By Scott Steward
Today will be Twenty Tuesday vigils. Five months 28,000 more Palestinians dead since the first Children's Ceasefire Vigil was held in front of Mike Thompson's office in Woodland on October 26th, 2023. You can add your voice to Yolo4PalestinianJustice (Tuesday 4:30 – 5:30 pm) and demand Mike Thompson end the violence.
Thompson can't seem to read, hear, or do much of anything but repeat his loyalty oath to the extreme authoritarian state of Israel. A state where this post would put someone in jail, get their house bulldozed, and likely they would be shot before they made it to interrogation.
A terrible attack occurred on October 7th, but why do we see no change in Thompson's words in his February 14th Enterprise letter, "the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust….raped women…..Hamas broke the ceasefire," It's been five months of complete war on an occupied territory.
Thompson says "No one wants peace more than I do." the same 5 month old platitude (his November 12th press release.)? Those of us at the vigil, and around the world, don't believe in the sincerity of this representative. As a representative of the most powerful nation on earth, you cannot want peace and humanity and fail to force the delivery of food, water, and medicine to a civilian population, a population at the complete mercy of your "ally."
But nothing from Thompson about Gaza? Children have lost limbs and are being crushed by the residential buildings bombed in designated safe zones. Nothing for the child who watched her family machine-gunned down by Israeli forces while trying to flee as ordered and then starve to death begging for rescue. (US News Feb. 10, 2024, "They are Shooting at Us.")
Desecrating graves, destroying homes of Palestinian Israelis in East Jerusalem, destroying civilian's food supplies. The list of atrocities being systematically conducted by the military and many branches of the Israeli government sickens. Add to this the widening war (Lebanon) and the rampant settler killing of West Bank Palestinians. It's too much to bear.
It is almost too much to contemplate how the militarist oppression and apartheid far-right in Israel is trying to turn its treatment of Palestinians into a norm. We say no! And we expect our representative to be leading the charge to say NO!
This is the legacy of Israel? This is the country in which Mike Thompson stakes his loyalty as genocide continues? Mike, Mike – Stop the funding of bombs – end the support of Israel's apartheid state.




Leave a reply to Keith Cancel reply