On Israel as a model police state and its war against its equivalent of our poor blacks

Less policing and militarism in America is directly linked to less of these things in Palestine and Israel.

These things are closely related: the eviction of people from their homes and the maintenance of a military police state at war against the poor in their midst (and intolerant of dissidents --- ask me about this, I know what it's like to be targeted by them and for this reason, as it happened to me too).

This is the most compelling reason for wanting to end the war that Israel and Hamas are now fighting for the benefit of their governments, their arms manufacturers, and the capitalist police state that exists everywhere in different local colors and forms.

In Israel and Gaza, two governments based on intolerance and militarism are now at war against each other's populations, bringing benefits to both groups of leaders, and further harm to both populations.

Israel's code name for the war it has now proclaimed will be a protracted one, "Defender of the Walls," might be almost ironic: It is not the Wailing Wall on the site of monuments to both religions that they are defending so much as the wall separating Israel from the territories under its military occupation, and the encirclement of Gaza that keeps its residents poor and living in a kind of camp. Israel is an armed camp protecting a wealthy society against its poor neighbors.

Israel uses the excuse of the fear of violent attacks by poor people to defend its militarism, much as the racist right wing in America uses fears of violence by poor blacks to justify our militarized police state.

Both sides have reflexively moved to escalate this conflict. Israel provoked it with its seizure of the homes of Palestinians in a part of the land where many of them still live. Israel's government pursues a politics of ethnic cleansing.

America's government and the world should say no to this. The United States government should stop funding Israel's army and police forces.

What interest do we Americans have in this?

Don't tell me it's because we side with "the Jews." How do Jews benefit from the transformation of a national liberation movement that existed before 1948, into a state based on the permanent war of an armed camp against a national liberation movement in their midst?

I will give you one reason why we do not have an interest in this domination. The Czech writer Milan Kundera, who likes Israel and considers himself a friend of the Jewish people, noted on receiving the Jerusalem Prize for literature some years ago that in France today there are 17 times as many writers per capita as in Israel. The reason is that Israel is a state based on permanent war and most young people do not go to a university but only serve in the army. Israel is a rich country kept spiritually poor by its leaders' need for constant war.

President Biden should try to broker a peace and demand absolutely an end to all settlements and seizures of homes and evictions of their residents.

I know about this. I am a tenant activist here in New York, where I live in a poor black community.

The people mostly want to live in their homes and live their lives, going on as they do. The leaders want to exercise power and use it to accomplish their ends, changing the world in some ways by doing so, changes that may be for the better. Now the leaders want war, but the American people have an interest if only ideological in peace.

Many Americans will gain from having less of a police state, and many now want this. We have President Biden's attention and ear for demands related to this to some extent, as with the previous president we did not. Less policing and militarism in America is directly linked to less of these things in Palestine and Israel.