More than 1,000 of New England’s top academics have signed onto a letter in which they plead with their elected representatives to support an end to the violence in the Gaza Strip and warn of the potentially genocidal consequences of continued conflict.
The letter, which began circulating last week and passed the 1,000-signers mark in less than 72 hours, calls for an immediate end to violence and the establishment of an independent commission tasked with investigating whether or not war crimes were committed in Israel and Palestine in the weeks since the war began.
The cries for an end to the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip comes as the war between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas enters its third month, the civilian death toll continues to climb, and water, food, electricity, and medical supplies run short for cornered Palestinians.
“The devastation of Gaza by Israel violates the norms of war, not to mention the many international agreements intended to ensure protection of civilians. This human catastrophe must stop and the US should take action,” Mary Bassett, a professor of human rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and letter signatory, said with the letter’s public release.
The letter, made public Wednesday after delivery to U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Christopher Murphy , D-Conn., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Ed Markey, D-Mass., Susan Collins, R-Maine, Angus King, I-Maine, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., calls for a “permanent ceasefire in Israel-Palestine” and an end to Israel’s “siege” of the Gaza strip.
It goes on to warn that if action isn’t taken to stop the war, the U.S. government could soon stand complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people.
“We also write to emphasize — and for the record, to forewarn — that Palestinians face the prospect of ethnic cleansing and exponentially increased mass deaths in the coming days now that the Israeli government has resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip,” the letter reads, in part.
On Oct. 7, with little apparent warning, terrorists entered Israel from the Gaza Strip under the cover of a prolonged rocket barrage. After crossing the border the terrorists were able to kill indiscriminately for hours before the IDF managed to push them back into Gaza, but not before hundreds of Israelis were taken hostage and spirited into Hamas-controlled territory.
Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took captive some 240 men, women and children in that attack.
Since the war started, some of the hostages have been released, many in exchange for imprisoned Palestinians. More than 130 remain in captivity, including infants and the elderly.
Israel responded to the attack by declaring war on the terrorist organization. The air and ground campaign which followed has claimed more than 15,000 Palestinian lives and left many thousands more injured, according to Hamas. Those figures have not been independently verified.
According to the academics, there must be another path forward that does not result in the genocide of the Palestinian people.
“The letter demonstrates the depth of scholarly support for a permanent ceasefire and for a political, rather than a military, resolution in Palestine-Israel,” said Omnia El Shakry, Professor of History at Yale University, and letter signatory. “It also illustrates the extent to which the lack of such support in the Senate is grossly incongruous with the demands of larger constituencies – whether on New England college campuses or in cities nationwide.”
An Israeli Defense Force official, speaking with the Herald on background, recently described such calls for ceasefire as a “misunderstanding” of the brutality visited on Israel by the terrorists, who are in near-complete control of Gaza.
The IDF does not deliberately target civilians, the official said, but Hamas purposefully places themselves behind civilians, using women and children as shields.
An end to violence will require a “holistic” solution in Gaza, the official said, but that cannot occur until the ideology of Hamas — which calls for the unequivocal end to Israel and the deaths of its people as a matter of policy — is rooted out of the minds of the Palestinian population.
“It’s not only to dismantle Hamas’ military capabilities, but also dismantling the whole Hamas ideology and control of the people,” the official said. “That is something that needs to be rooted out in order to create a generation that will be looking for peace, that will be looking for better neighbors and collaboration. That is something that we, Israel, and we the world, need to focus on. Dismantling Hamas is part of a greater plan to create that future.”