“The F-35s are loud as hell, they disrupt our communities, and are currently being used in military operations around the world that I fundamentally oppose. The people who live underneath these nuclear-capable planes voted against having them here, and they came anyway. So yes, If there’s anything I can legally do as Governor to get them out of our skies, I’m down.”

What may have seemed impossible suddenly is looking achievable. Please feel free to leave your comment to this exciting news by clicking the link below, and share with Front Porch Forum and social media. Equally important, send your comment to Amanda Janoo via staffer, Jeffrey Peterson <jeffrey@janooforvt.com>. The town meeting votes in Burlington and Winooski demonstrated that this will become a powerful winning issue once her position and her commitment to act to halt F-35 training in Vermont skies becomes widely known.

On January 7, 2027, Vermont’s next governor can end a grave injustice. The next governor possesses the constitutional authority to order an immediate halt to the F-35 training flights operating from Burlington International Airport (BTV). This is a legal, moral, and public health imperative, grounded in facts the U.S. Air Force itself provided.

The Harm Is Authoritatively Documented and Undeniable

The Air Force’s own 2013 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is unambiguous and its damning. It reveals that training with F-35 jets amidst the city neighborhoods surrounding the runway at Burlington International Airport exposes 6,663 civilians, 1,200 of whom are children, to 115-decibel noise with each F-35 takeoff (Vol. I, BR4-23, BR4-30, BR4-31, BR4-81).

The US Air Force EIS also presents studies showing that repeated exposure to this level of military aircraft noise can cause permanent hearing damage (Vol. II, C-22, C-25). The EIS also presents studies showing that repeated exposure to high aircraft noise levels, like the F-35, can impair children’s cognitive development: It cites studies showing “that chronic exposure to high aircraft noise levels can impair learning,” including “lower reading scores.” It also reports that “Researchers have found that tasks involving central processing and language comprehension (such as reading, attention, problem solving, and memory) appear to be the most affected by noise.” (C-28 to C30). The US Air Force EIS acknowledged repeated exposure, stating that there would be 5,486 takeoffs and landings each year from Burlington airport (BR4-3 and BR4-20).

The US Air Force EIS further disclosed that the affected neighborhoods around the airport in Vermont are disproportionately low-income and minority (Vol. I, BR4-83). The noise contour map in the EIS (BR4-31) reveals that none of the area’s wealthier neighborhoods lie within the oval-shaped danger zone centered on the runway. The suffering is confined to populations least equipped to organize, mobilize, and fight back.

The EIS compared six candidate sites nationwide. Of the six, the Air Force identified Burlington as the worst: It was the only one that showed an increase in the number of people (+2,061) and households (+997) severely affected by extreme F-35 aircraft noise compared to the baseline. For Burlington the baseline was the F-16 using its afterburner for most takeoffs. (Vol.1 p 2-32). All but one of the other candidate sites had fewer people and fewer households severely affected.

Notwithstanding the clear danger to children and adults disclosed by the Air Force, the F-35s began arriving at the Burlington airport in September 2019, and Governor Phil Scott ordered the training with those F-35 jets to proceed.

The suffering the Air Force predicted was confirmed by surveys (pps. 8-10) and news reports after most of the full complement of 20 F-35s arrived in Spring 2020.

Here is a selection of what survey respondents wrote regarding their overall experience with the F-35: “Particularly when working outside in our yard - the takeoffs fly directly overhead and can be painful (causing me to have drop what I’m doing and block my ears).” “The noise is alarming and unbearable.” “Wakes our 9 month old up from Sleep.” “Way loader than i thought they would be.” “4-6 planes one after another. house shook for whole event!” “completely terrifying.” “It feels like they are going to crash right into this house.” “My kids cannot be outside.” “Sound straight out of hell.” “Way louder than I thought it would be.” “House shook.” “My ears were ringing and I developed a headache.” “Makes me feel like I live in a war state and am in danger.” This is just the first dozen responses. Hundreds of people responded similarly.

The damage to ears and brains is not hypothetical; it is a daily reality for nearly 3,000 households in Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski, and Williston.

Noise monitors installed by the airport confirmed the 115-decibel noise level for the F-35 anticipated by the US Air Force EIS. Here is a screen shot from the airport’s online tracking system showing the 115-decibel noise level that it measured:

Constitutional Authority Rests with the Governor

People often assume military decisions are purely federal matters, settled and out of Vermont’s hands, an idea that was promoted by the present governor. That is wrong on the specific question that matters most: National Guard training is under state control.

The U.S. Constitution divides authority over what was then called the Militia but is now called the State National Guard:

The Congress shall have Power…To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

Congress and the federal government control the arming, which is also known as basing and set the discipline, which includes the legal standards for properly conducting military operations. But the constitution requires the training itself to be under state control.

Under the Vermont Constitution, “The Governor shall be Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the State.” As commander, the governor is responsible to ensure that the training of the Vermont Air National Guard complies with the military discipline set by Congress. State law 20 VSA § 421 vests in the governor the power to issue orders through the Adjutant General. That includes the power of the governor to order a halt to training in a location where the governor believes the military discipline is violated. A new governor does not have to wait for federal approval or a court ruling. A new governor can issue the order as commander in chief.

Some may claim that this power interferes with federal basing. But basing and training are distinct. The founders wanted them to be separate. The governor would not be ordering removal of the F-35 jets. By halting the F-35 training over cities, the governor would be doing her or his job to ensure that the training is in compliance with the discipline prescribed by Congress.

The People Have Already Spoken, and they have Been Ignored

The current governor defied the will of the people. In 2018, Burlington Town Meeting voters passed a measure that was on the ballot to “cancel the F-35” at the city-owned airport, with 55% supporting the ballot measure. In 2021, Winooski voters urged the state to halt the training in densely populated areas, including Winooski, with 67% approving. These are not fringe opinions; they are democratic votes in two of the most affected cities. Both votes were ignored. A new Governor is needed who will use his or her constitutional power over the training and give those town meeting votes the effect they deserve.

The Discipline Prescribed by Congress

Some may argue that this is a national-security question that should not be decided by a governor, or that Vermont has a duty to host its share of national training regardless of civilian injury. However, even if one sets aside health and justice, the F-35 training in cities full of children fails the discipline prescribed by Congress and the legal standards that apply to all military operations.

The discipline prescribed by Congress is included in DoD Directive 2311.01 and the DoD Law of War Manual, which bind all U.S. military forces to “comply with the law of war during all armed conflicts, however characterized,” and to “continue to act consistent with the law of war’s fundamental principles” in “all other military operations.” And military operations is defined in the DoD dictionary to include military training.

Under 20 VSA 361, the governor is required to ensure that the Vermont National Guard conforms to the discipline prescribed for the U.S. Armed Forces.

The fundamental military law principles consist of Distinction, Humanity, Military Necessity, Proportionality, and Honor. The F-35 training in Vermont cities violates each and every one of those principals.

• Distinction requires separating military operations from civilian populations. The F-35’s noise and flight path in Vermont not only don’t distinguish, they target homes, schools, and playgrounds in the most densely populated cities in the state.

• Military Necessity is not satisfied by mere convenience. Training with F-35 jets can equally be conducted over unpopulated areas. And Vermont has plenty of unpopulated areas.

• Humanity prohibits using a weapon in a manner for which it was not designed that causes unnecessary suffering. The F-35 was designed for stealth and supersonic attack, not for inflicting 115-decibel jet noise on thousands of children in a city.

• Proportionality requires that feasible precautions to protect civilians. These feasible precautions must be completed before military operations begin. Insulation retrofits didn’t begin until years after F-35s arrived. That does not satisfy proportionality.

• Honor is betrayed when uniformed officers knowingly strike children with blasting F-35 jets. Subjecting 1,200 children to permanent harm from daily strikes with the noise of those jets is incompatible with the uniform’s core ethic.

A Further Dark Consequence of Allowing F-35 Training in a City

The F-35 training over Vermont cities normalizes disregard for the discipline prescribed by Congress. That normalization has real-world consequences: the same Vermont airmen who trained with F-35 jets in cities where they injure civilians were selected by President Trump for joint strikes with Israeli F-35 pilots on civilian-populated targets in Iran starting on February 28, 2026. Whether intended or not, the years of F-35 training in Vermont cities that blasted thousands of civilians, including children, created this pipeline of indifference that President Trump exploited.

