By Jaylin Jones
Last year, on October 7, Israel was attacked by a terrorist group named Hamas. During the attack, over 1200 people were killed, and over 250 people were taken as hostages and brought back to Gaza. For many people like myself, this was seen as an unprovoked and unjust act of terror, but upon doing more research, you will see that there is a much deeper cause to that violent attack that occurred on that day.
To make a long story short, there has been a conflict between the states of Palestine and Israel since 1948, the conflict stems from the distribution of land between the two countries. Israel wants to claim land to ensure a Jewish homeland for their people but a section of that land is shared by Palestinian people who also claim that space to be their home country.
Over the years, Israel has claimed more and more of the land from the Palestinians through their military, which has participated in an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Many homes and buildings were destroyed in order to create new land for Israeli settlers to claim as their own. Through this process of destruction and death, there were Palestinian people who became radicalized and began to feel that they had to defend themselves from the violence that was happening to them and their families, which birthed groups like Hamas.
Many people are split between the opinion that Palestinians deserve the right to their own land without it being infringed upon and the idea that Israel is the rightful owner of that land and they should be able to claim as much as they please. I myself believe that the people of Palestine deserve to have their own country, including the part of land that was taken from them in the past.
With the United States being a strong supporter of Israel we are directly supporting their actions by funding an ethnic cleansing, and I believe that we need to stop immediately.
According to an article from PBS News, since the attack on October 7 last year, the United States has sent over 17.9 billion dollars in military aid to Israel. This amount of financial support for a country that is violently destroying homes and taking the lives of innocent people should never be allowed to happen. Reporters from inside Gaza have witnessed various unjust actions from the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), such as the rape and murder of civilians or the continued bombing of hospitals. I think that if the people can recognize that the “retaliation” coming from Israel is actually just an excuse to remove non-Israeli people from the area, the United States should be able to recognize it as well. Recently the United Nations has come out and accused Israel of committing the “crime of extermination” and with this new statement from them I believe this should be the perfect time for the United States to officially sever its connection with Israel.
After every violent and unnecessary action that the US has allowed and encouraged, now should be the time to put an end to it. In a recent discovery from journalist Bob Woodward he gives an inside look at what President Joe Biden thinks of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in charge of the damage being done in Gaza. He said, “That son of a b---h, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad f---ing guy!” With this recognition from the UN and President Joe Biden’s statements I firmly believe that we should no longer align ourselves with Israel.
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