued to decline precipitously, the efforts among large-scale donors and officials within the Democratic Party to remove the president from the ticket accelerated. Biden was eventually toppled as the 2024 candidate and replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris.
However, Harris is still plagued by the legacy of the pro-zionist foreign policy. Although there was much enthusiasm for the candidacy of Kamala Harris in the initial weeks leading up to the Democratic National Convention (DNC), as the election final date gets closer to November 5 it appears as if the outcome is too close to call. With ongoing IDF bombing and occupation of Gaza continuing alongside the attacks on neighboring Lebanon, it remains unclear who will be victorious in the race for the White House.
Irrespective of whether the Democrats or Republicans win the national presidential and congressional elections, the propping up of the State of Israel will continue until the masses are able to change the political trajectory of the U.S. By placing the imperialist outpost in Tel Aviv at the center of Washington’s policy towards West Asia, the danger of a protracted regional and world war will remain a threat to the whole of humanity.
At the recently held United Nations General Assembly 79th Session, heads-of-state and foreign ministers from around the world condemned the genocide in Gaza. Prior to the convening of the gathering in New York City, the overwhelming majority of UN missions voted to recognize a State of Palestine while demanding the ending of the occupation within one year.
As has been demonstrated throughout the history of the 20th century, imperialism and racism can be defeated by united action on the part of the oppressed and their allies. This will also be true of Palestine and the entire region of West Asia.
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