Anti-War and Militarism News

Events were organized across northern California to commemorate two years of resistance to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Calls were widely made for an end to the forced starvation of the Gazan population, and for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. In Oakland, community members marched to demand an arms embargo; at UC Berkeley, students organized a mass walkout; in Petaluma, activists conducted their long-time weekly picket.

The SF Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on the University of California, San Francisco to reinstate professor of medicine Dr. Rupa Marya and publicly affirm that it will safeguard academic freedom and free speech. Dr. Marya was terminated from UCSF in May 2025, which came after her medical privileges were suspended in September 2024 over social media posts in which she criticized Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

On September 24, Bay Area poets and other writers organized a poetry reading outside of U.S. Senator Adam Schiff's office in San Francisco, calling on him and Senator Alex Padilla to support the Block the Bombs legislation, and to defend freedom of the press and protect Palestinian journalists. Arts activist David Solnit transformed the building's plaza into a mini auditorium with rows of folding chairs, and using the corporate offices as a background.

On September 18, a press conference and march were held at Oakland Airport Terminal 1 as part of the first convening of the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo campaign. Recent research has uncovered the airport's role in transporting military cargo to Israel. Since January 2025, at least 280 shipments have left the Oakland Airport destined for Israel's military, which included bomb release units and surveillance systems for F-35 jets.

In recent weeks, actions have been organized at the Israel Consulate in San Francisco to protest the country's war crimes in Gaza. On September 12, "blood" flowed into the gutter after demonstrators used red paint to make bloody hand prints on an Israeli flag to protest the starvation and ongoing massacre with American bombs. Others drummed, banged on pots and pans, and blew horns. Some held photos of skeletal starving children.

The ever-present White House Peace Vigil tent, an iconic staple across from the executive mansion for the last 44 years, was removed by National Park Service Police on September 7 by order of Donald Trump. Trump, who claimed to have not previously known of its existence, when informed of its presence, labeled it an “eyesore” and ordered its removal as part of his erasure of homeless encampments in Washington D.C.

Activists on the West Coast from Bellingham, WA to San Diego, CA organized highway banner drops on August 29 to amp up the Global Chevron Boycott, which has been initiated as a priority campaign by Palestine's Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Chevron operates and co-owns fossil gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestinian land that Israel has illegally claimed, and also manages a pipeline that runs from Israel to Egypt.

Over 100 members of Jewish Voice for Peace Sacramento and their allies staged a sit-in in the lobby of Kimpton Sawyer Hotel in Sacramento on August 27 as U.S. Senator Alex Padilla participated as a featured guest in Politico’s corporate funded inaugural California policy summit. The protest was part of a Jewish-led day of action across the state calling on both U.S. Senators from California to stop voting to arm Israel.

Hundreds of Bay Area residents attended an emergency protest in San Francisco organized in response to Israel's assassination of six journalists in Gaza. Israel killed four Al Jazeera staff in a targeted airstrike on August 10: correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal. Two freelancers who worked with Al Jazeera, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammad al-Khaldi, were also killed.

On July 30, San Francisco's Two Embarcadero Center building reverberated with the din of clanging pots and pans as protesters marched through the halls of the bottom floor and called out the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) for its complicity in the Palestinian genocide. They drew an image of a starving child and "bloody" hand prints on the ground in front of the building, driving home the point. A return demonstration at BCG was held on August 9.