"Guns and Bombs Will Not End This Genocide"

John Wayne Fry, neighbor of accused shooter Elias Rodriguez: "He did it because he lost hope... My neighbor used a gun. I used a microphone..."

In spite of all the horror, I had a blessed time this morning talking with John, resulting in the news release below.

Many thanks to Muhammad Sankari (of the US Palestinian Community Network), Don Wagner, Jerry Boyle and Kyle J Smith in helping make this happen.

Video via

Robert Inlakesh

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JOHN WAYNE FRY, JohnWayneFry@gmail.com
Available for a very limited number of interviews, Fry is a political activist in Chicago. He is a neighbor of Elias Rodriguez who is alleged to have shot two staffers at the Israeli embassy last week.

Fry's comments went viral. He said today to the Institute for Public Accuracy: "Why did he do this? He did it because he lost hope. The rightwingers are saying that the protests are fomenting violence. It's the opposite: Meaningful protests give people hope. ...

"I'm a shy person, I'm not gregarious. It was something seeing all the media outside. I had just come home from back surgery, but I had to do something. My neighbor used a gun. I used a microphone.

"I should have talked to my neighbor, if I had, I could have talked him out of it. I should have had him join our local organization, 33rd Ward Working Families which works with Alderwoman Rosana Rodriguez-Sanchez who wins because of local supporters knocking on doors, not big money. Or my book club, where we're reading Palestine: A Socialist Introduction."

Fry said: "Guns and bombs will not end this genocide. We have two people dead in D.C., we have over 50,000 dead in Gaza, and how many children starved to death last night?

"In 1956, Israel invaded Sinai, they invaded Gaza. The United States president at the time, Dwight Eisenhower, put his foot down. And he told the French and British to get the heck out of the Suez Canal, and he told Israel to get the heck out of Sinai and Gaza. Now where would we be today if we had a president that could have said that two years ago?"

Fry said today: "The government wants us to think this started in Oct. 2023. No, it started a long time ago. Some people note that with the Nakba, Israel ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948. But few note that in 1956, Israel along with Britain and France invaded Gaza and Sinai and the U.S. and Soviet Union forced them out."

President Eisenhower would later report to Congress about the 1956 Mideast crisis: “In Egypt the United Nations caused the world to turn away from war. Through a series of resolutions, the General Assembly effectively mobilized world opinion to achieve a cease-fire, and France and the United Kingdom shortly agreed to withdraw their forces. The Assembly's moral pressure played a powerful part in securing the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Egyptian territory in March of this year.”

The U.S. State Department later noted that “Israel kept its troops in Gaza until March 19, 1957, when the United States finally compelled the Israeli Government to withdraw its troops.”

See: "'Uniting for Peace' is Next Step in Invoking Genocide Convention Process to Protect Palestine" by IPA's Sam Husseini.