The Benefits of Halting the Training Are Immediate and Profound

A new governor who orders a stop to the F-35 training at Burlington airport will deliver transformative benefits:

• Protect children: End the daily assault on their hearing and cognitive development.

• Restore military integrity: Free Guard members from violating the discipline prescribed by Congress while training in Vermont.

• Advance justice: Stop targeting low-income and minority communities disproportionately. Or at all.

• Preserve moral standing: Ensure Vermont airmen are not trained in a manner that makes them candidates for future combat operations directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure.

• Avoid liability: Shield the governor, Vermont military personnel, and their corporate collaborators from potential prosecution under state and federal law for authorizing harm to civilians, including children in Vermont.

• Restore local democracy: Honor the votes of Burlington and Winooski, giving Vermont town meeting its due respect.

• Oppose militarization: Money for education, health care, housing, and social security, not for wars.

• Stand up for human rights: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” under Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  

Will the Next Governor Act?

The facts are settled. State authority is clear.

Will the next governor act? Not in deference to Washington like the present governor, but in defense of 1,200 Vermont children and in compliance with the constitutional mandates and with the military’s own discipline that protects civilians. And for decency and human rights.

Each and every voter can take responsibility. At every opportunity during the election campaign voters should demand an answer from each of the candidates for governor: “If elected, will you order a halt to the F-35 training in Vermont?”

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Grossman received the fewest votes among five candidates, a result that reflects widespread voter opposition to taxpayer-funded destruction abroad—including the killing of children and the systematic devastation of homes, schools, hospitals, and farmland in Gaza. Her attempt to scrub her digital footprint by deleting social media posts only brought greater attention to her record, effectively placing Gaza at the center of the election.

Moreover, Grossman’s strategy of invoking accusations of antisemitism and playing the victim did not salvage her campaign. It failed to address the very actions she sought to obscure: organizing Vermonters to pressure Representative Becca Balint to vote against the $26 billion aid package that fueled the devastation of Gaza; opposing ceasefire resolutions in Hartford and Hinesburg; rejecting a legislative sign-on letter calling for a ceasefire; fighting against a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) resolution in Burlington; and supporting congressional legislation aimed at restricting speech critical of the Israeli government.

Grossman, who identifies on LinkedIn as a “Political & Digital Strategist,” went so far as to attack a Jewish member of Jewish Voice for Peace who exposed her record, claiming he targeted her Jewish identity. This deflection did not deny her actions—it only highlighted them.

By framing criticism of her conduct in support of Israeli government policy as antisemitism, Grossman conflated her conduct and the actions of the Israeli state with Jewish identity itself. That conflation is increasingly seen as a danger to Jewish communities, both in Vermont and beyond. A growing consensus recognizes that the most effective way to combat antisemitism is to oppose genocide and advocate for equal rights for all people under Israeli rule—while clearly distinguishing between Jewish heritage and the policies of the Israeli government.

Grossman’s defeat demonstrates that Vermonters, like the majority of Americans, stand with Palestine. This electoral outcome offers a foundation for concrete action. In 1986, then-Governor Madeline Kunin signed legislation to divest state funds from companies operating in apartheid South Africa. A decade later, then-State Treasurer Jim Douglas led similar efforts to divest state funds from tobacco companies. VT Digger reported, “In 2007, Vermont divested from companies doing business with the government of Sudan because of the humanitarian crisis in that country.” In 2016 Governor Peter Shumlin pushed for the state to dump investments in coal and Exxon Mobil. Vermont can now apply that same moral and financial leverage by restricting state investments in and purchases from companies doing business in what many characterize as an apartheid state.

Grossman’s defeat did not happen in a vacuum. It follows years of grassroots organizing by the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation, which has championed Apartheid Free Communities resolutions in cities and towns across the state. At the same time, Jewish Voice for Peace has played a crucial role in advancing Palestine as a Vermont issue—challenging the genocide head‑on and shattering the false narrative that Jewish communities are uniformly aligned with Zionism, the Israeli government, or its crimes against humanity. Their collective work has reframed the debate, making it clear that support for Palestinian rights is not only a moral imperative but also a growing local consensus.

The time has come for Vermont to renew its legacy of peaceful resistance—not only to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza, but to demand an end to apartheid and the establishment of equal rights for all.

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Jewish Voice for Peace VT-NH Chapter condemns the conduct of Vermont State Senate candidate Joanna Grossman for hiding her own political record and then falsely invoking charges of antisemitism to deflect a legitimate question about that record.

At a July 9 candidate forum in South Burlington, a Jewish JVP member summarized screenshots of Grossman’s own deleted 2024 social media posts which document that she invited supporters to:

• criticize Congresswoman Becca Balint for her vote against a $26 billion military aid package to Israel (passed in April 2024) funding Israel’s military campaign in Gaza;

• oppose ceasefire resolutions in Hartford and Hinesburg, as well as a ceasefire sign-on letter circulating in the Vermont legislature;

• advocate for federal legislation that would adopt a definition of antisemitism that could restrict speech critical of the Israeli government.

During the forum, the JVP member asked: “We have one of the candidates here who’s been a leader in promoting the genocide and in opposing the ceasefire. So I’d like to ask how you, Joanna, and the other candidates stand on the position that Becca Balint took when she voted against further funding for Israel in 2024—a position also taken by Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch.”

Indeed, Congresswoman Balint’s perspective is gaining national traction: a recent Quinnipiac poll found that 60% of Americans support halting military aid to Israel, and 77% of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide.

Grossman did not address the substance of the question. Instead, she responded: “I hope that none of you ever have the experience of being defamed because of your identity.” Five days later, she amplified that claim on her campaign website, stating she had been “forced to confront a verbal attack aimed at my Jewish heritage.”

In fact, the question referred solely to Grossman’s inviting her supporters to advocate for U.S. military funding to Israel and join her in opposing ceasefire efforts. The JVP member made no reference to her identity or heritage. JVP condemns this misuse of antisemitism; recasting legitimate political scrutiny as an attack on Jewish identity undermines both the seriousness of real antisemitism and the democratic process.

“Asking a candidate to account for her own documented record, a record she chose to delete rather than defend, is not antisemitic. It is ordinary political accountability,” said Francine Miller, JVP member and Adjunct Professor of Law at Vermont Law School.

Jewish Americans hold diverse views on what Jewish safety requires. Many JVP members believe that solidarity with Palestinians is essential—not repeating upon them the trauma inflicted on Jews under the Nazis.

“As a Jewish woman and an active Jewish Voice for Peace member, I am deeply troubled that Joanna Grossman would weaponize antisemitism to avoid answering for her own record,” said Miller. “Using the charge of antisemitism to dodge questions about the very real genocide being carried out against Palestinians in the name of Jewish people is a dangerous misuse of that accusation—and an insult to those who face genuine hatred.”

About Jewish Voice for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization of Jews and allies committed to ending U.S. support for the Israeli occupation and advocating for justice, equality, and human rights for all Palestinians and Israelis.

From the editor of cancelF35.substack.com: Joanna Grossman is running in the Chittenden Southeast Senate District that includes South Burlington, a small part of Burlington, and the towns of Bolton, Charlotte, Hinesburg, Jericho, Richmond, St. George, Shelburne, Underhill, and Williston. One way for you to help reveal what Senate candidate Joanna Grossman sought to conceal from the voters is to share the link to this post on your social media. Another way is to repost the JVP VT-NH Chapter statement on Front Porch Forum.

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The facts about her conduct are crucial for voters to weigh before the August 11 primary. You can read the letter here: https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/letters/letters-to-the-editor-7-29-26 (scroll down to “Grossman’s Deception.”)

Help Share Grossman’s Record

If you’d like to ensure that Joanna Grossman is not successful at concealing her record from the voters in the 11 towns in the Chittenden Southeast senate district, share the link to the Seven Days letter on your social media and in your Front Porch Forum. In sharing your thoughts, feel free to draw from the following model message or from the links below it:

Seven Days published a July 29 letter detailing the organizing work Vermont Senate candidate Joanna Grossman tried to hide—and how she reacted when that conduct was revealed at a senate candidate forum. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/letters/letters-to-the-editor-7-29-26

As the letter notes, Grossman deleted social media posts showing that she organized her supporters to:

• Pressure U.S. Congresswoman Becca Balint for her vote against sending aid to Israel: $26.4 billion in taxpayer dollars for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Balint explained her vote, stating she would not “condone the utter destruction of Gaza.”

