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DSA NATIONAL POLITICAL COMMITTEE (July 15, 2014) – Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) condemns the massive and indiscriminate bombing of Gaza civilians by the Israeli armed forces. We support the immediate acceptance and implementation of a comprehensive cease fire that would lift Israeli enforced restrictions on the ability of the people of Gaza to engage in the economic commerce and travel necessary for basic human survival.

DSA believes that the Israeli government cynically used the brutal murder of three Israeli youths to justify police and army assaults on Palestinians who had no connection to the attacks themselves. Furthermore, we condemn the Israeli right’s use of these tragic deaths to whip up the racist hatred towards Palestinian Arabs that led to the brutal murder of an innocent Palestinian teenager by Israeli youths. Only if Israeli civil society rejects such racist hatred will a just two-state peace settlement with the Palestinian people be possible, as well as the achievement of full civil and political rights for Palestinian Arabs living within a non-expansionist Israel.

DSA also condemns Hamas’s rocket attacks upon Israeli civilians from Gaza – indeed we condemn all forms of collective punishment and attacks on unarmed civilians. We note, however, that Israel’s disproportionate armed responses (whether in the form of massive and indiscriminate aerial bombardment or a ground invasion) violate the international law doctrine of proportionate response. And, as we have seen in the past, indiscriminate Israeli attacks on the people of Gaza cannot achieve a permanent solution to the threat posed by Hamas rockets to Israeli civilians. DSA believes that only a just diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can end the bloodshed, and we reiterate our conviction that Israel must unilaterally and immediately withdraw from the Occupied Territories.

Source: DSA Statement on the Bombing of Civilians in Gaza