Activists Demand Action from UN to Stop Genocide

I’ve been spending most of this week meeting with various delegations from missions at the UNSC. I put out an X thread yesterday on the UNSC meeting.

Especially see the Russian representative's remarks which were the most accurate and dovetail with my own writing.

I put out the news release below this morning:

Activists Demand Action from UN to Stop Genocide

A group of activists this week are protesting at the U.S. mission to the UN and meeting with various other missions, urging them to take action to stop Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken “commemorated” the 75th Anniversary of the Geneva Conventions in a statement, which was roundly criticized. His State Department refuses to recognize the application of the Geneva Conventions to the Palestinians. Blinken himself would not respond to a question on the subject on the record.

KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv@gmail.com, @voiceinwild
Kelly is board president of World BEYOND War, which just put out the piece “UN Delegations Are Listening to Us on Gaza.” She has been fasting and meeting with various missions. She just wrote the piece “We Must Oppose Israel’s Dangerous Gamble Before It’s Too Late” for The Progressive and was featured on a recent IPA news release.

ROBERT JERESKI, mutualaid10@gmail.com, @codepink
Jereski is an attorney based in New York City who is leading CodePink’s efforts to meet with UN missions, highlighting their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Conventions. He said today: “As many members of the UN Security Council said in their meeting on Tuesday, they must move to action. The Algerians and Palestinians talked about sanctions. We have a resource page on that and have been urging states to take bilateral necessary actions. Of course, the U.S. government’s veto prevents the Security Council from doing its job to maintain peace and security. The remedy for this is for the UN General Assembly to use Uniting for Peace to assert meaningful action, like sanctions.” Jereski highlights a new piece by UN whistleblower Craig Mokhiber: “The ICJ finds that BDS is not merely a right, but an obligation.”

Jereski’s mother was a refugee from the Nazis, who killed her grandmother and many cousins.

SARAH DURAND, sdurand2008@gmail.com
Durand is a professor of biology at CUNY who was involved with the encampments there. She said today: “In terms of the academic environment, we saw a number of attacks on academic freedom and the upcoming school year should see a resurgence of activity. But it’s imperative as we see horror after horror with civilians killed daily and with 200 UN employees killed by Israel that the UN does far more. The case of South Africa should be a guide, with sanctions properly used to eaffect positive change.”