While we campaigned, weekly for American civilian hostages to be brought home, watched the “journalists, medics and schoolteachers” who were holding them in their homes in Gaza kill them one at a time, and even when we celebrated the release of the last American survivor on Friday…
Conversations were taking place here, to try to build official cultural and material ties to Hamas, the ONLY governing body in Gaza City, so my hard-earned tax dollars could be funneled to an organization that was killing Americans. The same tactics were used to disrupt and undermine this most sacred of institutions that were used when Jewish students were assaulted at Cal Poly, local private businesses were vandalized and shut down, and their owners were falsely accused of being part of a secret… Zionist conspiracy, just because they were Jewish.
Gaza city – portrayed as practically uninhabitable after supposedly being bombed to rubble – currently has sister city relationships with 17 cities in 14 countries including Iran and Turkey – while Rikuzentakata, Crescent City’s sister in Japan, has one. All coordinated by Mohammed Al’Shaqra, the Redwood Peace and Justice Coalition’s personal direct contact within the Palestinian Authority.
So where is the money really going? A large percentage of Hamas’ budget comes from charity, especially now that the annual Billion from Obama, Trump and Biden were quietly paused after October 7th – you were right about one thing: we are all complicit.
What would Arcata do with a billion dollars a year? Gaza used it to buy tens of thousands of rockets, motorized hang gliders, and go-pro’s to live-stream their war crimes – war crimes the RPJC denies took place – and the hundreds of miles of terror tunnels where they tortured holocaust survivors to death while their own people starved.
Don’t allow hate groups like the RPJC to intimidate you into submission with their gas-lighting, victim-blaming conspiracy theories or create an impression that the majority of us here in Humboldt County don’t believe Israel has a right to defend itself against the currently, on-going invasion of its sovereign territory. We do – and this member of the silent majority will no longer remain silent.