• Oppose a ceasefire resolution in Hartford, Vermont.

• Back a new federal definition of antisemitism that would punish universities for allowing speech critical of Israel’s government.

• Fight a “Boycott, Divest, & Sanction” measure before the Burlington City Council.

Through this work, Grossman positioned herself as a leading organizer in Vermont for a cause many voters strongly oppose: the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which is being carried out with U.S.-supplied bombs and US-supplied F-35 jets. A Quinnipiac University poll shows the tide has turned: 60% of U.S. voters support halting military aid to Israel, and 77% of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

When Grossman deleted those posts she denied voters access to a record that documented her conduct in behalf of funding and supplying the genocide in Gaza.

Fortunately, members of Jewish Voice for Peace had preserved screenshots of the posts Grossman deleted.

When attention to her organizing and a related question were raised at a July 9 senate candidate forum in South Burlington, Grossman did not defend her record. Instead, she deflected by accusing the questioner of antisemitism. In a later statement posted on her website she accused him of attacking her Jewish heritage.

That response is a problem. Deleting posts, concealing her record, and then claiming victimhood when their substance is revealed: that is an evasion of accountability.

Voters have a right to know where a candidate stands and what a candidate has done, especially on matters affecting our tax dollars, U.S. foreign policy, and the lives of 2 million people in Gaza. Including conduct to further US funding and arming the genocide, to oppose a ceasefire, and to advance a federal law that would restrict freedom of speech on university campuses regarding Israel.

Many Jews draw on a heritage committed to equal rights and human dignity for all: Including Palestinians. A heritage that says “never again” to all genocide. A heritage that objects to any form of dissembling, including concealing one’s record from the voters. And a heritage that unequivocally supports the freedom of speech, including the freedom to criticize a foreign country and the freedom to report what a candidate for elected office seeks to conceal.

Links:

If you wish to see Joanna Grossman’s screenshots for yourself or if you wish to share them on your social media here are the links. Below them are links to other relevant resources.

Joanna Grossman organizing against Becca Balint’s “no” vote in Congress on a bill that funded the genocide, 5-2-24 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kMipGZ8vSSqfZCDj9FOT_Xf6G3MnS8FK/view?usp=drive_link

Joanna Grossman organizing against a ceasefire resolution in Hartford 6-10-24 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1afuRoZoV_Aypx4cYdE3L8-EglfCY2xNd/view?usp=drive_link

Joanna Grossman organizing against a ceasefire resolution in Hinesberg 4-20-24 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IbqiUOruZllWy6ZZRgOJsyoEFkygXgMf/view?usp=sharing

Joanna Grossman organizing against a legislative sign-on letter for a ceasefire 2-21-24 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BuFLc9eQxdqpTB30uhEIgcElUXbp2T1f/view?usp=sharing

Joanna Grossman organizing for a new definition of antisemitism that will penalize universities if they allow certain protest 5-1-24 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xCaEwe_6HWOd8qOTWuXMEGfYhwY2ZAX0/view?usp=drive_link

Joanna Grossman organizing against allowing a boycott question on the ballot in Burlington 12-15-24. This was a long post by Joanna, and it’s on the following 3 screenshots:

“Boycott, Divest, & Sanction” question screenshot 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OPxRQv2fHv0ui17k2vZq3dZef1v1yD8E/view?usp=drive_link

“Boycott, Divest, & Sanction” question screenshot 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fZTiINQfQPSrCKwLLKtOUkJDszVVez5k/view?usp=drive_link

“Boycott, Divest, & Sanction” question screenshot 3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13QIPTNUPIB2yntkRdqwK5iy2EJNapDdV/view?usp=drive_link

Here is a link to the Quinnipiac University poll (see questions 23 and 24) https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3929

Here is the Channel 17 video of the Senate candidate forum that begins at point when the issue was raised from the floor by James Leas:

Click to see the article, “The Vermont Senate Candidate Who Deleted Her Own Record,” CancelF35.substack.com, July 14, 2026

Click to see the article, “Why Has a Vermont Senate Candidate Attempted to Hide Pro-Israel Record from Voters?” The Rake, July 19, 2026

Joanna Grossman’s statement regarding the “incident” at the July 9 Senate Candidate Forum: https://www.joannaforvermont.org/statement

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Before launching her campaign, Grossman deleted a string of social media posts documenting her work as one of Vermont’s most active organizers for the Israeli government’s military campaign in Gaza — a campaign that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and destroyed most of the territory’s hospitals, schools, universities, farmland, and water infrastructure, under a siege that has cut off food, medicine, fuel, and electricity. Screenshots taken before the deletions tell a different story than the one she’s campaigning on.

What the record shows

Joanna Grossman post dated May 2, 2024: Grossman initiated and led a group called Jewish Action Vermont that pressured Congresswoman Becca Balint over three of her votes — chief among them Balint’s “No” on H.R. 8034, the $26.4 billion Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act that funded much of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Click to read the message about this bill from Becca Balint.

Joanna Grossman post dated May 1, 2024: Grossman campaigned for H.R. 6090, federal legislation to codify a new definition of antisemitism that would restrict speech critical of the Israeli government — including speech critical of Israeli laws that create separate legal status for Jews and Palestinians in Israeli controlled territory, that deny equal rights, and that establish Jewish supremacy as the law of the land there. In her own words, passage would mean “universities receiving public funds will be penalized if they allow protests calling for the eradication of Israel.” To her credit, Congresswoman Balint voted “No” on this bill, too.

Joanna Grossman posts: Grossman sought to build opposition to ceasefire resolutions in the Vermont legislature in February 2024, in Hinesberg Vermont in April 2024, and in Hartford Vermont in June 2024.

Joanna Grossman post dated December 15, 2024: Grossman organized against what she considered “a boycott resolution” in Burlington. She provided this recommendation in her post to her readers: “When you email or address the council I implore you to please discuss how this measure affects you personally and/or the Burlington community. Please DO NOT litigate the war in Israel or talk about who is right or wrong in the conflict there. It won’t help.” (This long post took 3 screenshots: page 1, page 2, page 3).

Boycott is not a fringe tactic — it built support for the American Revolution in the early 1770s, helped break segregation in the American South, and helped end apartheid in South Africa. Boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns, along with periodic flotillas, are now central to the international push to end the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, dismantle Israel’s apartheid system, and end the siege of Gaza, precisely because governments — including our own government — have declined to act or are facilitating the genocide with money, weapons, and UN vetoes.

None of this is ancient history. It’s months of online organizing by Joanna Grossman to keep the genocide going, to keep US taxpayers paying for it, and to silence opposition. Organizing that Grossman scrubbed from public view.

The numbers she’s running from

Recent Quinnipiac University polling shows 60% of Americans want the U.S. to stop sending military aid to Israel (question 23), and 77% of Democrats say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (question 24).

Joanna Grossman spent much of 2024 organizing in the opposite direction — against a ceasefire, for continued US taxpayer funding of Israel, and against a boycott. These facts add up to Grossman leading a campaign to keep the genocide going. That’s not a detail she left out of her campaign bio by accident.

The killing continues to this day, with more than 1000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the “ceasefire” in October 2025.

Joanna Grossman was asked directly. She didn’t answer

At the Senate candidates’ forum in South Burlington on July 9, Jimmy Leas — a reporter for CancelF35.substack.com — put it to her directly. Video of the exchange between the questioner and all the candidates is available via CCTV Channel 17, starting at 40:10 on the Youtube video:

The question:

My name is Jimmy Leas and I live in South Burlington. And I’m glad Meagan brought up a global issue, of global warming. I have another global issue, which is the genocide. The genocide that is taking place in Gaza. And this is something the state can do something about with preferential purchasing and investment decisions.

And we have one of the candidates here who’s been a leader in promoting the genocide and in opposing the ceasefire. And so I’d like to ask how the other candidates, how you, Joanna, and the other candidates, stand on the position that Becca Balint took when she voted against further funding for Israel in 2024. And that’s a position that both Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch have also taken.

Joanna Grossman didn’t answer the question. She said: “I hope that none of you ever have the experience of being defamed because of your identity. I never once have supported genocide. That’s insulting and slander and I’m deeply, deeply offended.”

