Quick Take
Activist Rick Longinotti is mourning the year of bloodshed in Gaza, Lebanon, Israel and the West Bank. He is deeply disturbed by the support he sees our local congressional representative, Jimmy Panetta, giving to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Monday, Oct. 7, he and other activists are organizing to bring requests to end support to Panetta and grieve those lost to war.
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As we mark a year of tragic bloodletting in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, the large majority of people in the United States are repelled by the violence toward civilians, particularly children. An Oct.18-19, 2023, poll showed a large majority of the public wanted the United States to call for a cease-fire and use its leverage to get one.
A staunch supporter of Israel, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, calls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the most dangerous leader threatening Israel today.” Friedman wrote in June, “This is ultimatum time. [U.S. President Joe] Biden should be telling Israel that it should accept Hamas’s key demand: Totally end the war now and withdraw from Gaza in exchange for the return of all Israeli hostages.”
Biden’s daily resupply of arms to Israel hardly constitutes an ultimatum. Friedman’s latest column laments, “President Biden and his team offered Israel a road map for [a] counter strategy but, sadly, they just never had the steel to impose it on Netanyahu with a combination of leverage, diplomacy and ultimatums.”
How can we ordinary people respond? We can advocate that our members of Congress stop the U.S. from enabling of the violence.
Tragically, our member of Congress, Jimmy Panetta, has been a strong backer of Netanyahu’s policy. A characteristic of Netanyahu’s supporters in Congress has been to deny what is happening in Gaza. On Jan. 23, Panetta co-signed a letter to “express our disgust” with South Africa’s filing of a “grossly unfounded case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.”
In May, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, presenting detailed evidence of intentional attacks on civilians and starvation as a method of warfare. However, Panetta voted with House Republicans to sanction ICC, in a resolution (opposed by the Biden administration) that dismissed the court’s charges as “illegitimate and baseless”.
This resolution denies the evidence presented by Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and a United Nations report labeling Israeli and Hamas actions as “crimes against humanity.” For a member of Congress to deny that evidence — and what all of us can see on the news — is profoundly disturbing.
The denial continued when Panetta voted with House Republicans to prohibit the State Department from citing casualty statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry.
Panetta’s support for Biden’s policy of nonstop arms to Israel continues to undermine the prospects for a cease-fire. In spite of all the harm to civilians, Panetta voted to approve an additional $17 billion in military aid to Israel in April.
On June 24, the U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner released a statement saying, “The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide.” The United States is violating its own human rights legislation by supplying arms to Israel while Israel is blocking food aid to Gaza, according to reports by two U.S. agencies.
According to a YouGov poll in March, 62% of Biden voters agreed that “the U.S. should stop weapons shipments to Israel until Israel discontinues its attacks on the people of Gaza,” while just 14% disagreed.
Jimmy Panetta’s unconditional support for Netanyahu appears to conflict with his father’s statement on CBS a few days ago. Asked about Israel’s detonation of explosive pagers in Lebanon, Leon Panetta stated, “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism.”
At noon on Monday, the public is invited to attend a gathering outside the Santa Cruz County courthouse. Following the gathering, Panetta’s constituents will bring requests to Panetta’s office upstairs. At 6:30 p.m. there will be a grief ceremony for those in Israel, Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon, at the “Collateral Damage” statue adjacent to the town clock.
It’s time to end U.S. enabling of the violence across the globe.
Rick Longinotti is chair of the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation, which seeks to reduce our community’s dependency on auto travel by making it safe and convenient to get around without a private automobile. Rick is a marriage and family therapist and former electrical contractor. He has lived in Santa Cruz for 33 years.