As many of you may be aware, a growing coalition of individuals and groups, acting under the banner Alexandria for Palestinian Human Rights, is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Specifically, they are calling for the Alexandria City Council to join cities across the USA by passing a ceasefire resolution. On February 5, 2024, Grassroots Alexandria voted to join this coalition.
Please Act: there is no time to spare
- Please support the call for a ceasefire by requesting a yard sign: https://bit.ly/m/ceasefirenow
- Please write to city council with a simple message: Please support human rights by calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
- Please sign a petition calling for an Alexandria ceasefire resolution: https://www.change.org/p/alexandria-calls-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-now
- Individual activists can join this growing coalition: http://bit.ly/alx4pal
- Organizations can join this growing coalition: https://forms.gle/zCceX1weKs
Background: international norms have local impacts
The APHR petition site contains the draft resolution: https://www.change.org/p/alexandria-calls-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-now
The centrist foreign-policy podcast, None Of The Above, reviewed the case brought against Israel, by South Africa, in the International Court of Justice.
In 2018, Grassroots Alexandria drew parallels between the ethnic cleansing techniques of the Trump administration’s deportation machine and the ethnic cleansing techniques used by Israel in Palestine.
The APHR Coalition: a list of member organizations
- CPUSA, Northern Virginia Club
- Families for Ceasefire DC
- Grassroots Alexandria
- Here4TheKids DC
- If Not Now Metro DC
- Irish Americans for Palestine
- NOVA Branch of Metro DC DSA
- Racial Justice Alexandria
- SURJ Northern Virginia
- Virginia Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
- Virginia Coalition for Human Rights
Opinion: We are the leaders we are waiting for
Grassroots Alexandria was formed in the wake of the 2016 election, when many people feared that the hidden-in-plain-sight extreme incarceration of the USA (we have 4% of the world’s population and 20% of the world’s prisoners) would grow into extremes of violence and deportation. Faced with rapid Republican Party norm-breaking, mainstream political and media “leaders” were at a loss. Mass movements formed (Women’s March) or grew (Movement For Black Lives).
Now, in 2024, this call for a ceasefire is running headlong into the brick wall of the conventional political wisdom of unconditional support for Zionism. We in Grassroots Alexandria are impressed by the rapid growth of the APHR coalition. As in 2017, we are the leaders we are waiting for. Please act today.
Update (April 9, 2024): The name of APHR was corrected (it’s Alexandria not Alexandrians). To learn more about APHR, please visit https://bit.ly/m/alx4palestine.
Update (April, 21, 2024): Consistent with our organizational goals and our desire to productively engage with the Alexandria city council, Grassroots Alexandria is no longer a member of the APHR coalition. We continue to have great respect for APHR, their mission, and their movement-building skills. We wish them every continued success.
We will continue to support the call for a resolution in support of an unconditional, immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We will continue to call for local recognition of the Palestinian Nakba. We will continue to support local celebrations of National Arab American Heritage month. We will continue to pursue these goals in our own way.