That response doesn’t square with her own posts. And it sidesteps the actual question — not about her identity, but about her position on a specific Becca Balint vote to end funding for the genocide. Casting the question as an attack on her identity, rather than just answering the question, serves as an admission of the sorry record she sought to conceal. It also diverts from the horrors suffered by 2 million Palestinians in Gaza under the vicious Israeli policies that she organized to protect.

Why this matters now

Palestine is fast becoming a defining test for candidates seeking public support, as recent election results in New York City and Colorado show. Vermont voters in the 11 towns and cities who will be weighing Grossman’s Senate bid deserve to know that she spent months in 2024 organizing against a ceasefire, against cutting funding for the genocide, against boycott, and for restricting speech critical of the Israeli government — and that when asked about it directly, she didn’t answer the question and attempted to make herself the victim.

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Two Attacks

On April 29, Israeli commandos boarded 22 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla 80 nautical miles from Greece. On May 18, they intercepted 50 more boats west of Cyprus. Both assaults were in international waters far from Israel. Both involved the illegal boarding of civilian vessels and the forced transfer of unarmed non-violent civilian flotilla participants to prison ships. These assaults were not for Israeli security; they were state-sponsored piracy.

Filmmaker Juliet Lamont describes her experience here:

Dark Torture Chamber Treatment for Each Participant

The Israeli government violence was not incidental. Australian activist Violet Coco testified: “Every participant was stripped of our layers, pushed to a dark torture chamber where five Israeli soldiers waited to beat us.” Irish physician Dr. Margaret Connolly – sister of Ireland’s president – enumerated the injuries among her fellow detainees: “35 fractures, 5 head injuries, 15 sexual assaults, eye injuries, ear injuries, and a huge number of taser injuries.” She called the detention a “concentration camp.”

Israel’s prison-service denied the allegations. But then National Security Minister Itamar Ben‑Gvir posted a video showing bound activists kneeling forehead-to-ground as the Israeli national anthem played, captioned “Welcome to Israel.”

The video shows Ben-Gvir himself assaulting a woman for shouting “Free Palestine,” then waving a flag and heckling the detainees.

No prison service denial can survive that video. Irish participant Catriona Graham was the woman Ben-Gvir assaulted, and she talks about her experience here:

The Tipping Point for Israeli legitimacy: Allies Break Ranks

This time, the international response was not limited to routine admonition:

• Ten nations (including Turkey, Brazil, Colombia, Spain, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Libya, and the Maldives) issued a joint statement citing “clear violations of international law.”

• Colombia reaffirmed its freezing of diplomatic and security ties with Israel and its termination of a free-trade agreement after Israel attacked the October 2025 flotilla.

• Poland, France, and Italy imposed entry bans or sanctions on Ben‑Gvir.

• Ireland, called for suspending all or part of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

• 37 Members of the European Parliament signed a letter calling for “Immediate suspension of the EU–Israel Association Agreement pending compliance with its human rights provisions.”

• Malaysia announced it would take Israel to the International Court of Justice.

• U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee – a longtime Israeli ally – broke ranks: “Universal outrage… for despicable actions by Ben Gvir. Flotilla was a stupid stunt, but Ben Gvir betrayed the dignity of his nation.”

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Ben‑Gvir’s conduct “is not in line with Israel’s values.”

When Israel’s own European allies, the US Ambassador, and its own Prime Minister condemn its sitting National Security Minister’s actions in real time, its legitimacy crisis is real. For the first time, Israel didn’t just lose the argument; it lost the cover of its own allies, accelerating its slide toward pariah status faster than any military victory could reverse.

The Israeli Violence is Structural, Institutionalized, and Longstanding

Some will blame Ben‑Gvir alone. That is a trap. As the Freedom Flotilla Coalition noted:

For decades, Palestinians have endured killing, arbitrary detention, torture, forced displacement, home demolitions, land theft, siege, military assaults, starvation policies, and the systematic denial of their fundamental rights.”

The attacks on the flotilla are consistent with these Israeli policies, not deviations from them.

This violence did not begin with Ben Gvir, nor does it depend on any single political figure. It is structural, institutionalized, and longstanding. Most importantly, it has been enabled and protected by governments that continue to shield Israel from accountability.

Ben‑Gvir’s video removed any hope of plausible deniability for Israel and for those shielding governments.

Legitimacy Matters More than Military Power

Princeton emeritus professor Richard Falk has argued that legitimacy matters more than military power. South African apartheid,[i] French colonialism in Algeria, and the U.S. in Vietnam all collapsed despite overwhelming military superiority – because they lost legitimacy.

Israel is now following that playbook. Since 2008, over 20 flotilla missions have been met with escalating violence. But the April-May 2026 attacks, capped by Ben‑Gvir’s gloating video, arrived at a moment when Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, carpet bombing Lebanon, and participating with the US in a war of aggression against Iran. The cumulative weight of war crimes and crimes against humanity stripped away every remaining pretense.

Countries can no longer rely on mere statements to avoid complicity. What is needed now is a comprehensive arms embargo and suspension of military and economic agreements with Israel by each country.

Conclusion: Israel Faces a Future of Deepening Isolation

For the flotilla participants, there is bitter solace: their suffering gave Israel a chance to reveal its true character. The government accepted that challenge twice – and twice responded with willful brutal violence against unarmed civilians.

Israel faces a future of deepening isolation. Not because its enemies are stronger, but because its own actions have delegitimized itself and made alliance with it unsustainable.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has vowed: “We will sail again. Israeli violence will not deter us. We will not stop until the blockade ends and Palestine is free.” And each time the flotilla sails, Israel will have a choice – to act lawfully or to further delegitimize and isolate itself.

Given its record, the outcome is not in doubt. The public is increasingly aware. Israel faces a future of unrelenting international protest, on land and at sea. And deepening isolation that its further violence will further accelerate. Only freedom for Palestine, equal rights, and return of refugees will work.

[i] The increasing delegitimization and isolation of South Africa was demonstrated by passage of Security Council Resolution 591 in 1986, which strengthened the arms embargo. And by passage of economic sanctions in the US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (passed over President Reagan’s veto), also in 1986. These were among the factors that encouraged the ruling National Party of South Africa to recognize that their apartheid system was politically and economically unsustainable and to begin considering a peaceful transition from apartheid to equal rights. Nelson Mandela walked out of prison in 1990 and was inaugurated President in 1994.

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On Tuesday evening, Israeli forces finished illegally seized the Lina, the last of the more than 50 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition as they were sailing towards Gaza in international waters. The heavily armed Israeli commandos illegally forced the activists onto a prison ship which brought them to the port of Ashdod in Israel.

Al Jazeera reports on the avalanche of criticism produced by the posting of a video by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir showing him “taunting activists who were kneeling on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs.”

Fastest ever deportations as Israel scrambles to contain PR damage

Al Jazeera’s reporter, Nida Ibrahim, said “the ongoing deportations were the fastest Israel has ever carried out, as it scrambles to contain the public relations damage caused by Ben-Gvir’s video.” Al Jazeera further reported that:

Several nations, including France, Canada, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their capitals to express their outrage. Meanwhile, European Council President Antonio Costa said he was “appalled” by Ben-Gvir’s behavior, calling it “completely unacceptable.” Italy has demanded an apology from Israel. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani contacted European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, requesting that sanctions against Ben-Gvir be discussed at the bloc’s next meeting of foreign ministers.

In an effort to contain the outrage expressed by these governments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare rebuke to Ben-Gvir.

Condemnation is not enough; action is needed to stop the genocide

However, at a news conference Huwaida Arraf, a founder of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition in 2010, said that it is not just Ben Gvir and that condemnation is not enough. “What Ben-Gvir displayed is the true face of Israel—a colonial apartheid regime,” she said. “The brutal treatment of activists is a tiny dose of the genocide Israeli forces inflict on Palestinians. Words of condemnation by government leaders must be accompanied by action to force Israel to end its crimes and to comply with international law.”

Thiago Avila, a leader of the Global Sumud Flotilla, noted that countries that signed the Geneva Convention and the Genocide Convention have an obligation to take action. “Issuing words is not enough. Action to stop the genocide is needed.”

Mobilizing to continue

Both flotilla leaders said, they will continue mobilizing until Palestine has achieved self-determination, freedom, and dignity. “The flotilla is one tactic,” said Huwaida. “One piece of a greater puzzle. There will be other tactics, too, including land mobilizations.”

