Palestine

Faith leaders from across Greater Boston sang and prayed for peace in Copley Square recently, joining a chorus of religious leaders nationwide who have been pushing for an end to the bombings in Gaza that have cost thousands of innocent lives.

What happened to Israel on Oct. 7 was an unspeakable tragedy, and there is no justification for it. What happened in Gaza since then is also unacceptable. The loss of civilian lives is inexcusable and not justified, as either a resistance to oppression, as Hamas claims, or the right of self-defense, as the Israel Defense Forces contends.

After a summer marked by land expropriation in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, the bombardment of Gaza, shootings and detention of Palestinian children and growing international outrage at the occupation of Palestinian land, a group of local Palestinian activists is calling on the Massachusetts congressional delegation to take a hard stand against Israel.

As of May 18, 212 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s latest air raids. More than 58 of those killed were children. This blood is on American hands. The US finances the Israeli military with a colossal $3.8 billion annually — and that’s just direct funding.

Likening the Israeli government’s repression of nonviolent protests over the displacement of Palestinian families from occupied East Jerusalem to police brutality in the U.S., Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Thursday made a case for conditioning America’s $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel to its compliance with international human rights laws.

Once a month, a group of protestors demonstrates in front of the Somerville headquarters of the sports equipment manufacturer Puma to protest the corporation’s involvement in the Israeli Football Association — an organization activists say contributes to an apartheid system in Israel and the Palestinian territories it occupies.