On November 15, 2024, members of the Downtown Berrigan Collective, based in Ithaca, NY, and other upstate peace activists went to the Syracuse Federal Building to demand access to the offices of our US Senators Schumer and Gillibrand in order to exercise our right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. We wished to impress upon them the urgency of cutting off offensive weapons for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples. When we were denied access we staged a sit-in in the security checkpoint area of the building. We were eventually dragged out of the building by Federal Marshals, and we continued our action outside the doors. One of us, Ellen Grady, was arrested by the Federal Department of Homeland Security Police.
The Senate will vote this week on blocking $20 billion in weapons to Israel.
Here is our statement:
No More Weapons to Israel! Stop Arming Genocide!
Israel has repeatedly and systematically targeted civilians in Gaza using US-supplied weapons, destroying civilian infrastructure including homes, schools and universities, hospitals, mosques and churches, and temporary shelters in so-called “safe zones” in Gaza. In addition, Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war, alongside its denial of water, electricity, and medical supplies, constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law. Now, expanding its relentless bombardment, it has killed more than 2,400 Lebanese people, carrying out massacres and mass forced displacement in Lebanon, and dragging the entire region into full-blown war. It is against US law to send a single weapon to any country grossly violating human rights. 61% of Americans say they want to cut off weapons to Israel. Our tax dollars must not be used for another illegal, immoral weapon giveaway to Israel! For the first time in U.S. history, there will be a vote in Congress to block weapons to Israel. Senators Bernie Sanders (VT), Peter Welch (VT), Jeff Merkley (OR), and Brian Schatz (HI) have introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to stop a $20 billion weapons shipment approved by the Biden administration.
We have come to the James M. Hanley Federal Building today to urge, even implore, New York’s US Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to support the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval that would block the sale of offensive U.S. weaponry to Israel. The vote on these resolutions is imminent. The JRD is the only mechanism available to Congress to prevent these arms sales and we believe it is the Senators’ legal and moral imperative to support and vote for the resolutions.