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Each boat of the flotilla was equipped with cameras for live streaming a view of life on board during its voyage. Through that live stream, members of the public could get a view of the happenings on each of the still-sailing boats until the moment the Israeli armed forces illegally attacked, boarded, and cut off the live streaming.

Each boat was also equipped with a transponder that used the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a standard maritime system, that broadcasts the boat’s location, speed, and identity. Thus, the public could track the path of the entire voyage of each of the boats on a map of the Mediterranean Sea. Here is the link to the map where the entire voyage of each boat is tracked: https://freedomflotilla.org/ffc-gsf-tracker/

This post was also edited at 3:10 pm with the final picture from the last boat still sailing, the Lina Al Nabulsi, just before Israeli forces in their Zodiac boat appeared in the distance. Israeli forces illegally seized the Lina and captured its participants shortly after this picture was taken:

Here is the joint statement by the foreign ministers of 10 countries regarding the Israeli Assaults on the Global Sumud Flotilla, 18 May 2026:

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Türkiye, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Federative Republic of Brazil, Republic of Colombia, Republic of Indonesia, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, State of Libya, Malaysia, Republic of Maldives, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and Kingdom of Spain condemn in the strongest terms the renewed Israeli assaults against the Global Sumud Flotilla, a peaceful civilian humanitarian initiative aimed at drawing international attention to the catastrophic humanitarian suffering of the Palestinian people.

The Ministers recall with grave concern the Israeli interventions against previous flotillas in international waters and condemn the continuation of hostile acts targeting civilian vessels and humanitarian activists. Such assaults, including attacks against the vessels and the arbitrary detention of activists, constitute blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law.

The Ministers express serious concern regarding the safety and security of the civilian participants of the flotilla and call for the immediate release of all detained activists, as well as for full respect for their rights and dignity.

The Ministers further stress that repeated attacks against peaceful humanitarian initiatives reflect the continued disregard for international law and freedom of navigation. They call on the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities, ensure the protection of civilians and humanitarian missions, and take concrete steps to end impunity and ensure accountability for these violations.

This post was first edited at 12:48pm EDT to provide a live stream from the Lina, then the last boat still sailing. That live stream was replaced by the following replay.

Also see: https://globalsumudflotilla.org/tracker/

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25 U.S. citizens are among the over 500 participants from 45 countries on the nearly 60 boats of the 2026 flotilla to Gaza.

Flotilla organizers are reaching out with an URGENT REQUEST for solidarity and action.

The Israeli attack on the boats of the flotilla was preceded by intensive hostile rhetoric from Israeli media and political circles, including the false accusation that it is a “terror” threat. Such rhetoric is designed to delegitimize the mission and lay the groundwork for the unlawful aggression and violence by Israeli forces now underway against unarmed civilians and their boats as they lawfully sail on the high seas.

The attack today follows the 29 April attack on 22 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) by Israeli forces east of Crete. Both of these Israeli government actions are blatant violations of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and Customary International Law, which makes provisions of the Convention mandatory for all countries, including Israel. The Convention protects freedom of navigation in international waters and provides exclusive jurisdiction to the country in which the vessel is flagged. The Convention specifically prohibits personnel of a warship from boarding a foreign ship or boat on the high seas except under narrowly defined circumstances—none of which apply in this instance. The Convention also reserves the high seas for peaceful purposes and requires states to refrain from any threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, including their vessels, operating on the high seas.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition calls upon all governments to enforce the Law of the Sea in the same way it was enforced in cases of previous violations, including:

• Demanding the prompt release of vessels

• Demanding compensation

• Banning Israel from accessing ports

• Freezing the assets of Israel

• Restricting trade with Israel

• Banning the transfer of military goods to Israel

• Establishing a tribunal to investigate and prosecute the Israeli political and military leaders who are responsible.

US Army Colonel Ann Wright (ret.) an FFC spokesperson said: “Flag countries have a heavy responsibility to enforce the law. If they fail to act, they effectively grant impunity to the perpetrators, invite further violations, and encourage even more extreme illegal actions by Israel and any other rogue state that follows its example.”

Boats of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Global Sumud Flotilla were sailing together in a lawful, civilian-led initiative challenging the ongoing illegal blockade of Gaza imposed by the Israeli government. The boats carry unarmed civilians and humanitarian aid. The blockade has devastated Gaza for nearly two decades.

The blockade is violence. Along with the Israeli government’s bombing of farms and fishing boats, the blockade has been critical to implementing and maintaining starvation and genocide in Gaza. Efforts to portray the sailboats of the flotilla as “terrorism” reveal the extent to which roles are reversed.

The unsupported allegations against the flotilla follow a familiar pattern in which humanitarian and solidarity efforts are deliberately misrepresented to rationalize state violence. Nevertheless, these threats must be taken seriously. Israeli forces have murdered civilians, humanitarian workers, journalists, and solidarity activists while facing no meaningful accountability from powerful governments.

Silence at this stage only increases the danger. Flotilla organizers say it is critical that organizations, elected officials, community leaders, and individuals publicly demand the protection of ships and boats in international waters and everyone on board, as required by the law of the sea.

Organizers are calling on everyone to take the following actions immediately:

1. Follow all the boats of the flotilla on the tracker: freedomflotilla.org/ffc-gsf-tracker

2. Share news from the flotilla across social media and public platforms, including Instagram content FFC and GSF.
   Follow on: Facebook, Telegram, TikTok, Bluesky, and LinkedIn and share that content.

3. National and community organizations, unions, and faith institutions: Issue a public statement or press release calling for the flotilla’s protection, the right of civilians to reach Gaza, and end to the blockade, for release of flotilla participants, and for release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Organize a local vigil or protest.

4. CONTACT members of Congress and demand that they publicly oppose the attack on the vessels. Call on them to demand an end to the blockade and an end to U.S. weapons transfers to Israel. The U.S. Capitol switchboard is: (202) 224-3121.

5. Contact the governments of the flotilla participants who’ve been kidnapped by Israeli forces and demand that they take action to ensure the safety and immediate release of their citizen, to condemn the kidnapping, to call for an independent investigation, and to end complicity. Here is the contact information for 13 of the governments: https://freedomflotilla.org/action/

6. CALL ON local and state officials to speak against any violence targeting civilian flotilla participants and call for the immediate release of detainees.

7. DONATE: http://usboatstogaza.org/donate

Howaida Arraf, a Palestinian American lawyer from Detroit Michigan and one of the founders of the flotilla campaign in 2008, said: “The violations against the GSF and FFC flotillas are nothing compared to the mass murder committed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Yet they are still an escalation. The law-breaking is now directed against the European countries that flagged the vessels. The failure of European governments to enforce the International Law requirement to stop the genocide in Gaza is coming home to roost. Israel is now directing its law violations against European governments.”

“It’s never too late to enforce the law,” said Col. Ann Wright. “But pressure from members of the public and from civic organizations is needed. Contact your members of parliament and foreign ministry. In the US contact your members of Congress and the State Department. Demand enforcement action to protect the boats, to protect Palestine, and to protect international law.”

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Today, five Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) sailboats joined up with 54 Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) boats departing from Marmaris, Türkiye, to set sail to Gaza in a new phase of the flotilla mission.

This new phase continues the mission to break the siege of Gaza notwithstanding the Israeli government’s April 29 attack on 22 GSF civilian vessels off the western coast of Crete and its abduction and abuse of two (GSF) organizers, Thiago Avila and Saif Abu Keshek for 12 days. They were released without charge on May 10.

Despite the April 29 attack, FFC launched its boats from Siracusa Italy on May 2. They arrived at a port on a Greek island near the Turkish port where 54 more GSF boats had assembled. Flotilla organizers from the two groups temporarily paused when they reached these ports on each side of the Greek-Turkish border to assess security conditions and coordinate next steps.

The flotilla mission is now restarted and underway. “We sail one day before the anniversary of the Nakba, not only to commemorate the anniversary, but to act on it,” said Abu Keshek at a GSF news conference on May 13.

Italy Mobilizing

Meanwhile, an Italian member of the FFC land crew reports that “organizers in Rome are planning a big march against 78 years of genocide on Saturday, May 16, leading to a general strike in Italy on May 18.” She further reports that on Italian TV journalists routinely talk about the flotillas as “the conscience of the world” that make the genocide and the complicity of governments visible.

