Say ‘Stop Arming Israel’
By Jessica Corbett
As the Israeli assault of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon continued on Monday, over 200 Jewish-led protesters, including descendants of Holocaust survivors, were arrested at the New York Stock Exchange while demanding that the United States “stop arming Israel and profiting from genocide.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—which has led several anti-genocide protests across the country over the past year of war—said that hundreds of people joined the action in New York City. The advocacy group shared photos and videos on social media of participants in red T-shirts with messages including “Not in Our Name” and “Stop Arming Israel.”
They sat in rows outside the iconic NYC building with banners that said, “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel,” “Arms Embargo Now,” “Jews Say Divest From Israel,” “Gaza Bombed, Wall Street Boomed,” and “Fund FEMA Not Genocide,” a reference to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responding to damage from hurricanes in the Southeast.
As NBC News journalist Rob Wile reported:
Approximately 500 individuals representing Jewish Voices for Peace, a Jewish-led pro-Palestinian group, arrived at the exchange at 85 Broad St. as part of an “unscheduled protest” just before the stock market’s official 9:30 a.m. opening, according to a New York Police Department spokesperson.
A total of 206 arrests were made, the spokesperson said. An NYSE representative said at least one person had handcuffed himself between an interior and exterior door.
JVP, which said that over 200 people were arrested, posted footage of multiple protesters in red shirts chained to a door and a fence and of officers carrying away demonstrators. The group said that “police are dragging Jewish protesters by their arms and legs as they refuse to leave the global epicenter of capital on Wall Street.”
“As Gaza is bombed, Wall Street booms,” the group said. “The stock prices of weapons manufacturers have skyrocketed this year. The U.S. war economy is profiting from genocide. The 50+ members of Congress who invest in arms companies get richer every day.”
As Common Dreams has reported, stocks of American war profiteers—including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon—soared in response to Israel launching its assault on Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack as well as earlier this month, after Israeli forces began a ground invasion of Lebanon and Iran fired off ballistic missiles.
“Remember that members of Congress are permitted to own stock in war manufacturing, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally,” U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said in early October.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, has introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act, which would prohibit federal lawmakers along with their spouses and dependent children from trading defense stocks or having financial interests in companies that do business with the U.S. Department of Defense.
“Politicians should not be allowed to profit from genocide,” said MacArthur fellow Ros Petchesky, an 82-year-old JVP member who was active in the movement to end the war in Vietnam, and the oldest person chained to the Wall Street gates on Monday. “There can be no business as usual while the U.S. arms Israel and profits from genocide. We’re here to demand an arms embargo now.”
Israeli forces—armed by the U.S. government—are “massacring family after family in North Gaza in a war of extermination,” JVP said Monday. “On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, the Israeli military carried out a mass extermination in North Gaza, raining down bombs on refugee camps and school shelters. They are still massacring family after family now.”
The Israeli attacks on al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and multiple refugee camps in just the past two days have slaughtered dozens of Palestinians and wounded many more. Since last October, at least 42,289 have been killed and 98,684 others have been injured, though thousands more remain missing. Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
U.S. President Joe Biden “wants us to believe that his $18 billion slush fund this year for the Israeli government is for ‘Jewish safety,’” JVP declared. “As Jews, we reject this myth with every fiber of our beings. We refuse to let our traditions, histories, and identities be used to massacre Palestinians.”
“This Indigenous Peoples Day,” the group added, “we pay homage to the movements that have fought against genocides Wall Street has always profited from, since its founding as a market of enslaved people kidnapped from Africa by settlers who carried out genocide against Indigenous people.”
Jessica Corbett is senior editor for Common Dreams.
Source: commondreams.org, October 14, 2024.