No Taxes for War and Genocide! Nationwide Economic Blockade

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(SAN FRANCISCO, April 15) - A demonstration was held at a San Francisco Federal Building as part of today's world wide economic blockade in solidarity with Palestine. Hosted by Code Pink and Bay Area peace groups, protesters first rallied at United Nations Plaza and then marched to the nearby IRS offices at 450 Golden Gate Avenue.

In front of IRS offices, they performed skits portraying entitled "queen" Nancy Pelosi, the CEO of Lockeed who thanked "Uncle Sam" for all the bomb contracts, and "Tony Blinken" spreading war for AIPAC enabled politicians.

Activists demands were simple. They refused to have their tax dollars pay for the death and destruction being inflicted on Gaza. Several planned to withhold their tax payments.

In the war of nerves between Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has a lot, and President Joe Biden, who does not have any, Netanyahu scores a triple win. One, he is close to realizing his long cherished goal of involving the US in a war against Iran. The attack on the Iranian consulate was his answer to Biden threatening to cut off support. Two, he gets his current genocide of Palestine off the front pages by distracting the world with the calamity of a possible regional war, and three, opens up the possibility of the US doing major damage to the only power that opposes Israel's goal of wiping out Palestine and the Palestinians.

Netanyahu is as clever as Biden is dumb. The attack on the Iranian embassy had nothing to do with any problem Israel had with the embassy per se but was in order to provoke an Iranian attack that would provide a pretext for a massive Israeli-US-British attack on Iran.

Even though Iran's reprisal for the Embassy bombing was ineffective due to the vast technical superiority of the US's and Israel's US supplied weaponry, Iran has indicated that it was willing to consider the matter closed at that point. Israel has said the opposite.

The US and Britain and even France and Germany have declared their total support of Israel with respect to Iran and, conveniently for Israel, ending all talk of Israel's crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank.

Many peace advocates throughout the world have viewed Israel as the embodiment of the Zionist, hyper-nationalist and racist goal of a greater Israel where Palestine and Palestinians don't exist. They have paid less attention to view that Israel is also very much a re-embodiment of traditional Western imperialism and colonialism.

That the US and Britain have instantly, without any discussion, mobilized major military assets, ready to attack Iran, supports this view. If Israel replies to Iran's retaliation in a major way, it is hard to imagine that the US and Britain will not feel forced to participate, regardless of what they say. They will not want to loose their good old fashioned imperialist hold in the Middle East.

Iran knows it cannot win an air and naval war. But it has a very substantial land army so its only possible path to victory against Israel and the West is a land war. If this happens, as American body bags start coming home and second thoughts about such a war spreads, Trump would claim that this is not the US's war and have an easy path to becoming the next President.

Biden's support of Netanyahu could have dire consequences indeed.

See all high resolution photos here.