My arrest arraignment April 2 in New Hampshire

 

 

On March 22 I was arrested at Elbit Systems in Merrimack, New Hampshire along with seven others in a non-violent protest against this Israeli-owned company.

Elbit Systems Ltd. is an Israel-based international military technology contractor. Elbit is the primary provider of the Israeli military's land-based equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles.

I will be arraigned in Merrimack District Court on April 2 at 8:15 am. A legal vigil will be held outside the courthouse starting at 7:45 am. 

I have been charged with trespass and resisting arrest (which I did not do). The other seven who were arrested will be arraigned on April 18 and are similarly charged.

(Elbit Systems of America and its subsidiaries have operational facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, Merrimack, New Hampshire, Talladega, Alabama, Roanoke, Virginia, Boca Raton, Florida and De Leon Springs, Florida. Elbit Systems of America also has a 50% interest in a joint venture with Collins Aerospace, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp., which is engaged in the area of helmet-mounted display systems for fixed-wing military and para-military aircraft. In April 2021, Elbit Systems of America concluded the acquisition of Sparton Corporation , a supplier of systems supporting undersea warfare for the U.S. Navy and allied military forces. The company has been divested from by international investment firms due to its involvement in the genocide in Gaza. )

In a recent Gallup poll 55% of Americans said they do not approve of the military action Israel has taken in Gaza.

So no matter what the governor of New Hampshire claims (see above) about 'outside agitators' coming into his state, the facts are that many nations have called for Israel to obey an order by the International Court of Justice to allow the unimpeded delivery of aid into Gaza, where famine has set in, as it continues to flout a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the enclave.

New Hampshire's state motto is 'Live free or die'. Isn't that the very description of what the Palestinian people are saying today? After 76 years of brutal colonial settler occupation of Palestine the people there have had enough of the long genocidal Israeli campaign to remove them from their historic lands. Under international law they have a right to defend themselves.

In 2012 the Times of Israel newspaper reported that 'Israel counted calorie requirements of Gazans during blockage'. 

The Israeli advocacy group Gisha, which waged a lengthy court battle to release the Israeli document, contends that Israel calculated the calorie needs for Gaza’s population in order to restrict the quantities of goods and basic products it allowed in the open-air prison.

In other words, Israel created a program to do a 'slow genocide' of Gaza citizens by quietly reducing their caloric intake which would mean shorter life expectancy for most people.

There is historical precedence for this program.

While a student at the University of Florida in 1977 I got a part-time job working for a disabled woman doing chores around her house. She was writing a book on the 'many forms of genocide' and one day she had me go to the university library and make a copy of a page from a book. I will never forget what I copied.

It was a page with a graph called the 'Caloric Reduction Intake Schedule' inside the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland during WW2. The slow genocide program was being run by Hitler's Nazi occupation government.

The woman's premise was that Hitler used many ways to genocide the Jews throughout Europe. Gas chambers were just one form. But due to increasing international outcry about the way Jews were being treated by the Nazis they tried to come up with less visible ways to kill the Jewish people.

Some years ago I ran across an Israeli document (which I sadly did not copy at the time) but was the exact same program aimed at Gaza. The Times of Israel story verifies this long sad memory.

So my basic point is that my presence at Elbit Systems on March 22 was motivated by this memory of genocides during WW2 and the present one today in Gaza. Furthermore, the International Court of Justice's demand that Israel cease its blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the UN's demand for an immediate ceasefire all represent an international legal call for the world to take non-violent action to stop Israel's obvious crimes against humanity.

 

Thus we all must do more to stand up for the women and children in Palestine who are taking the brunt of Israel's military madness - supported to the hilt by the U.S. government and many of its EU allies. It's been a big money maker for the warmongers.

My action at Elbit Systems in New Hampshire is truly nothing but a trickle in the global flood that is required by conscience and international humanitarian law. 

Bruce 

PS - For those who might wish to claim I am an anti-Semite I must say that my grandfather was an Italian Jew who hid his past when he came to the US out of fear of possible persecution. I am not anti-Jewish but I am pro-life for the long-suffering Palestinian people.