I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today—my own government.
― Martin Luther King Jr. Riverside Church, Beyond Vietnam, April 4, 1967
The National Council of Elders is dismayed and outraged over the unconscionable inhumanity, lawlessness, and white supremacist hubris being carried out in the US-Israeli wars against Iran and Lebanon. These wars are the result of ignorance and arrogance rooted in a disrespect for the cultures, histories, and civilizations of other peoples around the world.
There is no plausible justification for these attacks. Members of this administration offer different and sometimes contradictory reasons. It is clear to us that it is an imperative for world dominance that motivates these wars as well as the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores.
We call upon all people to raise their voices against this violence. Every action we take in the face of this inhumanity makes a difference. What each of us chooses to do matters.
We respect the voice of the sizable Jewish community that is anti-imperialist as well as all others are being suppressed by the US government and Israel, so that criticism of the Gaza genocide and the wars on Lebanon and Iran is equated with anti-Semitism. We reject this equation.
In the short time of his presidency, Trump has bombed 7 countries and killed nearly 200 people in international waters, claiming they were drug traffickers. Over 1000 people have been killed in Lebanon and nearly a million have been displaced. More than 1500 people have been killed in Iran, including the willful bombing of a school for young girls. We have witnessed the atrocious assassinations of Iran’s leaders. This administration boasts about these killings, which are clear violations of international law and any moral sensibility. We are appalled by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the killing of 76,000 Palestinians. We abhor the threats against Cuba, which continue the longstanding US policy to isolate and destroy the Cuban people and their right to sovereignty and self-determination.
These actions against other nations contradict international law and basic principles of human rights established after the wars of the 20th century.
We know that our country began and is maintained by violence. The incoherence of contradictory reasons for this war reveals it to be an act of utter power and domination.
We are witnessing the collapse of our society in so many ways: The ruthlessness of ICE agents in our communities, the hunger and abuse of our children, the isolation of our elders, the lack of basic health care, housing and education, the incivility of our relationships.
We applaud the inventive, creative ways that our communities are saying NO to this repression and violence. The people of Minnesota are giving us powerful models of our capacities for resistance.
We the American people are traumatized by this level of violence. While we are heart broken and shedding tears, others are shedding blood. We cannot be silent in the face of this war and the havoc and chaos that is being created in our society by the Trump administration. Every one of us is called to speak out in some way, to express our protest. Every one of us is responsible to express our resistance, protest, outrage, and condemnation of these actions.
We the National Council of Elders see ourselves as part of the global community of peoples who are resisting oppression, fascism, and authoritarianism around the globe.
As one of our founders, Vincent Harding, insisted:
We are citizens of a country that we still have to create—a just country, a compassionate country, a forgiving country, a multiracial, multi-religious country, a joyful country that cares about its children and about its elders, that cares about itself and about the world, that cares about what the earth needs as well as what individual people need.
For peace at home and in the world, we commit to building resistance to the violence and militarism that has characterized the USA since long before its formation as a nation state.