We could stop funding the Israeli assault on Gaza and fund real community needs right here in Grand Rapids

We know that the US Government has been providing $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel on an annual basis. $3.8 billion in US military aid to Israel makes Israel the largest recipient of US military aid, which has been the case for decades.

We also know that the $3.8 billion of US military aid to Israel is primarily used to bomb Gaza and to arrest, detain, torture and kill Palestinians, as the human rights group B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has methodically documented. 

Now, according to the fabulous tool that the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has created, which allows you to type in your city or state, which provides an amount of the $3.8 billion annually in US military aid to Israel that could stay in your community. On top of that, this tool provides an example of how the money that leaves Michigan or Grand Rapids on an annual basis, how that money could be used in our communities.

For example, when I type in Michigan, it says that of the $3.8 billion of US military aid that goes to Israel, $89,397,606 of it comes from Michigan. If that amount of money were to stay in Michigan on an annual basis it could fund:

• 10,627 households with public housing for a year.
• 31,105 children could receive free or low cost healthcare.
• It could cover the salaries of 976 elementary school teachers
• 254,512 households could be powered by solar electricity for a year.
• 2,365 students could have their loan debt cancelled.
• 77,737,049 N95 respirator masks could be provided to the public.

If we type in Grand Rapids, we find that on an annual basis, $2,815,720.00 of the $3.8 billion in US military aid to Israel could stay in our community. That is almost 1 million more than is currently being used for the Grand Rapids Participatory Budgeting project ($2 million). Again, this tool provides a breakdown of how $2,815,720.00 could be used in Grand Rapids:

• 334 Households with public housing for a year.
• 979 children could receive free or low-cost healthcare.
• It would cover the salary for 30 elementary school teachers.
• 8,016 households could be powered with solar electricity for a year.
• 74 students could have their loan debt cancelled.
• 2,448,452 N95 respirators masks could be provided for the community.

This is what we call Radical Imagination. If we can imagine it, we can then organize to win these kinds of transformative campaigns. This is what Rep. Scholten, Senators Peters and Stabenow, what State Legislators, County officials and Grand Rapids City Commissioners need to embrace. However, we k ow they won’t unless that are pressured into doing so. By not sending $2,815,720.00 in federal tax money from Grand Rapids to fund the Israeli occupation, we would not only stop being complicit in Israeli war crimes, we would re-direct that amount on an annual basis to fund vitally important community needs right here in Grand Rapids. Sounds like an organizing campaign to me.