Neighbor News
Maryland Abets the Slaughter in Gaza. Target: Women & Children
Federal tax dollars from Marylanders. A MD-state-tax-dollar giveaway to Israel. War profiteering. We're all partners in these war crimes.
Is the U.S.-Israeli slaughter of civilians in Gaza a matter of concern for the Maryland legislature? Or is it a topic that’s proper only for the federal government?
In March 2024, House Rules Committee Chair Anne Healey (Dem., Dist 22) gave the wrong answer. She decided not bring HJ0002 “House Joint Resolution for Ceasefire” to a vote despite overwhelming support and calls from constituents across the state supporting the resolution. She asserted that this was not a topic for state government.
Here are a few reasons why Delegate Healey is wrong:
Find out what's happening in Gaithersburgfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
* Marylanders pay about $80,000,000 in federal taxes each year to Israel so that Israel can buy weapons from U.S. corporations to uphold its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and enforce the 17-year siege of Gaza. That’s $80 million of public wealth, each year, that could have been used for schools, housing, health, and infrastructure.
* Marylanders pay $275,000 in state taxes each year to the so-called “Maryland-Israel Development Center” (MIDC), which brokers partnerships with Israeli arms & tech corporations and with the Israeli government itself. (Montgomery County pays an additional $45,000 annually to MIDC). It’s weird. We don’t have a similar Maryland economic development center for Brazil, Haiti, Korea, Canada, or Andorra. Why are we lavishing state tax dollars on this wealthy, foreign country: Israel?
* Maryland provides a home for many of the corporations profiting from the slaughter of the people of Gaza (and the annexation of West Bank Palestinian lands). Our employment base and local tax revenue benefit from the local presence of these merchants of oppression and death, such as BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, Ford, General Dynamics, General Electric, General Motors, Hyundai, L3 Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Textron, Toyota, Valero–to name just a few. None of us are innocent in this matter.
* Marylanders sent more than 37,000 letters to state lawmakers through an action alert urging the House Rules and Executive Nominations Committee to pass the “HJ0002 Ceasefire Resolution” out of committee and onto the House floor for a vote. That was what Del. Healy’s constituents wanted her to do in March, 2024.
The resolution never moved out of the Maryland House committee. But something else is moving. There is a seismic shift in public opinion. Day after day, the world witnesses the United States and Israel committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza; for example, the collective punishment of civilians, the destruction of hospitals, the targeting of pregnant women as a means of population control, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. About 70 percent of the casualties in Gaza are women and children.
In early March, Montgomery County joined Howard and Anne Arundel Counties, to become the third Maryland county to support a ceasefire in Gaza. Across the United States, as of March 19th, local and state institutions had passed 107 ceasefire resolutions, and another 33 resolutions had been proposed.
Find out what's happening in Gaithersburgfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The majority of U.S. likely voters (55 percent and trending up) want the United States to push for a ceasefire in Gaza. They want to see humanitarian aid flooding into Gaza. And increasingly, the public is questioning U.S. policies that have supported apartheid (in Israel), occupation and annexation (in the West Bank), and the 17-year siege of Gaza. These policies fostered the violent blowback of the October 7 attack and brought us to this terrible moment today.
The U.S. government has failed its citizens, and has failed all of humanity. Corporate and billionaire big money has polluted our politics and co-opted legacy media. So we must conduct this struggle face to face, at every level, from teachers unions and town councils to county and state legislatures, and (back again) to the U.S. Congress. These government entities derive their just powers from the citizens, from the consent of the governed. We are the only ones who can end the slaughter in Gaza. Protest Now. Ceasefire Now.
Steven Sellers Lapham is a resident of Gaithersburg, Maryland
Sources (spelled out)
Note 1
Ariel Gold, Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA reports in an email:
Arrested on Good Friday
On March 29, 2024, peace protesters finished walking 20 miles (about the length of Gaza) from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to Lockheed Martin. Gathered with families and children too young to yet comprehend the horrors of war, twenty-five of us crossed onto the property of the largest weapons manufacturer in the world.
Some lay down holding a list of the over 13,000 children who have been killed since October 7, 2023. Others held a banner reading, “Lockheed Martin, you have blood on your hands.” I was the first to be taken into police custody.
I was soon joined by my Christian allies for ceasefire: Rev. Dwayne Bishop, Executive Director of Interfaith POWER; Shane Claiborne, who leads Red Letter Christians, Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, ED of Churches for Middle East Peace, Diana Oestreich, a former U.S. Army medic in Iraq, Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel, and so many more people of deep faith and conscience. Prayers were said and hopes that people in Gaza, especially Palestinian Christians there observing Good Friday, as my Christian allies were, would see our action and know they are not alone.
Since the 1970s, Lockheed Martin’s F-16 has been the Israeli Air Force’s most important fighter jet,” taking part in all of Israel’s major military assaults on Gaza. The newer Lockheed Martin F-35 is the most advanced warplane used by the Israeli Air Force. Over the past almost six months, Lockheed Martin’s fighter jets have been the instruments of death dropping bomb after bomb on Palestinian children, women, and men. As my dear friends Shane and Lisa, who I helped organize the Holy Week pilgrimage said: “As many fellow Christians bless the bombs falling on Gaza, bombs made at Lockheed Martin… we say NO, not in our name, and not in the name of our Savior. As many Christians try to defend the violence of Israel being done in planes made by Lockheed Martin, we are calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace.”
As I said at the rally before twenty-five of us were arrested, "a central teaching in Judaism is that 'to save a life is to save the world entire and this is because all of us, whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Palestinian, Israeli, or American, are created in the image of G-d. And so, when we say 'Never Again', we mean never again for anyone anywhere, EVER, and right now that is Gaza."
This war in Gaza is as much a U.S. crime as it is an Israeli crime. In fact, sixty-nine percent of the weapons, including all of the fighter jets dropping bombs, being sent to Israel, are manufactured by U.S. weapons companies, of which Lockheed Martin is the largest.
Please help support FOR continuing to do this urgent, essential, and G-d-led work to stop the killing of children, sanctioned by the U.S. government and being paid for with our tax dollars. If you feel so inclined, you can designate some or all of your donation to support Israeli conscientious objectors Tal Mitnick and Sofia Or (read my latest article about the history of conscientious objection and the importance of what 18-year-olds Tal and Sofia are doing here).
Tomorrow, as some of you observe Easter, amid the joy of resurrection and family, please take a moment to think about how, as Mary wept over Christ’s body, this Lenten season, we are all mothers in Gaza weeping over our children killed unnecessarily. We pray for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and end to all wars and violence.
Ariel Gold, Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA
(End of Note 1)
