1 Mary Quinn
From: Caleb Helsel (Caleb Helsel) >
Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2023 11:59 PM
To: Clerk
Subject: Public Comment, Palestine Solidarity
Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Completed
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Dear Fresno City Council,
My name is Caleb Helsel. I am writing this comment to express my support for the motion for the city of Fresno to officially stand with Palestine against genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of Israel. Since the October 7, Hamas attacks on Israel, the Gaza Strip has been subject to a brutal and inhumane siege that threatens the lives of 2 million people. They have cut off food, water, fuel, and Internet to the people of Gaza in the name of destroying Hamas. This is collective punishment, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. They have bombarded them constantly for a month, rendering the majority of the population homeless and killing over 8,000 people, with half of them being children.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with 2 million people forcibly clustered inside an area of around 140 square miles, as densely populated as London or Tel Aviv. The majority of these people are descendants of Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from the lands during the 1948 creation of Israel. Their descendants remain trapped in Gaza today, legally barred from entering Israel, and unable to leave by sea of into Egypt since 2006. These people are defenseless and have no escape from their torment.
The Israeli government has branded Gaza’s population as “terrorists” and “animals”. They have declared that “a whole nation is responsible”. They quote verses from the Bible calling for the total destruction of a people. This is genocide. The world has stood by and watched genocide happen before: the Armenians in WW1, the Jews in WW2, the Tutsis in Rwanda, and the native Americans in this very country and this very state. We are in a position now to break that trend, to do something different. To be better than our ancestors. And so today, I join the many people who will be there tomorrow in person to call for Fresno to follow Richmond, California’s lead and pass a resolution declaring it’s support for Palestine against genocide. Thank you.
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