Every life is precious.

Every life is precious. 

As Jews, our tradition teaches us b’tzelem elohim — every life is precious. Every person is an entire world, and every death is a world extinguished.

This past weekend, 106 people were killed in Palestine – 100 of those were Palestinians, and six were Israelis.

We mourn each and every life. That’s why we’ve spent eleven months mobilizing our immense grief into action. 

Because every life is precious — equally so — we refuse the systems that treat some lives as more worthy of grief and protection than others. This past weekend, Biden spoke only of six Israeli deaths, and said nothing about the daily genocidal death and destruction the Israeli military is carrying out on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The mainstream media followed suit. Every life lost is a tragedy — but from reading the news, one would think that the six Israeli hostages were the only people with grieving families. 

The Palestinians that Israel is murdering daily do not make U.S. headlines. President Biden has made no mention of the eight Palestinians Israel targeted and killed yesterday as they were queuing for bread in Jabalia refugee camp.

“Dehumanization is a prerequisite of most forms of violence,” writes Hala Alyan, a Palestinian American author, poet, and clinical psychologist. “Well before a bomb drops on a school where children are sheltering – because you ordered them there to shelter – you have to make that act acceptable.”

We refuse to accept a world in which only some deaths are grieved, in which the humanity of only some people is recognized. We recognize the enormous discrepancy in Palestinian lives lost, compared to Israelis. And we do not waver from our core belief that every life is a universe. 

That is why we must uproot entirely the system of supremacy that enshrines Jewish Israeli life as more worthy of safety, protection, and freedom than Palestinian life. That’s why we fight to end Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide — these engines of death that make violence inevitable. Until each and every life is treated as equally precious, no one’s life can be.

Every single death, all of the destruction, was preventable.

None of this had to happen. Since October, Biden has had the tools to force a ceasefire that would end this genocide and free all Israeli and Palestinian hostages by stopping the flow of U.S. weapons to the Israeli government. Instead, he has stood by and watched as Benjamin Netanyahu has torpedoed ceasefire negotiations, refusing deal after deal that would end this horror. 

For eleven months, we’ve fought for an end to Israel’s genocide. 

The fastest way to end this genocide is for the U.S. to stop sending billions in weapons to keep it going. Biden makes empty claims of working for a ceasefire — while he’s also sending Israel $20 billion more in weapons. An immediate embargo on U.S. arms to Israel is the only way to end this nightmare.

Israel’s assault on the occupied West Bank.

We can’t become numb to Gaza’s destruction.

Stop Biden’s $20 billion weapons sale to Israel.

The Biden administration has just approved the sale of another $20 billion in weapons to the Israeli government, even as it slaughters and starves Palestinians in Gaza. It is incomprehensible and shameful. 

The onslaught of pain, grief, sorrow, and rage is endless in Gaza. And it is made possible by the Biden administration, which continues to arm the genocidal Israeli government. It must stop. Congress must intervene. 

Use this tool from our sister organization, JVP Action, to call your Senators immediately and tell them to oppose these latest weapons shipments, and to support a full arms embargo on the Israeli government to save Palestinian lives.

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