Governments Agreed to Prevent Genocide and Punish Perpetrators

The FFC and GSF boats are sailing in defiance of a brutal and unlawful blockade of Gaza designed to isolate, imprison, persecute, kill, and maim the 2 million Palestinians who live there. The boats sail to break that genocidal blockade. They include hundreds of ordinary people from dozens of countries, sailing because of the failure of governments to take action to stop the genocide. Action the governments had agreed to take when they signed and ratified the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Under that Convention, 153 governments agreed to “prevent and suppress” the crime of genocide and to punish the persons responsible “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.” Among those 153 countries are the law-breakers in chief: the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Australia, and Israel itself.*[i]

Flotilla Initiatives

Since 2010, the FFC has organized and sailed dozens of vessels in direct challenge to Israel’s unlawful blockade of Gaza, building on the historic missions of the Free Gaza Movement, which first broke the blockade by sea, landing in Gaza with 5 boats in 2008.

Following the FFC’s June 2025 voyage of the Madleen, international participation in flotilla initiatives exploded, with the formation of two new coalitions, the GSF and Thousand Madleens to Gaza (TMTG), reflecting increasing global awareness of the need to act because of our governments’ failure to act while siege and genocide were raging.

Israel, and all countries cooperating with its criminal acts, are on clear notice that there is no lawful pretext to attack the flotilla: this campaign is civilian, unarmed, sailing in accordance with international law, and sailing in defense of fundamental human rights. Any act to interfere with these vessels would be illegal under multiple articles of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

In recent weeks, Israel and the United States have attempted to smear and criminalize the GSF through baseless allegations clearly aimed at delegitimizing the growing civilian resistance. And to manufacture public consent for further attacks on the flotilla mission.

The release of organizers Saif and Thiago on May 10 without charge only further exposed the emptiness of the Israeli and US claims. As GSF noted in a press statement, “Their return is a testament to international mobilization, yet their release does not constitute true freedom while over 9,500 Palestinian [prisoners in Israeli jails] remain trapped in a system of torture and impunity.”

For Palestinians in Gaza who have endured two decades of a deadly blockade, repeated military assaults, forced deprivation, sexual violence and ongoing genocide, this flotilla represents far more than the humanitarian aid the boats carry. It is an act of international civilian resistance against settler colonial violence and the global machinery that sustains it.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Global Sumud Flotilla remain committed to direct, nonviolent action–at sea and on land–to halt Israel’s illegal closure of Gaza and to stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, dignity, return, and self-determination.

*[i] Blatant violation of decency and law has become routine for public officials in the US who follow the Israeli model. And it’s not just ICE. For example, under the authority of the governor of Vermont, the state air national guard daily illegally assaults nearly 7000 of Vermont’s own citizens, including 1,300 children, by training with the 115-decibel F-35 jets from a runway in the City of S. Burlington. Such a city location for the ear-and-brain destroying F-35 training causes mass suffering. But it’s excellent training for pilots if their job is to commit crimes against civilians when called up for war. That child-harming training explains why the F-35 airmen of the Vermont Air National Guard were the ones selected by Secretary of War Peter Hegseth to participate in the US-Israeli war against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Iran.

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Under international law, all countries that have signed onto the Genocide Convention are mandated to both prevent and stop genocides, and yet the genocide of Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, has continued unabated. Given the failure of most governments to fulfill their duties, civilians from around the world are organizing humanitarian flotillas to break through the blockade on Gaza. Clearing the FOG speaks with James Marc Leas, a lawyer and Palestine solidarity activist who is in Italy to support the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. He discusses the conditions in Palestine, the laws, and Israel’s illegal seizure of Global Sumud Flotilla boats and activists. He also discusses the use of F-35 jets to deliberately attack civilians in Gaza, Venezuela, Iran, and Vermont.

Listen here: https://popularresistance.org/activists-are-risking-their-lives-to-break-the-brutal-blockade-on-gaza/

The location of the boats of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (green) and the Global Sumud Flotilla (blue) can be seen and tracked here: https://freedomflotilla.org/ffc-gsf-tracker/

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The statement is deeply valued by campaigners seeking to free Palestine. It is reminiscent of the encouragement of international solidarity offered by the African National Congress and its allies when they were seeking to abolish apartheid in South Africa. The South Africans valued the solidarity actions on college campuses and by religious, civil rights, and legal organizations, unions, and activist employees of corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa as crucial to isolating that apartheid regime.

While the statement from organizations in Palestine expressly applies to the Global Sumud Flotilla, 22 of whose boats were attacked by Israeli government forces in international waters west of Crete on April 29, it is also relevant to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, whose five boats are now sailing past the eastern tip of Crete on their way to Gaza, as can be seen on this continuously tracking map.

Following is the full text of the statement issued on May 7, 2026 and the list of more than 60 organizations in Palestine that signed on:

Civil society organizations salute the activists of the Global Sumud Flotilla and condemn the occupation’s piracy and demand the immediate release of the detained activists Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila ‎

“Civil society organizations salute the organizers of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), consisted of dozens of ships carrying hundreds of international solidarity activists.

“The flotilla included a broad and distinguished group of activists working in various fields, including parliamentarians, diplomats, human rights activists, unionists, artists, athletes, and civil society activists from around the world.

“These activists express the will of freedom fighters in the face of the occupation’s arrogance, in defiance of the siege, and in condemnation of the genocide perpetrated by the occupation army against Gaza, which it continues to perpetrate in various forms.

“While we salute the spirit of determination and struggle of this elite group fighting for human rights and upholding the banner of freedom, we condemn in the strongest terms the acts of piracy committed by the occupation navy, which involved storming the ships, abusing the activists, and arresting some of them.

“What happened should compel the world to take action against the occupying power and punish it for this crime, which is yet another link in the chain of crimes it commits against our people and against activists who support them, as this is a matter of freedom, dignity, and justice.

"Civil society organizations reiterate their appreciation for the role of steadfast activists and call for more solidarity campaigns with our people to strengthen their inalienable and legitimate national rights in the face of the occupation and its crimes against our people and demanding the immediate release of the detained activists Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila.”

List of signatories:

AL Harah THeater

Al Sattar Garbee Association for Developing Countryside and Farmer

Al-Ataa Charitable Society

Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights –Gaza

Al-Firdaws Association for Women and Child Development

Al-Haq

Alliance Relief and Development Association

Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights

Al-Yasser Association for Child and Women’s Service

Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS)

Arab center for Agricultural Development (ACAD) /Ramallah – Gaza

Aseel Association for Development

Association for the Protection of Female Workers from Violence

Baitona For Community Development

Bisan Center for Research and Development

Bisan Charitable Society

Brilliant Tomorrow for Homes Sons Society

Center for Legal Research, Consulting, and Protection of Women

Disability Representative Body Network

Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi Center for Culture and Development

Future Association for Development and Environment

Future Development Commission

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme

Gaza Urban & Peri-urban Agriculture Platform

Health Work Committees

Horizons Association for Development and Progress

Housing and Land Rights Network

International Commission to support Palestinian People’s Rights

International Movement for Human and People’s Rights

Jabalia Rehabilitation Society

Labor Resources Center

Ma’an Development Center/Gaza

Ma’an Development Center/WB

Mashareq charatiy Associtaion for Development and Improvment

National Society for Rehabilitation

NAWA for Culture and Arts Association

Palestine Avenir For Childhood ‎Foundation

Palestinian Agricultural Development Association

Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)

Palestinian Developmental Women Studies Association

Palestinian farmer Association

Roya Assosiation For Development Abilities

Salsabeel Association for the future of women and children

Teacher Creativity Center

The Arab Center for Agricultural Development/ACAD

The Center for the Defense of Freedoms and Civil Rights (Hurryyat)

The Freedom Theatre

The General Union of Palestinian Persons with Disabilities, North Gaza

The International Movement for Human and Peoples’ Rights (IMHPR)

The Jordan Network for Human and Peoples’ Rights (JNHPR)

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy – MIFTAH

The Palestinian Working Women Society

The Society for Care of the Handicapped

The Society of Women Graduates in Gaza Strip

Union of Health Care Committees

Union of Palestinians Women’s Committees

United Cultural and Social Association

Watan Association for Heritage and Family Development

Yafa Youth Center Association

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Reports from the vessels this morning indicate that the 30 participants are in good health and high spirits, despite encountering some rough seas.

