Every day the world moves closer to the edge of extinction. Forever wars rage, with the US ongoing proxy wars in Ukraine and Gaza, that have killed tens of thousands, and threaten to engulf the whole world, with the ultimate possibility of a catastrophic nuclear war.

Additionally, these wars fuel a climate crisis that creates the wildfires, floods, droughts and heat waves that threaten every corner of the planet, as global warming spins out of control. With every increase in the US war-making budget, the Pentagon and its attendant weapons manufacturers, which already use more fossil fuel than any other entity on the planet, increase their carbon footprint.

The focal point for these concerns continues to be Gaza and the West Bank in occupied Palestine. Both the US and Israel together continue to create an ever more dire international emergency with the continued waging of the massacre (genocide) in Gaza, Palestine. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is already dire, but it has been well documented over the last month of 2024 and into 2025, that the Israelis have been deliberately starving the population of northern Gaza.

At the same time, the Israelis, with full US support, have expanded their bombing to include both Lebanon and Syria. Thousands of Lebanese have died and hundreds of locations in Syria, purportedly military sites, have been hit – some by bombs dropped by the US and many others by US bombs dropped by Israel. Since September 2024, both the US and Israel have taken deliberate steps to isolate Iran and its allies in the region.

All of this violence increases the risk of a wider war, and ultimately a nuclear war, and should put the whole world on alert. The situation is critical and potentially explosive, literally and figuratively.

The Green Party US Peace Action Committee (GPAX) calls again for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Palestine, accompanied by a deal to release the hostages taken by Hamas, in exchange for release of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

GPAX calls for a real ceasefire in Lebanon, not one that gives the US more power to intervene in the country and region.

GPAX also calls for the declaration of a GLOBAL EMERGENCY.

More needs to be done to protect the population of Gaza and the West Bank and to end the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, end the siege and end the forced starvation of the Palestinian people.

We also call for an end to US and Israeli presence in Syria, to return sovereignty to the Syrian people. The US, Türkiye, and Israel need to get out of the way, so that the Syrian people, together with a rejuvenated U.N., can take care to guarantee that all peoples in Syria are respected.

The US claims not to want a wider war, but the war is expanding daily, threatening peace and security around the globe. GPAX certainly opposes any escalation of the military action in Gaza and has consistently called for a permanent ceasefire. A recent poll indicated that some 75 percent of the global population wants a ceasefire, as well. The US must show it cares more about the people living in the US and the safety and security of the rest of
the world than supporting Israel’s agenda in Gaza.

GPAX realizes that this massacre/genocide is not about Israel’s security but about acquiring more land and moving the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. This is a violation of international humanitarian law and a grave injustice to the Palestinian people.

It would further the ethnic cleansing begun by Israel with the Nakba in 1948 and bring it to a new stage. It would come at a tremendous human cost. Simultaneously, but with far less public attention, more and more Palestinians on the West Bank are being threatened, displaced and killed. The world now sees the violence that has been part of this settler colonialist project since the beginning.

This is the time to mobilize a larger and stronger peace movement, in solidarity with the thousands of students standing up for justice. We call for everyone to get involved in their local peace movement and to do as much as they can to help bring about the end of the genocide in Gaza. Many people already are putting much time and leadership into mobilizing the peace movement and the work should include working with other progressives and
radicals in building the ongoing events and actions. Our main goal is to build a bigger and more massive peace movement.

GPAX calls on the peace movement to join the on-going resistance to genocide. We should also join in the calls of resistance to the Trump government’s bellicose policies and those that attack constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. We do this understanding perfectly well that the Democrats have also been guilty of much
of the same types of policies.

It will be more and more important to build multi-issue coalitions from the grassroots uniting the many struggles while linking them to the peace issue. By supporting a series of calls to actions like the Jan. 20 convenors meeting in DC “WE FIGHT BACK”, we initiate this process. GPAX will work to unite with Jewish Voice for Peace, Veterans for Peace, the United National Anti-war Coalition and Code Pink to develop a network of local peace groups.

GPAX urges the peace movement to unite and to call for an end, not only to the genocide in Gaza, but to end the war in Ukraine and to prevent war against China. There are too many places where people are facing forced starvation and on-going violence, including the Congo and Sudan and places like Haiti, Cuba and South and Central America, where US interference in politics is causing tremendous hardship for the people.

It is well past time for the world to rely on diplomacy and negotiations, instead of continued violence and war.

“Settler colonialism, as an institution or system, requires violence or the threat of violence to attain its goals. People do not hand over their land, resources, children and futures without a fight, and that fight is met with violence. In employing the force necessary to accomplish its expansionist goals, the colonizing regime institutionalizes violence. The notion that settler-indigenous conflict is an inevitable product
of cultural differences and misunderstandings, or that violence was committed equally by the colonized and the colonizer, blurs the nature of the historical process."
– From Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States.”

by Peace Action Committee (GPAX) of the Green Party
Submitted by Susan Lamont.