RI for Palestine stages "die-in" in Senator Reed's Cranston office

The activists demanded that Senator Reed call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to United States aid to Israel.

On Wednesday, November 1, around a dozen people with a group calling themselves Rhode Island for Palestine staged a "die-in" in the lobby of the Cranston offices of United States Senator Jack Reed [Democrat, Rhode Island]. The group sought to call attention to what they called Senator Reed’s “complicity in providing billions of dollars of United States aid and arms to Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people.”

The activists live-streamed their action here.

The activists demanded that Senator Reed call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to United States aid to Israel.

The Senate held a hearing on Tuesday on President Joe Biden’s request for $105 billion in emergency funds, $14 billion of which would be sent to Israel as military support. Senator Reed has voiced support for this package and serves as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The event was entirely peaceful and lasted about ten minutes. After reading the statement and delivering a copy to the receptionist, the activists left. The receptionist told me that she would be forwarding the statement to Senator Reed, who was in Washington that day.

While people lay on the floor of Senator Reed's lobby, covered with signs of support for Palestine, an activist read the following statement:

“We are here today in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and across the Occupied Territories who are currently suffering a genocide, perpetrated by Israel and backed by the United States of America. As constituents of Senator Jack Reed, we are here as Rhode Islanders to call upon his conscience and his responsibility as an elected official. Over 8,525 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's merciless assault on Gaza over the past three weeks. We stage this "die-in" in honor of the lives that have been lost, and in deep admiration and solidarity with the steadfast resilience of the Palestinian people surviving in the face of genocidal violence. We are enraged knowing that our taxpayer dollars fund arms that the apartheid state of Israel uses in its campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Palestinians. As a senior member of Congress in a key position of power over the U.S.'s military spending, Senator Reed has played an influential role in upholding our government's support for the systematic and decades-long oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli state. We are here to say NO MORE, and to condemn in no uncertain terms Senator Reed's complicity in the provision of billions of dollars of U.S. aid and arms to Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people. We call upon him to stop funding genocide, to call for an immediate ceasefire, and to demand a complete end to U.S. aid to Israel.

“For the past three weeks, Israel has been massacring Palestinians in Gaza with bombs funded by and manufactured in the U.S. With U.S. dollars that Senator Reed has endorsed, Israel has turned homes, hospitals, bakeries, and churches into mass graves. Israel has reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, trapping countless Palestinians underneath the destruction, while also bombing the so-called "safe zones" for Gazan evacuees. With those same US dollars, Israel has also rained white phosphorous - a highly incendiary chemical that inflicts bone-deep and often fatal burns and whose usage is widely condemned as a war crime - on densely populated civilian neighborhoods, with shameless disregard for international humanitarian law. In the face of this incessant, unending violence, the U.S. government has done nothing but double down on its military and diplomatic support for Israel, including dispatching two American aircraft carriers with over 15,000 personnel combined and deploying thousands of troops to the area.

“Make no mistake: Israel's assault on Palestine is nothing short of genocide. Israeli government officials have proven time and time again - in their own words - that their horrifying attacks on Palestinian people are rooted in ethnosupremacist ideology. Verified Israeli government documents show in unequivocal detail their intent to forcibly and permanently expel all Palestinians from Gaza. We have witnessed the public, racist denigration of Palestinians as ‘barbaric’ and ‘human animals’ by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. On Twitter, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has justified this genocide as a struggle against the ‘children of darkness’ who live under ‘the law of the jungle.’ The blatant dehumanization of Palestinians and the complete disregard for the lives of millions could not be made any clearer.

“In the midst of this horrendous violence, Senator Reed has thrown the full weight of his power behind supporting the Israeli government. And it is no small weight that he holds. Senator Reed is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the nation's military, as well as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which oversees the government's discretionary spending, making it the "most powerful committee in the Senate," as described by Senator Reed himself. Thus far, he has used his positions of power to actively fund, support, and advocate for genocide through his professed solidarity with the Israeli state. Most recently, he has been a vocal supporter of the White House's request for $105 billion in ‘emergency aid’ funding, $14 billion of which would go towards arming Israel. This is absolutely unacceptable. Senator Reed's enthusiastic support for Israel demonstrates a complete disregard for Palestinian lives and is a piece of the long history of the U.S.'s investments in genocide, violent displacement, and disenfranchisement of people who pose a threat to its geopolitical power and endless pursuit of profit.

