>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNX8BudGX2A
>
>
>
>
> *Local News *
>
> News
>
>
> *Activists gather in San Jose to call for end to funds for Israel*
>
> ‘What is happening in Gaza is undeniable and unconscionable,’ said Salem
> Ajluni, a board member of Human Agenda
>
> [image: Supporters hold signs as they listen to a speaker at a press
> conference organized by the Solidarity & Unity Network about Gaza outside
> of the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown
> San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News
> Group)]
>
> Supporters hold signs as they listen to a speaker at a press conference
> organized by the Solidarity & Unity Network about Gaza outside of the
> Robert F. Peckham Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown San
> Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News
> Group)
>
> [image: Caelyn Pender is a Bay Area News Group reporter]
>
> By *Caelyn Pender* |
> cpender@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
>
> UPDATED: August 20, 2025 at 5:58 PM PDT
>
> SAN JOSE — Community leaders and activists gathered Wednesday outside the
> Robert F. Peckham Federal Building to call on the United States government
> to stop sending funds to Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas.
>
> The protest and press conference was hosted by the Solidarity and Unity
> Network, a network of 24 nonprofits in the Santa Clara Valley. Ahead of the
> speakers, a group of a dozen protestors walked in circles holding signs
> reading “Help end genocide act now!!” and “Stop U.S. military aid to
> Israel.”
>
> “What is happening in Gaza is undeniable and unconscionable,” said Salem
> Ajluni, a board member of Human Agenda, one of the groups represented. “For
> more than 22 months, Israel has subjected Gaza to some of the most
> intensive bombing and siege ever inflicted on a civilian population.”
>
> The group called on the U.S. government to halt funding for the Israeli
> military and for local elected officials to “do their parts in ending U.S.
> material and political support for Israeli crimes,” Ajluni said. They also
> called on media organizations to “fulfill their public interest function”
> by “highlighting and challenging those directly and indirectly complicit in
> crimes against humanity in Palestine.”
>
> “Silence on this matter, especially on the part of those with the power to
> stop Israel’s siege and starvation, is tantamount to complicity,” Ajluni
> said.
>
> Ajluni also read a message from State Assemblymember Alex Lee: “The
> genocide and war crimes inflicted on Gaza by the war regime of Israel is
> horrendous.”
>
> Celeste Walker, district director for Assemblymember Ash Kalra, read a
> statement on his behalf, calling the war in Gaza the “greatest
> brutalization of children that any generation has seen.” Kalra called for a
> “complete end” to the war in Gaza, adding it is “the least we can do until
> a permanent, free, secure Palestine becomes a reality.”
>
> “We are not just complicit in this. We are the perpetrators. It is
> American bombs that are destroying Gaza, that have killed over 19,000
> children and tens of thousands in total,” Kalra’s statement read. “The Gaza
> Strip is smaller than San Jose, and yet, even amongst the rubble, the
> Israeli military is killing those showing up for aid, providing medical
> care and even those who are reporting on the atrocities.”
>
> Zahra Billoo, director of the Council on American Islamic Relations’s Bay
> Area office, said that “we cannot and we will not be silent.”
>
> “Let’s be clear, this is not a conflict. This is not a war. This is a
> genocide, and yet our government continues to fund it, while right here in
> our neighborhoods in California, people cannot access housing or medical
> care,” Billoo said. “This is not about security. This is not about
> democracy. This is about our government and our elected officials
> repeatedly putting Israel first. U.S. policies, U.S. weapons and U.S.
> dollars are enabling Israel’s war crimes.”
>
> Raj Jayadev, coordinator of Silicon Valley DeBug, lead a chant of “free
> Gaza now.” He discussed how Silicon Valley is a “strategically valuable
> part of the world” that was “born from contracts for military equipment”
> and “has a history of arming wars,” adding that residents are duty bound to
> call out the complicity of those with political and economic power in the
> region.
>
> - [image: Manny, did not give last name, from San Jose, marches...]
> - [image: Pro-Palestinian supporters organized by the Solidarity &
> Unity Network stand...]
>
> *1** of 5*
>
> Manny, did not give last name, from San Jose, marches during a
> pro-Palestinian protest organized by the Solidarity & Unity Network outside
> of the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown
> San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News
> Group)
>
> “There is no struggle that will say more about us, those that lived
> through this time period, regardless of age, status, where you live on this
> planet, about how we acted to defend the rights of the Palestinians, and
> how we spoke and acted for the fight of not only just the survival of the
> Palestinian people, but their liberation as well,” Jayadev said.
>
> Will Armaline of the SJSU Faculty Association called the war in Gaza “a
> humanitarian catastrophe choice.”
>
> “The U.S. government has the power to stop it. It’s our responsibility,
> particularly those of us in Silicon Valley,” Armaline said. “This valley is
> at the heart of the global military industrial complex, whether it’s
> raining (bombs) down in occupied territories or raining down later in Latin
> America, as we’re now threatening to do today, and it’s our responsibility
> to make sure that this is stopped immediately.”
>
> Wendy Greenfield, the co-founder of Jewish Voice for Peace’s South Bay
> chapter, encouraged attendees to turn “grief into action” by contacting
> congressional representatives. She urged support for HR 3565, which would
> withhold weapons transfers to Israel until it complies with international
> and U.S. law, HR 2411, which would restore funding to the United Nations
> Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, and HR 3045, which would
> impose sanctions on individuals who threaten the security of the West Bank,
> she said.
>
> “Please thank the co-sponsors of these bills and urge the other
> representatives to save lives by co-sponsoring them immediately,”
> Greenfield said. “We have the power to make them move. All of us who are
> here need to spread the word. Let’s use it.”
>
> *Originally Published: August 20, 2025 at 3:40 PM PDT*
>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> *From:* Salem Ajluni via Human Agenda Board <
> human-agenda-board@googlegroups.com>
> *To:* Salem Ajluni
> *Sent:* Monday, August 18, 2025 at 08:56:52 AM PDT
> *Subject:* Emergency Protest Against the Siege and Starvation of Gaza,
> Wednesday, August 20, 2025, San Jose, 11:30 a.m.
>
> Unquestionable and Unconscionable: End the Israeli Siege and Starvation of
> Gaza!
> An Emergency Community Protest and Press Conference
> The Solidarity and Unity Network of Community Organizations is initiating
> a protest against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, to protest U.S.
> funding and political support for Israel’s actions and to demand elected
> officials speak out and act to end the siege and starvation of Gaza.
> Date: Wednesday, August 20, 2025
> Place: Federal Building, 280 South First Street, San Jose
>
> Time: 11:30 for protest; 12:00 noon for press conference
> Please distribute.
>
>
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