Speakers cite impacts of local weapon manufacturing and genocide in Palestine
Lori Graham
Contributing Writer
BLACKSBURG – A stream of citizens waited their turn, many wearing a keffiyeh, the scarf synonymous to Palestinians and their supporters, to address their grievances and heartbreak over the continuing Israel-Palestine conflict in what they are calling a genocide.
Citizens present at the Mar. 12 Blacksburg Town Council meeting called for solidarity from the town in the form of a ceasefire resolution in Palestine.
Andy Steger of Blacksburg was the first at the podium to address the council members during the citizen comments session of the meeting. Steger called for a public resolution by the Town of Blacksburg for a ceasefire in Gaza, reading a poem to council preluded by a trigger warning due to sensitive imagery that the words may reflect.
“This is part of the anger and grief that I can’t hold inside any longer about what is happening in Gaza. The poem is called ‘In our Global Theater’,” Steger said.
Steger’s call to action asked that Blacksburg join many other cities in drafting a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Palestine. Other community members also spoke in support to draft a resolution in support of Palestine and an immediate ceasefire.
According to a Reuters article titled “US city councils increasingly call for Israel-Gaza ceasefire, analysis shows “on Feb. 2, 2024, by Aurora Ellis, “Some 70 U.S. cities, including Chicago and Seattle, have passed resolutions on the Israel-Gaza war with most calling for a ceasefire, a Reuters analysis of city data shows, placing more pressure on President Joe Biden ahead of a November general election to help end the fighting.”
“I grieve for actions that I’m told haven’t happened,” said Blacksburg resident Zachary Weiss. “You will continue to hear us holler until justice prevails. We all know what free Palestine entails. Support the free Palestine resolution.”
Megan Peterson lives in Christiansburg and works in Blacksburg, and also has family ties to the community, responded to the question why a small town like Blacksburg should support Palestine and a ceasefire resolution. Peterson spoke of the weapons being manufactured nearby at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant and the longstanding connection Virginia Tech has had to the military with the Corps of Cadet program.
“Our legacy can be, that we do not have manufactured weapons in our community to, I guess, commit this unfolding genocide in Palestine. We can also pass a, you know, ceasefire Palestine resolution and that be our legacy instead,” Peterson said.
Gwyneth Homer, local childcare worker, and lifelong resident of Blacksburg spoke of the loss of youthful life in Palestine.
“Recently, the U.S. airdropped enough food for 37,000 meals, which sounds so generous but is nowhere near enough to fill 2.3 million hungry bellies and it becomes insulting when the same ‘benefactor’ is also providing machinery to slaughter those who are seeking aid,” Homer said. “Childbirth is stressful in any country…women in Gaza can expect no such relief. There’s no medicine to ease their labor, nor a safe, clean space to deliver. The mothers are too malnourished to nurse their own babies, so they rely on formula, but the water that they mix their formula with is contaminated because Israel has bombed their water infrastructure, and their children end up with hepatitis.”
One immigrant from the Middle East, now a Blacksburg resident, also addressed council.
“I moved to Blacksburg from the Middle East,” Lena Zubi of Blacksburg and a Virgina Tech student said. “I moved by choice. My grandfather is from Hebron, and he had to flee his home a while back, not by choice. I moved here because I believed in what this country stood for. I believed in freedom, pursuit of happiness, and liberty.”
Helena Hubert, a college student of William and Mary and Blacksburg resident who immigrated here from Germany at a young age, spoke through tears of her friend from Cambodia who had great loss of family due to what is historically referred to as a U.S. involved Cambodian genocide. The impact of the attack continues to deeply affect him and his remaining family members, Hubert said.
“You guys have the power to do something about it,” Hubert said. “I’m just a college student. You guys have been elected to do something and it and if you don’t, you’re going to kill people. We’re gonna kill people.”
“Israel was attacked by Hamas, this is undisputed,” Virginia Tech student William Kirschbaum said. “Thousands of Israelis were killed in an unprovoked attack by their neighbors. This is just the truth and I believe, I believe, there was a military response, as many other states would respond to their citizens being killed, and that response carries with a devastating consequence as our, the protestors here have mentioned. They are absolutely correct in the sense that Palestinian lives matter, this is true; however, Israeli lives also matter.”
Kirschbaum said that both sides of the conflict should be considered and that he does also stand with American military soldiers. He went on to say that he will respect the decision of the Blacksburg Town Council.
Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith commended everyone for attending the meeting and speaking out.
“It’s difficult to speak in public. Most of us don’t feel polished about it and it takes an extra measure of bravery to talk on a topic that is fraught like this,” Hager-Smith said.