At their current speed, the sailboats are expected to arrive in Gaza in six or seven more days—around May 11 or 12—unless their voyage is attacked by Israeli armed forces, which would constitute a violation of the Law of the Sea. The relevant provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea were detailed in the article, “Israeli Attack on Flotilla Violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.” That article describes how heavily armed Israeli forces illegally seized 22 of the boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) on April 29, while they were sailing in international waters approximately 80 nautical miles west of Crete. During that operation, Israeli forces kidnapped 180 GSF participants. The state-sponsored pirates later released all but two of those captives—GSF leaders Thiago Avila and Saif Abu Keshek.

The mission: to break the illegal US-Israeli siege of Gaza

Both the GSF and FFC sailboats are on a mission to break the illegal Israeli-US siege of Gaza. The boats carry no arms, and all participants are trained in nonviolent resistance. The missions are legal and peaceful, launched in response to the Palestinians’ call for solidarity. They uphold human rights and seek to put a stop to the illegal and immoral US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The siege itself is what is illegal: it is collective punishment against the entire civilian population of Gaza, half of whom are children, in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention. The broader objective of the flotilla campaign is to dismantle the US and Western systems that assault and murder indigenous Palestinians with impunity. It is the perpetrators of the siege, not the human-rights supporters on the sailboats, who must be held accountable.

Detained GSF activist Thiago Ávila, who has been subjected to appalling brutality by Israeli authorities since he was kidnapped on April 29 and brought to Israel, dictated the following poignant letter to his baby daughter via his lawyer:

Dear Teresa,

I’m sorry I’m not at home with you right now.

Unfortunately, your father, your mother, and so many people around the world have understood the historic task that we have the responsibility to carry out.

Today, more than a million children are suffering a genocide: they are left to die of hunger, undergo amputations without anesthesia, and endure the pain of horrible, hate-filled ideas, even though they don’t know what Zionism and imperialism are.

I’m sure you miss me terribly; all the mothers and fathers of Palestinian children feel their absence terribly too, and they would give anything to live a life filled with love, happiness, and joy — the kind every human being deserves, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or any other characteristic.

Your world will be safer because so many parents have decided to give everything to build a better future for you.

I hope that one day you can understand that, precisely because I love you so much, there was nothing more dangerous for you and for other children than living in a world that accepts genocide.

Please remember your father as the person who sang to you and played the guitar to lull you to sleep. And when you grow up, your mother will also tell you that your father was a revolutionary and that, even in the face of the world’s most terrible people — Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Itamar Ben-Gvir — he stood firm in his conviction to build a better world.

Please, never forget Palestine.

With all my love.

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On Saturday May 2, the FFC launched four new sailboats from Siracusa, Italy. The FFC is determined not to give in to the Israeli violence.

The launch continues the demand to end the siege of Gaza, to end the policy of collective punishment, to end the genocide Israel is inflicting on Gaza, and to end the apartheid system Israel established in the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

Israel’s April 29 attack on the GSF flotilla was carried out while the boats were more than 600 nautical miles (over 1100 km) from its shores. The attack revoked the freedom of the seas. It violated the exclusive jurisdiction of the countries that flagged the 22 GSF vessels. It seized boats and property and physically assaulted sailors and passengers, putting many in the hospital. It kidnapped and tortured two GSF leaders, Thiago Avila and Saif Abu Keshek. It was vicious state-sponsored piracy.

If the Israeli government had persuasive facts or arguments with which to answer the charge that its siege on Gaza inflicted heinous crimes on its 2 million people it would have used them. Its resort to violence against sailboats filled with civilians and humanitarian aid admits it had none.

The attack on civilian sailboats was part of a pattern of abuse, lawlessness, and violence that has been enabled, normalized, and shielded by powerful western countries for decades, especially by the United States.

“The launch of our four FFC vessels is a direct response to Israel’s escalation of violence,” said Colonel (Ret) and former US diplomat Ann Wright of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.

“Israel’s violent attack on the GSF boats should have triggered immediate international action to defend the freedom of the seas, to defend the exclusive jurisdiction of the countries that flagged the vessels, and to defend the right of the civilian participants to take peaceful and legal action to stop a genocide.

“Instead, we see the same pattern of inaction that has enabled Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, Yemen, and Iran. So more people are stepping up—organizing across borders, launching vessels, and refusing to accept a world where war crimes and crimes against humanity are normalized and where civilians protesting them are met with armed force.”

The four FFC boats have 30 participants from 12 countries.

While governments continue to enable Israel through silence or complicity, the Freedom Flotilla boats and complementary land mobilizations represent collective acts of global civil society intervention to support the people of Gaza.

“Sailing to Gaza is both an act of solidarity and a call for accountability,” adds David Heap, another Freedom Flotilla Coalition spokesperson. “It tells Palestinians that they are not alone and not forgotten. It tells the political leaders enabling these crimes that the world is watching, organizing, and acting. It says we will not accept the violent, lawless world that they want to create for us. Our mission is both to break the siege of Gaza and to confront the shameful silence and complicity of our governments that has enabled the genocide.”

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition issued a call on people in every country to demand accountability for Israel’s attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla and for its attacks on Gaza. It calls on people to press their government officials to guarantee safe passage for all flotilla vessels and to uphold the basic principles of international law on sea, in Gaza, and in every country. It calls on all people not to look away from the heinous crimes the Israeli government continues to inflict on Gaza.

Now they come for Gaza. But it won’t stop there. Do not be deterred. Do not be silenced.

Follow the live video feeds:

Track the flotilla here: https://freedomflotilla.org/ffc-tracker/ and here:

https://mycaregazaflotilla.org.my/

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On May 1, the BBC reported that Israel released all but two of the detained participants in Greece. Thiago Avila and Saif Abu Keshek remain in Israeli custody, and Israel has stated that it is transporting them to its territory.

Schellekens passed on a report that 34 of the abductees were physically abused by Israeli commandos while protecting the two men. The 34 were hospitalized, and 4 of them remain in the hospital at Heraklion on the Island of Crete. See the video by Elly Van Reusel, a medical doctor on “Magic,” one of the 22 seized boats.

The GSF condemned Israel’s actions as an act of piracy and called for the immediate release those still held by Israel.

The flotilla was engaged in a legal and peaceful mission aimed at breaking the internationally condemned Israeli siege of Gaza—a siege that imposes collective punishment on Gaza’s civilian population. The mission seeks to end Israel’s illegal policy of starvation, a policy that stunts the physical and cognitive development of children.

The flotilla was necessary only because, after destroying farms and fishing boats, Israel restricted or closed all land routes for aid into Gaza, and governments worldwide have so far failed to use their legal and political powers to force an end to the illegal siege.

The U.S. government has gone further than any other nation in collaborating with Israel’s illegal assault on Gaza’s civilians—the US provides the funds, bombs, F-35 jets, and bulldozers, along with the diplomatic cover that grants the Israeli government impunity.

US states have done little. Rather than adopt human rights promoting purchasing and investment legislation, Vermont has gone so far as to train its Air National Guard with 115-decibel F-35 jets low over one of the state’s most densely populated cities, where political and military leaders knew the flights would cause suffering to working-class and ethnic minority children. This location was deliberately selected to prepare the unit to target civilians. It was foreseeable that the Trump Administration would call the Vermont F-35 unit up, first to bomb in Venezuela, and now poised to resume their bombing in Iran.

The Israeli Assault on the Flotilla Violated International Law

Although Israel is not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the core provisions of the treaty are recognized as customary international law and are legally binding on all countries.

• Article 92 grants a vessel’s flag state exclusive jurisdiction, effectively making the vessel sovereign territory of that country. By boarding the flotilla’s vessels without permission, abducting passengers, and seizing the boats, Israeli commandos violated the sovereignty of each of the flag states.

• Article 87 guarantees freedom of navigation on the high seas. Freedom revoked by Israeli commandos.

• Article 110 specifically prohibits warship personnel from boarding a foreign ship on the high seas except under narrowly defined circumstances—none of which applied in this case.

• Article 88 reserves the high seas for peaceful purposes.

• Article 301 requires states to refrain from any threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Which includes the vessels of any state.

Israel violated all of these provisions.

