ARE YOU OKAY WITH GAZA?
Dear Friends and Family,
Because I know many Palestinians (I spent seven summers there) and I know their suffering, I have been vigiling publicly and handing out this flyer:
Your Taxes Are Being Used to Kill Children and Women in Gaza, Are You OK with That?
For 16 years, Israel has blockaded Gaza. Its ports and airport have been closed. Gazans have not been allowed to travel. Adequate food, water, medicine, energy have not been allowed. Blockades are considered acts of war. Our blockade of Japan (coal and iron) resulted in Pearl Harbor. Israel’s blockade of Gaza resulted in Hamas’ attack (1,200 Israeli dead).
Before Hamas attacked, we gave Israel 3,800,000,000 dollars a year in weapons for their occupation of Palestine. Now President Biden is trying to give them an extra 14,300,000,000 dollars. As of December 29, our weapons have killed 21,500 Palestinians in Gaza, including 7,700 children and 5,500 women (UN Office Coordination Humanitarian Affairs). For each Israeli killed, at least 15 Palestinians have died. Are you OK with these numbers?
I’m not OK. I spent six summers with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Palestine, mostly in Al Khalil (Hebron), and in the little village of At Tuwani, and one summer in Bethlehem. Recently I saw the video of a Zionist settler attacking and executing one of the men in At Tuwani. I still don’t know what happened to Issa Amro, one of the nonviolent Palestinian leaders we worked with, after he was given a personal death threat. So I have been signing dozens and dozens of ceasefire petitions. 66% to 80% of Americans want a ceasefire, not more weapons and killing of Palestinians.
But after the 7-day ceasefire in November, Israel announced that it had destroyed only 40% of Hamas, and that it expected the fighting to continue a full year. It was immediately clear to me that, even if the US begged Israel to stop the killing, Israeli chutzpah would continue.
The time for petitions has passed. It is time for we Americans to engage our people power, forms of civil disobedience that can not simply be ignored. It is time we begin telling our government what they can, and can not, do with our taxes. If they use some of our taxes to kill children and women, then we can pay those taxes in a way they can not access. Call the White House at (202) 456-1414 and/or Congress at (202) 224 3121, and say, politely but clearly, “I will pay my Gaza war taxes this year, not to the IRS, but to a peacemaking group which does not kill children and women. And I will encourage others to join this Gaza war tax revolt.”
Is this legal? Will our government recognize these taxes as paid? Probably not. Is killing children and women legal? Probably not. Which of these would you want to be legal? Which not legal? Then act as if they were.
What will happen to you? I have found that people generally do treat me the way I treat them. So each April, I write a letter to the IRS, politely but clearly explaining what I am doing and why. Actually, I have been doing this since Vietnam. In the early years, I was called in for an audit maybe four times. I have fond memories of three agents in particular.
The first IRS auditor loved what I was doing, so we brainstormed ideas about how to convince the IRS to accept my peaceful alternatives to paying for war. Unfortunately, the IRS eventually stopped auditing me and started sending form letters. I generally ignore their form letters – I try not to waste their agents’ time.
They occasionally garnished a few of my paychecks. Now that I’m retired, they occasionally garnish my Social Security checks. But it is sporadic. Once or twice a year they add penalties and interest. When they do collect, they generally do not specify which tax year it is for, so I am unable to keep a running account of what they think my debt is. My general impression is that they have collected roughly half of my resisted war taxes.
My most recent letter to the IRS is below, in case that might be helpful to you. You are welcome to ask questions via email, lorinpeters@yahoo.com, or the next time you see me – I vigil here once a week. For current advice, contact the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, or the Northern California War Tax Resistance, or People’s Life Fund.
———————————–
Dear IRS Friends
I was not born or raised this way. But when I received a death threat, in 1968, and was planning a gunfight, a prophet/angel appeared in a dream, taking me to talk with the man who wanted to kill me. I know now that Jesus’ “love your enemy” actually works better than violence. When St Francis of Assisi tried it during the 5th Crusade, his enemy, Sultan al-Malik of Egypt, saved the Crusader army from starvation, and eventually gave Jerusalem back to the Christian world. Gandhi tried it with the British colonial government, which eventually freed all its colonies. The Danish people tried it during WWII, and saved 90% of their Jews.
Eventually I became a Conscientious Objector. I object also to our political leaders abusing our soldiers, using them to impose our corporate empire instead of to defend our country. I personally have been witnessing this abuse since Vietnam. In 1966 a boy from Tennessee, who had unintentionally killed an old woman in Vietnam, wept in my arms. The “moral injury” to our own soldiers of killing other human beings is still the primary cause of our 4,000 extra veteran suicides, year after year (“Veterans Administration 2012 Suicide Data Report”)
For seven summers with Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT), I personally witnessed our support of Israel’s apartheid occupation of Palestine. This year we are now encouraging the people of Ukraine to kill Russians, in spite of the fact that when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Czech people defeated the Russians without killing them (”Prague Spring”). “All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Gospel of Matthew, 26:52). Does every empire not sow the seeds of its own downfall?
I have been teaching Gandhian nonviolence since Vietnam. I object specifically to paying someone else to kill in my name. As you can see, I still owe $1836. According to the War Resisters League, 37% of this goes to our military. So I have paid this 37% (679$) to CPT (copy of check enclosed). My non-military balance, $1157, is enclosed with my tax return.
Thank you for reading my many thoughts. I hope my resistance does not create extra work for you.
Peace and all good
Lorin Peters
- Lorin Peters has been a long-term member of the Peace Center. He received a special Local Hero for Peace award in 2011 for his work teaching Gandhian Nonviolence.