On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 4:24 PM Aram James
wrote:
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>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNX8BudGX2A
>>
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>>
>> *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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