(Photograph: Jen Rocha)
100+ Californians rally outside, call on Senator Padilla to reject any additional military aid to Israel
The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today joined over 50 Californians, including mothers, immigrant rights advocates, union members, clergy members, and Jewish youth and elders at a sit-in at Senator Alex Padilla’s downtown San Francisco office building urging the Senator to reject any additional military aid to Israel.
Inside the lobby, protestors held banners that read, “Padilla: Stop Funding Genocide.” Meanwhile, a crowd of over 100 people rallied outside, holding picket signs that include the names and faces of Palestinian men, women and children killed by Israel, framed by flowers of grief and mourning.
“For 67 days, Senator Padilla has been silent while the Biden administration sends bombs, weapons and billions of our tax dollars to kill Palestinian children,” said Gala King with Mamas for a Free Palestine and the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. “When we watch the footage from Gaza, we see our own cousins, uncles, grandmothers in the faces of those fleeing for their lives. When we see babies lifted out of the wreckage, we hear our own children crying. As parents, as children of immigrants, as people of faith, we’re here to tell Senator Padilla and all sitting senators to stand with the majority of the American public and stop the funding, sanctioning and supporting this genocide.”
The Israeli military has killed over 17,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 9,000 children. Israeli airstrikes have targeted hospitals, schools, markets, and refugee camps, killing 60 journalists, over 100 United Nations aid workers, and over 250 healthcare workers.
According to a recent poll, 66 percent of all Americans and over 80 percent of Democrats support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“We refuse to stand by as California senators let this genocide happen on their watch and with our tax dollars. Californians want our tax dollars to be used for public schools, healthcare and good union jobs, not bombs and weapons that kill Palestinian families,” said Satchel Forrester, staff organizer with Unite Here Local 2 and representative of If Not Now Bay Area. “As Jewish Californians, as workers, as staffers of the unions that helped to get Democrats elected, we’re rallying in this final week of the congressional session to reject these cruel, racist demands. We didn’t vote for genocide, and we’ll keep coming back until Padilla and every senator listens to their constituents.”
This weekend, the Biden administration used an emergency declaration to bypass Congress and approve the sale of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106 million as Israel intensifies its military operations in the southern Gaza Strip.
President Biden is requesting that the Senate approve an additional $14 billion in military aid to Israel as part of a funding package that also includes $7.8 billion in funds for further militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“A ceasefire is the bare minimum to acknowledge the worth, dignity and shared humanity of Palestinians. Many faith traditions are united by a moral principle that human life is sacred and that we as people of faith have a duty to prevent harm,” said Reverend Ranwa Hammamy, Unitarian Universalist and Muslim faith leader. “We urge Senator Padilla, as our elected representative, to stand with us in preventing harm by calling for a ceasefire and rejecting US aid to Israel.”
In California this morning, dozens gathered in a coordinated action outside Senator Padilla’s Sacramento office, calling on the Senator to declare a ceasefire and reject additional military funding to Israel.
“Today’s sit-ins and rallies are a testament to the urgency with which we demand an end to Israel’s reign of violence on innocent Palestinian civilians and U.S. complicity in the genocide,” said CAIR San Francisco Bay Area Executive Director Zahra Billoo. “Senator Padilla continues to repeat Israel’s insistence that it has the right to defend itself. No person of conscience should accept this rhetoric—particularly as Israel commits its war crimes and atrocities in full view for the world to witness. We call on Senator Padilla to take a principled stand and demand an end to the U.S. subsidy of Israel’s egregious, illegal war.”
Across the country, people are also holding sit-ins and rallies at senate offices to call for a permanent ceasefire and an end to U.S. military funding to Israel. In Washington, D.C., over a hundred people held a protest at the Senate Hart Office Building to oppose the funding package and call for reinvestments in critical public services.
