Minneapolis, MN – On Tuesday, September 15, protesters gathered at Loring Park to mark the 44th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, when thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese were slaughtered by far-right Lebanese militias with the assistance and supervision of the Israeli military.

Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) and the Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC) organized the protest to mourn the thousands murdered that day, and to highlight the continuity to today as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and occupation of Lebanon — all sponsored by the United States.

The Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon were filled with Palestinian families, most of whom were driven out of Palestine in 1948 by Israeli militias during the Nakba. In 1982, after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded Lebanon and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed to withdraw from the country, Lebanese Phalangists descended on the camps, at the behest of and supplied by the IDF. From September 16 thru 18, while the Israelis penned in the refugees and illuminated the night skies with flares, the Phalangists killed 3500 Palestinians. Many victims were raped and mutilated.

Speaking for the AWC, Maeve Aickin quoted survivor testimony, including Siham Balqis’s description of the aftermath: “We were made to walk over the dead bodies, and among cluster bombs. At one point I passed a tank, where the body of a baby only a few days old was stuck to the wheel.”

The massacre has been commemorated by Palestinians and the global Palestinian solidarity movement ever since. The extreme carnage continues to shock today, but the event fits squarely in the pattern of Israeli operations.

“Israel doesn’t require legitimate pretext to invade, to pillage, and to massacre,” said Lina Jebara of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), noting that the massacre took place during a ceasefire. “In the last 44 years, it’s been clear that Israel’s approach to carrying out its terror campaigns throughout Palestine and Lebanon have not changed; martyr civilians, raze villages, and traumatize generations, all while calling on the resistance factions in the territories it’s attacking to lay down their arms and surrender to an Israeli notion of peace, to put their necks to the Israeli sword.”

Advocates explained that the connection between Israel’s massacres extends to the U.S., and to Minnesota specifically.

“Just two years ago, Palestinian journalists identified an inertial measurement unit that had been produced at the Minneapolis Honeywell plant in the rubble of the Al-Sardi School, which was located in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp,” Aickin said. “Just as American families abetted Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian and Lebanese families in 1982 by staying silent and complying as their government-funded the U.S. military outpost, known as Israel, to the tune of 7.2 million taxpayer dollars a day, American families in 2026 are abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its merciless settler violence in the West Bank, and its colonial annexation project in Southern Lebanon by allowing politicians like Tim Walz to invest our tax dollars in companies that provide the technological infrastructure for Israeli atrocities.”

“Israel and the United States would like nothing more than for us to forget this kind of history. The U.S. empire erases its crimes against the oppressed, and it whitewashes the history of the people who struggle against it,” said Sonja Tomasko of WAMM.

“We’ve witnessed, repeatedly, an incredibly lucid candor take shape across the Middle East from people who refuse to bow to their oppressors,” Jebara emphasized. “It’s the Iranians holding down the Strait of Hormuz, the Yemenis reclaiming Saudi-occupied land, the Palestinians and Lebanese who’ve continued to resist and rebuild to come back and to resist, who refuse to capitulate, who are making clear the only viable path to liberation, who are making clear that the U.S. and Israel must get out of the Middle East.”

What does this mean for Minnesotans? Aickin said, “It means showing up to the State Board of Investment [SBI] meeting on September 22 to demand that the SBI divest from Palantir, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, RTX, and all other corporations that use teachers’ pension funds to bomb teachers and students in their schools in Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon. It means showing up to our protest on October 4 to demand that Honeywell drop its exclusive contract with the Department of War to produce IMUs like the one found in Gaza.”

Aickin continued, “As the SBI pours money into murder and Honeywell produces critical missile components in our communities, we have both the opportunity and the moral responsibility to throw a wrench in the kill chain and refuse to stand down until we’ve torn the whole thing to the ground.”

#MinneapolisMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #Iran #WAMM #AWC #Palestine #Lebanon

Salt Lake City, UT – On Saturday, June 20, at an event organized by the Utah Anti War Committee, dozens of community members gathered at an overpass to demand hands off Cuba.

This protest was called after recent escalations in the decades-long effort by the U.S. to destabilize the nation of Cuba through economic strangulation and covert means. The Trump administration recently indicted beloved Cuban leader Raul Castro and has made threats of more direct military confrontation. Other organizations quickly signed on to the protest, including the National Network on Cuba, Armed Queers SLC, The 71% Coalition, and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Protesters held a large banner sporting the Cuban flag, reading “Hands off Cuba!” and received overwhelmingly positive reactions to their message from the vehicles passing by.

“The overall general trend in regard to U.S. imperial power is one of decline,” said Adam Koritz of the FRSO of the aggression on Cuba and the ongoing U.S. war on Iran. “However, we know a wounded beast is dangerous and prone to lashing out in its death throes.”

