"Where is Our Humanity?" protesters at AIPAC Headquarters

Washington, DC --- On Friday March 29, 2023 around 4pm, a small group of protesters, Truth About Palestine, arrived at AIPAC headquarters in Washington, D.C.

They placed a variety of plastic jugs filled with reddish colored water, symbolizing the loss of life and tainted livelihoods. They marched in front of the entrance, some carrying a Palestinian flag or draped about the shoulders. Soon enough, police arrived and blocked off half of the street, while one told the protesters that they must put their flags away.

Asked why they would chose the AIPAC headquarters for the end line of the march, one is confronted with the question, "Why is the Israel lobby the most powerful and pernicious of all foreign state lobbies influencing the United States, intruding into the lives of government officials, and indeed, increasingly into the lives of average Americans?"

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most prominent governmental lobbying organization working on behalf of Israel, one among hundreds of pro-Israel pressure groups inside the United States. It is heavily endowed and it is often by their recommendations on voting that U.S. legislators are either made or broken. The U.S. must back Israel's new war on Gaza, and promote the destruction of terror cells, no matter the spread of regional war or the loss of life.

Truth About Palestine states: "Many leaders in this country are rightly calling 1,000 Israeli lives lost on 7 October what it is --- an unacceptable tragedy. We now ask: how many Palestinian lives are also an unacceptable tragedy?"

"We are witnessing atrocities against Palestinian children and innocent civilians in Gaza. Please don't let this be our legacy. We need your help to save lives. You have a role to play. The US is funding, supporting and enabling these atrocities with your $."

What kind of atrocities are happening as of the last day of 2023?

Genocide by the numbers, a live tracker from TruthAboutPalestine.com, lists as of December 31, 2023:

"29,124 Palestinians killed to date; additionally 58,368 injured (at least 75% women and children); and 1,920,000 Gaza residents made homeless...50,000 pregnant women unable to obtain basic health services...53,000 explosives dropped (3 times more than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb and more than any amount used to bomb any European city during WWII)"

"What is happening in Palestine can no longer be described as genocide or even ethnic cleansing. It is beyond mass extinction---it is total erasure." -- Imam Omar Suleiman

The demonstrators desire an end to the collective punishment and suffering of the Palestinian people. Truth urges us to consider our ethical and moral obligations to protect humanity. They believe that what is happening in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank is collective punishment, a war crime and crimes against humanity.

What kinds of interventions can happen now? Isn't it too late?

No, it is not. All the U.S. has to do is order a comprehensive humanitarian ceasefire otherwise end all support for Israel. It should have happened except the Israeli lobby, enmeshed in the daily affairs of Congress, has its enablers and cooperators sprinkled about the legislative arms of government and the executive office.

Here are some of the interventions suggested by TruthAboutPalestine:

*Immediate and permanent ceasefire: Every moment we delay, innocent lives are at stake. How many lives is too many?

*Reinstate vital resources: People are thirsty and hungry. This is inhumane. Diseases spreading with no medication, shelter, water or sanitation

*Allow in life-saving humanitarian aid: Urgent aid, medical supplies and resources are needed to alleviate the suffering of 2.2 million human lives

*International oversight now: Engage global watchdogs & human rights organizations. Solutions for lasting peace are needed. We need to solve the root cause: apartheid & illegal occupation

*End US military support to Israel: American taxpayer dollars are funding and enabling war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity

TruthAboutPalestine.com also states you can take further action by calling your elected officials to demand a ceasefire now and to demand that the US stops funding Israel's war crimes.

The police were not there for more than an hour when the group began to break up for the day. Although the protesters rang the doorbell to enter the lobby, nobody opened the door. Fortunately the police were not behaving like in Israel, where the protesters might be beaten, arrested, stripped of their clothes, paraded about the streets in their underclothes, and held up as sample terrorists. Inside the jail, they would also likely suffer starvation and all kinds of abuse for an indefinite period of time.