The War Against Palestinians Has Gone Far Beyond Retaliation Against Hamas.

Any blog post about the Israeli war in Gaza should start with the acknowledgement that Hamas attacked Israel last October. Though the backstory is complicated, Hamas' surprise attack led to the murder, assault, rape, and capture of innocent Israelis. When we publicly supported a ceasefire in January, we explained our thinking in another blog post about the situation. 

But Israel's actions since then have gone far beyond military retaliation for an attack by Hamas. Israel's aggression has grown to possible war crimes -- the starvation of children, the deprivation of medical supplies, the bombing and murder of civilians.

What's more: Israel's government has not accomplished the return of Israeli hostages. Many families of those hostages have finally joined protests against the Israeli government's military aggression and their mismanagement of this confrontation.

While children starve, aid has been particularly difficult to get to those who need it for many reasons.

There was the high profile killing of World Central Kitchen workers delivering food:

But the UN has shown that there are daily roadblocks to aid put up by the Israeli military:

Beyond food, the pain many Palestinians are enduring is unimaginable: 

It is hard to know whether restrictions on aid are coming from above, or from ground level ineptitude, or poor local leadership on behalf of the Israeli military. 

Their military campaign has been riddled with tragic mistakes, like the killing of 3 Israeli hostages they were trying to rescue:

And the overall inability of Israel to achieve is stated objective -- returning of Israeli hostages -- has led many families of those hostages to join protests against the current Israeli government. 

There is a growing sense that the hostages are not a priority for Israel's government. Instead, the government uses the hostages as an excuse to continue its offensive. 

Meanwhile, divisions inside of Israel's government point to a disjointed leadership composed of right-wing elements:

This leadership vacuum from above has sometimes been filled by unaccountable, right-wing settler militias on the ground. In the West Bank, these armed militias are harassing and imprisoning local Palestinians without due process. 

Worse, after the unsolved killing of an Israeli boy, some of these militias rampaged through the West Bank, indiscriminately burning Palestinian homes and businesses:

One depressing thing, from a historical perspective, in the Israeli rampage through the West Bank, is that this is the kind of thing that would historically happen to Jews in 18th or 19th Century Europe -- a rumor would lead Christians to attack the isolated and confined Jewish neighborhoods or cities. 

Jews across the world face rising anti-semitism, and no one should be conflating an extreme, violent Israeli government with Judaism in general. Opposition to Israel's war in Israel should never lead to anti-Semitism:

Conversely, attacks against Muslims in America and Europe are also rising, with deadline consequences: 

There is not a lot RAYGUN can do, from a power perspective. We can try to raise awareness for this ongoing issue, at the same time, we continue to raise money for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and encourage you all to do the same:

All sales from our Gaza-related products will go to the PCRF:

The inspiration for this design comes from this moving chalk mural in Philly: