Correspondence - #19 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

December 4, 2023 As an environmental justice organization, we also must acknowledge the impacts of settler colonialism and its role in destroying the land and removing Indigenous peoples across OC and Palestine. In Orange County and Long Beach, we work with the Acjachemen and Tongva Nations to protect their sacred sites and restore the health of their ancestral lands and waters, often against the military polluters and industries that continue to poison their home. The Acjachemen and Tongva peoples, like the Palestinian peoples, have cared for their homelands for thousands upon thousands of years —since time immemorial —and their livelihoods and wellbeing are tied to the wellbeing of the lands and waters they call home. Similarly, the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples and the Palestinian people have been repeatedly forced off their land and subjected to genocidal violence by settler governments. Native activists here and around the country call on us to recognize the similarities between these struggles just as Native peoples here were forced into smaller and smaller reservations and concentration camps until their lands were completely taken, Palestinian peoples are being pushed off their lands into smaller and smaller camps that continue to be bombarded, with the Israeli government openly calling for their extermination and the appropriation of their lands. We must learn the lessons of U.S. history and prevent the same atrocities from befalling the Palestinian people. It should be clear that the call for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide against Palestinian people does not equate to anti -semitism—Palestine is a place held sacred for Jewish, Muslim, and Christian peoples, and prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948, people of all religions were safe and welcome there. Palestinians are not all one religion, and when the state of Israel commits war crimes such as collective punishment, murdering civilians, assassinating journalists, murdering UN health officials, bombing schools and hospitals, and forcibly removing Palestinians from their homes, they are committing these atrocities against Palestinian Jews, Palestinian Christians, and Palestinian Muslims. Furthermore, the Israeli government continues to discriminate against its own Arab -Jewish citizens, while mass sterilizing Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to the country. The call for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide is not a call for violence against Jewish people, but a call to protect civilians and to value the lives of all people, regardless of their religion. It is for reasons such as these, that we cannot sit by and watch what is happening in Palestine. We urge the city of Stanton to join the California cities of Richmond, Cuadahy, and Oakland to call for a ceasefire and adopt the resolution presented before you tonight. As one of the leaders of social justice in OC, we urge the city of Stanton to become the first city in Orange County to adopt a ceasefire resolution. Sincerely, Orange County Environmental Justice Asian Pacific Environmental Network Santa Ana Active Streets SI PACIFIC 1 1 1 rl 1 r 1 i 1 NETWORK rr� r ,r r 0 tr Ill, rillll>l � uu nai/d SANTA ANA ACTIVE STREETS