Mustafa Khader of the 71% Coalition condemned attempts to restore a U.S. backed dictatorship in Cuba saying, “You don’t care about the Cubans; you care about your pockets!”

Protesters chanted, “No boots on the ground, no bombs in the air! U.S. out of everywhere!”

An activist with Armed Queers stated, “By being an unknowing accessory to an empire, we are forcefully kept from becoming fully human. This will continue to happen until we stand up, destroy the shackles of capitalism, and prove that we can build a system that does not rely on the subjugation of people based on race, gender, sexuality, or nation, the destruction of the environment, or the impoverishment of workers.”

Nova Morra of the Utah Anti-War Committee then called the crowd to join their July 4 protest at a local Raytheon Applied Signal Technology facility in West Valley City as part of their campaign to shut down the facility and protest Raytheon’s involvement in war crimes carried out by the U.S.

#SaltLakeCityUT #UT #AntiWarMovement #International #UAWC #AWC #Cuba

Richfield, MN – On June 14, over 50 protesters gathered outside a U.S. Army recruitment center to demand an end to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Lebanon, highlighting the war crimes committed by U.S. military personnel while admonishing recruiters for preying on vulnerable people’s basic needs. The event was organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC) with a wide range of grassroots organizations participating in the event.

The day also marked the Flag Day holiday. Instead of flying the U.S. flag, protesters displayed the flags of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Cuba and other countries targeted by Trump, calling on Americans to respect the sovereignty of other nations. Hundreds of passing cars honked in support.

Maamoun Slayhi, a member of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), spoke at the rally. “They tell us this is about security. But whose security? Not the security of the children in Gaza. Not the security of the families in South Lebanon. Not the security of the people of Iran,” said Slayhi. “And certainly not the security of working families here in the United States who are told there is no money for healthcare, no money for schools, no money for housing, and no money for infrastructure, but somehow there is always money for bombs, warships, and unconditional support for Israel.”

Slayhi continued, “Brown University’s Costs of War project found that the U.S. spent over $21 billion on military aid to Israel after October 7 [2023], not counting billions more in related U.S. military operations in the region. And now over $15 billion for the Iran War. That is our money. That is money that could be spent on healthcare. That is money that could be spent on schools.”

The Pentagon has not been forthcoming about the true cost of the war on Iran. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, at a House Armed Services Committee on April 29, estimated the cost of the war to be about $25 billion. However, a more comprehensive analysis by Popular Information estimated the total cost of the war through the first 60 days at $71.8 billion, almost three times the stated cost.

Doubts about the true cost have been further legitimized by reports that the Pentagon has sought hundreds of billions to be added to the War Department’s budget.

Sima Shakhsari, a founding member of the grassroots group Let Iran Live, connected military recruitment to the human toll the U.S. military has inflicted on their home country, saying, “These recruiters make it sound like it is a heroic act to go and fight in the U.S.-Israeli wars. I ask you: Is it heroic to kill a three-day-old baby in Lebanon or a 20-day-old baby in Iran? How heroic is it to kill Avina, a two-year-old girl who struggled to take her last breaths with her pacifier still in her mouth, as doctors tried to save her?”

In the last week, the U.S. and Iran reportedly reached a memorandum of understanding — reportedly including major U.S. concessions — aimed at ending the war. Continued Israeli violations in Lebanon, as well as mixed signals from the Trump administration about the terms of the agreement, have threatened to keep the war going.

“Many of us are skeptical about the end of the military attacks, because we have seen repeatedly how Israel, under the protection of the U.S. government and under the cloak of ceasefire agreements, continues to bomb and kill Palestinians and the people of Lebanon,” cautioned Shakhsari.

Cedar Larson, a member of Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), spoke about the system that is ultimately responsible for these wars, saying, “We, as the people, the majority in this country, the workers of the world, we are so united. We see the world around us – we see that our enemy is the ruling class! It is the billionaires – the trillionaires! Elon Musk is an official trillionaire. The Pentagon budget is one trillion dollars. And still millions go hungry. We can see that the only option is an end to capitalism, an end to U.S. imperialism, and the time has never been more ripe!”

“The U.S. government itself creates the poverty conditions that many look to escape by joining the military,” explained Yossi Aharoni of the AWC, one of the rally’s emcees. “We can all see the corruption of the Iran war: completely illegal, immoral, built on lies upon lies. It is a disgusting immoral war and it is a disgusting immoral act to recruit young people at the prime of their lives to fight and die for this administration or any U.S. war.”

Members of Veterans for Peace and U.S. Palestinian Community Network also spoke at the rally.

Protesters concluded the event with a group photo in front of the recruitment center, leaving behind a few signs bearing the words: “Genocide is not a job!”

#RichfieldMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #Iran #AWC #AMP #WAMM