“Sex and the City” actress Cynthia Nixon joined five US politicians this week in a hunger strike to demand President Biden call for a permanent ceasefire over the the Gaza Strip.
“None of this is normal. None of this is routine and none of this can be allowed to continue,” Nixon, 57, said at a press conference outside the White House on Monday of the estimated 14,300 Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to TIME.
Nixon – who is currently reprising her iconic role as Miranda Hobbes on the “Sex and the City” spinoff “And Just Like That…” – was previously among over 260 artists who signed an open letter calling for Biden and Congress to demand a ceasefire, the outlet noted.
The flame-haired former New York State gubernatorial candidate will take part in the five-day hunger strike for two days before she returns to New York for work commitments, she said Monday.
“We are here hunger-striking just to sort of mirror to Biden the kind of deprivation that is happening in Gaza and how he has it within his power to make a ceasefire happen,” Nixon told reporters on Monday, per the Times of Israel.
Nixon also noted that she is the mother of two Jewish children whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors, SkyNews said.
“I have been asked by my son to use any voice I have to affirm as loudly as possible that never again means never again for everyone,” she explained.
“In seven weeks Israel has killed more civilians on a tiny strip of land than was killed in 20 years of war in the entire country of Afghanistan.
“I am sick and tired of people explaining away by saying that civilian casualties are a routine toll of war. There is nothing routine about these figures. There is nothing routine about these deaths,” she lamented.
Nixon shares two sons with her ex-husband, Danny Mozes, who is Jewish. As of 2018, Nixon and her wife, Christine Marinoni, attended Congregation Beit Simchat Torah – the world’s largest LGBTQ+ synagogue, The Forward wrote at the time.
“I would like to make a personal plea to a president who has, himself, experienced such devastating personal loss, to connect with that empathy for which he is so well known and to look at the children of Gaza and imagine that they were his children,” the actress insisted on Monday.
Later, in a separate interview with The Guardian, Nixon slammed Biden for moving “way too slow” to save Palestinian lives.
“Let’s say there was a terrorist cell in Maryland. Would the response be to then completely bomb the civilian population because they’re hiding in a house somewhere?” she said, referring to the Israeli military’s retaliatory bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which officials say is a legitimate effort to decimate Hamas terrorists.
“It doesn’t make any sense. We just keep getting this message that Palestinian lives are of less value. Immediately when you substitute British lives or American lives or any other nationality, you immediately see that’s crazy, how could we ever?” Nixon continued.
Five politicians – Madinah Wilson-Anton of Delaware, Zohran Mamdani of New York, Mauree Turner of Oklahoma, Sam Rasoul of Virginia, and Abraham Aiyash of Michigan – are also participating in the hunger strike, TIME reported.
The core group is joined by activists and faith leaders from several communities, the outlet noted.
Wilson-Anton said she hopes the strike will “bring attention to the fact that the U.S. government, our President, and our congressional leaders are funding this policy of starvation [in the Gaza Strip.]”
“We send American taxpayer money to bomb communities in Gaza and I don’t think our president is using his leverage to the extent that he could to bring about a permanent ceasefire,” she said, according to TIME.
“We’re seeing the impact of that, which is no food, no water.”
The protest was organized and endorsed by Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the Adalah Justice Project, Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Dream Defenders, Democratic Socialists of America, Institute for Middle East Understanding and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, The Guardian reported.
The hunger strike was timed in part to coincide with the initial four-day ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel – which saw the terror group release at least 51 of the hostages it has been holding in Gaza since Oct. 7.
In exchange, Israel has returned 117 of the 150 Palestinian prisoners it said it would free as part of the deal, SkyNews explained.
On Monday, officials announced that the ceasefire would be extended for two additional days.