As I write this, Israel is forcibly emptying Palestinians from the last shelters in Beit Lahia, at gunpoint, in scenes reminiscent of those my family endured during Hitler’s Holocaust. Gaza now has the largest population of child amputees per capita in the world. Many are losing limbs and undergoing surgery without even anesthesia, much less pain medicine. As of today, Israel has killed 192 journalists and well over a thousand health care workers. Israel is systematically starving Gazans to death by denying humanitarian aid.

The U.N. Human Rights Office notes that children make up the single largest group of people killed by Israel. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that Israel had killed at least 2,100 babies and toddlers age 0-2 years in just the first 10 months of the genocide. Doctors from medical aid organizations break down in tears describing constantly seeing kids shot in the head and chest by Israeli soldiers. The World Health Organization reports that 90% of Gaza’s population is living in tents. Over 1,400 Gaza families have been completely wiped out – not a single person left in the registry.

I cite these facts in response to every person who has written to this paper decrying the principled decisions of Portland and Belfast city councilors who voted for their cities to divest all funds from entities complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, including all entities assisting Israel in the oppression of Palestinian people.

Using boilerplate arguments, these individuals cite age-old Zionist claims that attempt to justify the ethnic cleansing of non-Jews by hijacking Hitler’s Holocaust, which Israel’s founders clearly stated was a boon to the creation of their Jewish state. They prefer to forget that Jews were not Hitler’s only victims. Today, the Anti-Defamation League claims a 200% increase in “antisemitic incidents” while most of those “incidents” are protests calling for an end to Israel’s genocide on Gaza and calls for Palestinian liberation. Genuine antisemitic incidents are carried out by right-wing white supremacists, not by those of us carrying Palestinian flags.

Palestinians have a right under international law to use armed struggle in their fight for liberation. Israel, as the occupying force, does not have a right to “self-defense.”

When Israel’s founders accepted the U.N. partition plan in 1947, they made no secret of their intention to expand beyond those borders, despite the plan giving the minority Jews a disproportionately large chunk of Palestine. Since 1967, Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Palestinians inside “’48 Israel” are barred from using 93% of the land under property laws, and they are treated as second-class citizens based on their not being Jews.

In occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces terrorize Palestinians with night raids, home demolitions and sexual assault. Gaza has been under siege for nearly two decades. Israel controls access to all of life’s necessities. Children’s ages are often counted by how many wars they have lived through. Over 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, with over 3,400 held indefinitely without charge or trial in administrative detention. These numbers do not include those Gazans kidnapped, detained and tortured during the last 14 months.

This is not an “Israel-Hamas war.” This is genocide perpetrated by Israel, with our U.S. tax dollars, against people struggling for freedom, peace and liberation. A “two-state solution” is not possible and suggesting it is disingenuous, because Israel has carved up the West Bank with apartheid walls and illegal settlements, cutting Palestinian farmers off from their land, usurping water and isolating villages from each other, while Gaza, now in ruins, is completely separated.

Israel intends to take over the rest of the West Bank and northern Gaza. Neither Democrat nor Republican leaders have a problem with this. I resent Zionists claiming to speak for all Jews, using Hitler’s Holocaust to justify Israel’s crimes against humanity.

This is not complicated. Portland and Belfast city councilors looked at the facts and voted with their consciences. They deserve our support.