by Michael Sukhov
As I sat down to my morning coffee and paper today I was again greeted with the news
that the Israeli military continues to slaughter innocent civilians in the West Bank, Gaza,
and Lebanon. None of this would be possible without U.S.-manufactured and supplied
bombs, drones, and other weapons that our government continues to provide to the
Israel “Defense” Forces (IDF), in violation of both U.S. and international law. (See
“Biden’s Gaza,” truthout.org, May 26, 2024).
As a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, I lived through the unspeakable
horror of U.S.-funded acts of genocide against the Vietnamese people. So I can no
longer remain silent while our government continues to aid and abet acts of genocide by
Israel and the IDF against civilians in the Middle East, which have resulted in the
murder of more than 42,000 Palestinian men, women, and children since October 7, 2023.
(Watson Institute, “Costs of War” project, “United States Spending on Israel’s Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region, October 7, 2023 – September 30, 2024,” https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers.) More than 900 Palestinian medical workers have been killed by the Israeli military during this same
period, including at least 165 doctors and 260 nurses. (Middle East Eye, “Nearly 1,000
Palestinian health workers killed by Israeli forces in Gaza named,” September 17 th ,
2024, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nearly-1000-palestinian-health-workers-
killed-israeli-forces-gaza-named.) In addition, according to the Lebanese Health
Ministry, Israel’s airstrikes on Lebanon over the same period of time have killed 2,865
people so far and injured 13,047 people since the conflict began in October 2023, as well as the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of others.As a Hawai’i Green Party member and a person of conscience, I am committed to the protection and preservation of human and all other forms of sentient life on this planet, as well as to peace, non-violence, authentic, grassroots democracy, and social justice.
In view of the IDF’s ongoing atrocities, I cannot vote for the Harris-Walz ticket in next
Tuesday’s Presidential election. Ms. Harris not only has publicly refused to support calls
for an arms embargo against Israel – which is required by Congressional statute and
international humanitarian law – on the contrary, she has promised to continuing flouting
these laws by continuing the Biden-Harris administration’s policy of ongoing, open-
ended military support for Israel in its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian (and
now Lebanese) people.
Well before Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Biden-Harris
administration already had been providing billions of dollars annually in military aid to
Israel. This lethal aid has been used to maintain Israel as an apartheid state, and to
keep Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in what amounts to an open-air prison,
under brutal and inhumane conditions. Meanwhile, substantial numbers of American
citizens continue to suffer from lack of adequate income, medical care, and nutrition, as
well as access to an affordable, quality education. At the same time, only a fraction of
the annual U.S. military budget – likely less than one percent – would be needed to eliminate hunger and malnutrition in the United States. (“How much does the US spend on the military?,” August 1, 2024, https://usafacts.org.)
As members of the Green Party, we strongly contest the fallacious claim, continually
being propagated by the Democratic Party, that voting for the Stein-Ware ticket means
voting for Donald Trump. This specious “lesser of two evils” argument has been used
by the Democratic Party virtually every four years for decades, going back at least to the
early years of the last century. In our view, no appeal to this “lesser of two evils” canard
can justify voting for Kamala Harris in the midst of Israel’s ongoing genocide in the
Middle East, which she apparently supports.
The so-called “Democratic” Party, through its continuing efforts to marginalize, discredit,
and spread false and misleading information about Jill Stein and the Green Party,
continues to demonstrate – in its foreign policy as well as in its domestic political
behavior – that it certainly is not democratic in any meaningful sense of the term. Vote
Stein/Ware for President/Vice President in 2024!
Michael J. Sukhov is a sociologist, media journalist and educator who lives in Honolulu. He currently is a research associate at the University of Hawai’i West O’ahu, and an Affiliate Faculty member at the University of Washington at Tacoma. He enjoys teaching, writing, singing, dancing, playing guitar and harmonica, and the wonderful sunshine and aloha of these islands. Mike is a member, Green Party of Hawai’i and Jewish Voice for Peace, Hawai’i*