“We know that the violence of the past three weeks, while horrifying, is only a continuation of the ongoing violence of the Nakba. Since 1948, and even before, Zionist settlers have sought to enact an ethnic cleansing campaign, not only stealing the land and homes of Palestinians, but also seeking to erase Palestinian life, history and culture.

“Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres. For 75 years, the military occupation and apartheid regime has only intensified: violently displacing hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Palestinians and replacing them with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and launching large-scale military offensives against the predominantly refugee population in Gaza who are trapped with no means of escape.

“The current escalation of violence is the next step of the genocidal mission of Israel as a white supremacist ethno-nationalist state.

“The explosive force dropped on Gaza this past month has exceeded the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Two weeks ago, Israel intentionally bombed al-Ahli Hospital, killing hundreds of people and injuring many more, including sick people, disabled people, children, and many whose homes had been destroyed and who had sought refuge there. Last week, Israel announced an escalation in ground operations in Gaza and enforced a complete communications blackout that rendered people in Gaza unable to communicate with the outside world while facing bombing at a higher intensity than ever before. In just the past two days, Israel intentionally bombed Gaza's only cancer hospital. And yesterday, Israel carpet bombed Jabalia Refugee Camp with 6 tons of U.S.-made explosives, wiping out one of the most densely populated residential neighborhoods in Gaza, killing and injuring hundreds more Palestinians.

“As of yesterday, October 31st, Israel has killed over 8,525 Palestinians - over 3500 of whom are children - but we know that there are many more missing under the rubble who have not yet been found, and that even more people have been killed in the past day. One Palestinian child is killed by Israeli airstrikes every five minutes in Gaza. Over 800 Palestinian bloodlines have been completely wiped out in the last three weeks - entire family lineages eradicated by Israel's relentless bombing.

“The scale of this violence feels unfathomable, but it is our responsibility as people living in the country that funds and promotes this violence to speak the truth of the cruelty that Palestinians have to bear every day. The magnitude of the atrocities that the Palestinians must endure only continue to grow with each day that the U.S. continues to supply arms and aid to the settler colony of Israel. And yet this violence is actively being obscured and suppressed by the mainstream media apparatus. The fact that Israel enforced a complete media blackout while escalating its ground operations and bombing campaign is clear evidence that they are attempting to hide their bloody hands AND that they are threatened by the global majority who stands with Palestine.

“We are here to say this must end, and it must end now. As constituents of Senator Jack Reed, we demand that you stop funding the genocide of the Palestinian people. We join Palestinians on the ground in Gaza calling not only for an immediate ceasefire, but also an unequivocal end to U.S. aid to Israel.

“We are far from alone in our demands. There is a growing mass movement locally and across the nation in support of Palestinian liberation. Just yesterday, members of Jewish Voice for Peace in Rhode Island delivered over 100 postcards to Senator Reed and Representative Magaziner demanding for a ceasefire and to defund Israel immediately. Protestors in Massachusetts are demonstrating in front of the weapons companies that produce the arms going to mass murder Palestinians. For the past few weeks, from coast to coast, ordinary Americans are flooding our lawmakers' phone lines to voice support an immediate ceasefire and end US aid to Israel. Hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets in cities and towns all across the country.

“We know that our government has the power to stop this genocide. For every day that the government fails to change its course, more and more Americans realize the immensity of blood staining our government's hands. Should Senator Reed and his colleagues in Congress continue to push for U.S. support for Israel, they will prove with greater clarity what so many of us already know: that our elected officials don't care about the concerns and outrage of their constituents, and that American democracy is completely, morally bankrupt - a purposeful illusion used to justify the brutalizing of oppressed people all around the world.

“And we are here to honor the lives of Palestinians killed in the past 3 weeks, and those killed in the past 75 years of occupation. We know that those of us here today cannot do full justice to their memories, and that each person was a whole universe, and that innumerable universes have been destroyed. Our die-in today is one small attempt to honor the martyrs of Palestine and to express our love and support for the self-determination of Palestinian people. To the Palestinian people, we say: we see your suffering and we refuse to look away. We know that Israel will never succeed, and that Palestinian resistance will continue until liberation is won. We commit to acting in every way we can to stop the gears of the U.S. war machine. We know that our causes are linked - that Palestinian liberation is intricately tied to the liberation of all oppressed peoples. We believe, with our hearts, our bodies, and our souls, in a future where Palestine will be free.”