Friday, November 10, 2023 – CPR Action Fund joins the global demand for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid in Gaza, and the release of all hostages. With millions across the world, we mourn the devastating loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives in recent weeks. As an organization working to end police violence, we believe that safety and security can only be achieved by ensuring the basic needs and fundamental human rights of all people. The Israeli government’s actions to cut off water, food, electricity, fuel, and medicine to Palestinians, alongside weeks of intensive and catastrophic Israeli airstrikes, has lead many of us around the world to fear that a genocide is imminent.
An escalation of violence is not the answer to the devastating attacks of October 7, 2023. For decades, the Israeli occupation of Gaza, which the US government has backed unequivocally, has trapped over 2 million Palestinians in an area that has been described as “an open air prison,” restricting their movements, including their right to education and work.
From New York to Palestine and around the world, all forms of state violence are a systematic means to uphold a status quo of gross inequality and oppression. We staunchly defend human rights everywhere and denounce state-sanctioned attacks against civilians, including the increased police aggression and violence against protestors we have experienced here in New York, in particular at recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
We further denounce anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and antisemitic violence, the surge in local incidents undoubtedly connected to the dangerous rhetoric of US officials and the international corporate media. We stand with all those who are being targeted in our communities at a time when we should all be unifying our voices for peace.
Many of our partners and allies – including the Arab American Association of New York, DRUM, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Center for Constitutional Rights, MPower Change, Center for Popular Democracy, Middle Collegiate Church, Working Families Party, and many more – have been on the frontlines of organizing protests, teach-ins, vigils, and direct actions to condemn the deadly violence against civilians, to demand an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, access to humanitarian aid, and an end to the occupation of Palestine. Several organizations are also leading rapid response work to directly support local communities being targeted by Islamophobic and antisemitic violence, and building community-based, non-police anti-violence interventions.
We will continue to follow our many partners and allies who are leading efforts to respond to this mounting crisis with power, political and moral clarity, and hope. We urge you to support their work and take action to demand an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid for Gaza.
With love and solidarity,
CPR Action