The seventy-five years and counting failure to secure national rights and justice for Palestinians since the founding of the state of Israel has vexed the international community in ways few other conflicts have over that period. The ongoing state of apartheid, supported economically, politically, and militarily by the United States, has been and remains unacceptable, and an impressive movement in the US and globally to act in solidarity with the Palestinians has grown over the last few decades. The shocking, horrific attacks by Hamas on Israel last October 7 in turn sparked a paroxysm of astonishing violence by Israel against not only Hamas but the people of Gaza, with over 32,000 killed, a majority children and women. The strong global call for a ceasefire now has predictably fallen on deaf ears among most policy-makers in Washington, as the Biden Administration and a congressional near-consensus favoring uncritical support for Israel, even as it commits what may amount to genocide, shows few cracks. However, there are some, and Peace Action and others have organized and advocated effectively for common sense policies that could, for the first time, begin to hold Israel accountable and change, however slowly, US policy.

Predictably, the conflict is spreading into what could be a calamitous regional war, with Israel and/or the US involved in kinetic strikes in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. We desperately need a cease-fire now to stop the carnage in Gaza, but also to prevent the spread of regional conflagrations. International diplomacy is the only way to avert a further catastrophe.