Cynthia McKinney: Operation Cast Lead Ends Israeli Impunity

Prepared Remarks for the Beirut Conference

Beirut Conference
January 2009

It is impossible for us to view the images of war and not feel compelled to stop it. So, I want to thank the organizers for including me in this Conference.

In 1991, I was a Member of the Georgia Legislature, and when President George Herbert Walker Bush bombed Baghdad, I spoke out against it. My colleagues walked out on me.

In 1992, I was elected to Congress where I spent twelve years representing the state of Georgia. I spoke out against President Clinton's sanctions against Iraq, and President George W. Bush's war against and occupation of Iraq.

I worked with a team of internationally-respected lawyers ready to prosecute Sharon, Barak, and Netanyahu for war crimes and found another team ready to prosecute those responsible for incitement of genocide in Gujurat, India.

I represented the Congressional Black Caucus at the Durban World Conference Against Racism, despite intense pressure to not attend so as to avoid a discussion of Zionism and racism.

I introduced legislation to eliminate the use of depleted uranium.

I was the lone vote in Committee against every Pentagon budget, and then I questioned the official version of what happened on September 11th.

I decried the police state that the United States was becoming and reached out to our Arab-American and Muslim brothers and sisters and supported them as they faced racial profiling and lost civil rights.

And then, in 2002, the pro-Israel lobby joined with the Republican Party and the pro-war leadership of the Democratic Party to defeat me and I lost my campaign for re-election to Congress.

Two years later, in 2004, I ran to retake my seat in Congress and I won. But because I refused to be on a U.S. leadership team that I believed had so utterly failed the American people, I found the same correlation of forces arrayed against me in my 2006 re-election efforts. I lost my seat in Congress again.

So, in March of 2007, I declared my independence from that same leadership--complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace because of their support for war. I became a part of several people's tribunals, from Brussels to Malaysia intent on prosecuting George Bush.

In 2008, the Green Party nominated me to lead their ticket and I ran for President.

I believe it is not only possible, but imperative, to resist imperialism even in imperialism's belly.

So when Israel began bombing Gaza and I was asked to go to Gaza the next day, it didn't take me 5 minutes to say yes.

I was aboard the Dignity when it was rammed by the Israelis. The Israelis lied to the press after they hit us, but the Dignity crew and passengers lived to tell the story because Lebanon dared to rescue us.

Thank you, Lebanon.

During my diverted attempt to reach Gaza, it was hard not to notice Lebanon's scars of war delivered by Israel's war machine financed by my country.

Iraq endures a brutal occupation after an even more brutal invasion.

Amid saber-rattling against Syria, a buildup of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, routine bombing of Pakistan, it must be made clear that people have the right of self-determination. And if that right is abridged in any way, they have the right to resist.

Despite the fact that President-elect Obama roared onto the U.S. political scene like a lion, in the face of genocide and Israeli war crimes in Gaza, our President-elect has been as silent as a lamb.

I have publicly asked my President-elect and the Congress not to support any more bombs and not one more dollar for Israel's war machine.

However, I'm not going to rely on one man and the current Congress to produce change. Instead, I want to become the change that we need. The Congressional vote this week to support Israel demonstrates that we must do some things differently.

The best protection against another Lebanon, Iraq, and Gaza is to make sure that the United States enacts better policy by electing better policy-makers. The financial crisis inside the U.S. also means that the traditional engines of empire have run out of gas. Gaza also shows us that the mighty don't always win.

Things have already started to unravel for Israel. For the first time in my political life average, ordinary people in the United States condemn Israeli war crimes.

Even though we in the United States don't see the images from Gaza that you see because of a culture of media censorship on subjects pertaining to Israel, spontaneous protests erupted from California to New York to "Let Gaza Live."

It is also clear that Operation Cast Lead signals Irael's defeat: just as the Tet Offensive signaled the end of the possibility of U.S. victory in Vietnam.

Therefore, now is the time to get more information to a thirsty public. And our twin goal must be to elect people of conscience to Congress who will not cower under pressure.

Of this I am certain: because of the inspiring resistance in Gaza, and our united support, the people of Palestine will win.