Enforcement of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

Previous violations of the law of the sea have led to enforcement actions, including:

• Ordering the prompt release of vessels

• Awarding compensation

• Banning the perpetrator from accessing ports

• Freezing the perpetrator’s assets

• Restricting trade with the perpetrator

• Banning the transfer of military goods to the perpetrator

• Establishing a tribunal to investigate and prosecute those responsible

Enforcement Action Is Needed Now

Similar enforcement actions must be taken in response to Israel’s gross violations of the Law of the Sea. If flag states fail to act, they effectively grant impunity to the Israeli perpetrators, invite further violations, and they encourage even more extreme illegal actions by Israel.

Demand that your government officials take enforcement action now.

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Medics reported that an Israeli drone killed the child, Adel Al-Najjar, in eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. In a separate incident, an Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle in Gaza City, killing four others.

A Ceasefire in Name Only

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF / Doctors Without Borders) reports that in the 180 days since the ceasefire went into effect, Israeli forces have killed 733 Palestinians and wounded 1,913. The title of MSF’s latest report says it all: “This is not a ceasefire.”

As a grandparent it is also agonizing to know that after the systematic destruction of farms, fishing boats, homes, schools, universities, hospitals, water infrastructure, and sanitation systems in Gaza, Israeli forces continue their violent attacks while expanding their military control over the Strip. Living conditions for Palestinians remain dire, and Israel continues to deliberately obstruct humanitarian aid—resulting in entirely preventable deaths.

The ‘Yellow Line’ and a Shrinking Safe Zone

MSF further reports:

“The space where people are living is continuously shrinking and framed by violence. Since the ceasefire, the Gaza Strip has been effectively divided along the ‘yellow line,’ which marks an area—currently 58 percent of the territory—under full Israeli military control. This is pushing Palestinians into the remaining 42 percent of largely destroyed territory. The perimeter of the yellow line has become a kill zone, with gunfire, airstrikes, and shelling from Israeli forces happening daily. Israeli warships are also firing inward from the sea, trapping people with active firing on all sides.”

The Israeli government’s siege of Gaza—which began with severe restrictions on imports and sales in 2006—sharply intensified in October 2023 and has continued unabated after the October 2025 ceasefire.

After more than two and a half years of bombing with Israeli F-35 jets supplied by the United States, “people’s needs are massive, yet Israeli authorities have continued to systematically restrict the entry of humanitarian aid,” said Claire San Filippo, emergency manager for MSF. “People face shortages of clean water, food, electricity, and access to healthcare.”

Mass Murder with Impunity

This ongoing horror unfolds with the full support of the United States government. Whether under Trump or Biden, the U.S. continues to supply money, bombs, jets, artillery, bulldozers, UN vetoes, and impunity for perpetrators. Most Western allied governments and a largely captured mainstream news media have also enabled these actions—even as the Epstein files and the illegal war on Iran divert public attention.

Gaza Is Not Forgotten

Global campaigns, including the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) and the Global Samud Flotilla (GSF), are working to restore world attention to Gaza and the heinous crimes committed there by the Israeli and U.S. governments.

A reporter with cancelF35.substack.com is currently in Siracusa, Italy, with the FFC, which is expected to embark for Gaza soon. 50 GSF boats set off from the neighboring town of Augusta two days ago.

End the Siege of Gaza Now

While each flotilla carries aid, their fundamental purpose since the first five boats arrived in Gaza in 2008 has been to break the siege imposed by the Israeli and U.S. governments. Participants understand that Gaza was—and could be again—self-supporting, with working agriculture, fishing, health, education, and industrial sectors. Humanitarian aid is needed only because of the siege. Ending the siege is the fundamental demand.

What You Can Do

Every person can help force an end to the siege through their own purchasing and investment decisions—and by influencing their local and state governments’ policies.

• Do not buy Israeli products. Avoid purchasing from or investing in companies that operate in Israel, sell Israeli products, or supply the Israeli military.

• Oppose legislation that restricts freedom of speech critical of the Israeli government or its policies.

• Call on your representatives in Congress to demand safety for participants in legal, peaceful actions, like the flotillas, that call for ending the siege of Gaza, freedom for Palestine, equal rights for all, an end to the occupation, self-determination, and return of refugees.

• In Vermont: Demand that the Vermont governor refuse to authorize any further training of Vermont Air National Guard F-35 pilots in the City of South Burlington. As shown in this article, the US Air Force itself wrote that the 115-decibel F-35 harms the hearing and cognitive development of the 1,300 children in the 3000 families living in the extreme F-35 noise zone around the Burlington Airport. This city location for the F-35 training was deliberate: It provides training for harming civilians. This training is why Trump selected Vermont’s F-35 Air National Guard unit for bombing Venezuela in January and for then sending the unit for bombing Iran since February 28. With 6 years of training hurting Vermont children, Vermont F-35 Air National Guard is the trained-for-war-crimes unit.

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Cetraro, Italy – CancelF-35.substack.com’s reporter arrived in Cetraro, a small coastal village in southern Italy where 150 members of groups preparing for the next flotilla to free Gaza are meeting. Organizers say more than 70 boats and 1,000 people are expected to participate, setting out from multiple ports across the Mediterranean.

Around 40 boats departed from Barcelona last Wednesday, and another 20 set sail from Marseille, making stops at several ports for solidarity events. Organizers are closely monitoring the geopolitical situation and have yet to confirm the timing of the final leg to Gaza.

The U.S. has Already Agreed to Prevent Genocide

Flotilla organizers are not seeking U.S. agreement to prevent the genocide—the United States has already agreed to doing just that. It committed itself, by treaty, not only to prevent genocide but also to punish those responsible.

Article 1 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide obligates signatory governments to act “to prevent and to punish” genocide, “whether committed in time of peace or in time of war.” When the U.S. Senate ratified the Convention in 1988, and President Ronald Reagan signed the ratification instrument, the U.S. government formally agreed to these binding obligations.

Governments Have Failed, So Civilians Must Act

Yet the U.S. government has not only failed to prevent the genocide or punish the responsible Israeli government officials—it has facilitated the very crime it swore to stop. The U.S. provided the Israeli government with funding, bombs, F-35 fighter jets, diplomatic cover, UN vetoes, and platforms for lobbying and propaganda. By doing so, members of the U.S. government have acted as accessories.

The results have been described in a film and reports by Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, in reports by the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN Special Rapporteur, and in a series of orders from the International Court of Justice—all willfully ignored by the Israeli and U.S. governments. Israeli government actions include:

• Indiscriminate bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure, including homes, hospitals, farms, schools, universities, water and sanitation in Gaza. And the bombing has been ongoing despite the so-called ceasefire.

• Ongoing mass starvation of civilians in Gaza, more than half of whom are children.

• Ongoing bulldozing of homes in the West Bank.

• Mass incarceration and torture of prisoners.

All conducted with impunity.

Civilian Action to Force Government Action

Starting in August 2008 with two small boats carrying 46 people, the Free Gaza Movement challenged Israel’s blockade and successfully delivered aid to Gaza. Four more of the group’s vessels reached Gaza by December of that year, before Israel began attacking and intercepting them in international waters, in violation of the freedom of navigation on the high seas guaranteed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. That initiative later evolved into a broader international network involving parliamentarians and human rights organizations from multiple countries—now known as the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC).

The repeated attempts to break the total Israeli blockade have galvanized international solidarity with Gaza. The sailing missions have also challenged the normalization of the occupation and of the government-sponsored violence directed against the enclave.

In June 2025, the FFC launched a single small sailboat, the Madleen, carrying 12 civilians. This boat captured global attention for defying the blockade and the genocide that governments had failed to stop. The mission inspired two new independent initiatives, Thousand Madleens to Gaza and the Global Samud Flotilla, which sponsored the flotilla in October 2025.

Now, the three flotilla initiatives are joining forces to launch the largest Gaza flotilla yet this spring. At every port it visits, the flotilla calls for mass civilian participation on land in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their liberation movement.

Join in demanding:

• An immediate halt to all shipments to Israel and its military.

• A refusal to purchase from or invest in companies directly or indirectly supporting the Israeli government’s genocide.

• Bring our airmen, sailors, soldiers, and marines home now.

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CancelF-35.substack.com is aware of a national call for marches and rallies on May 1, and a Mayday coalition has formed in Vermont. Email VTMaydayStrong@gmail.com

Watch for an emergency call for action sooner than May 1 as well to stop the escalation. This is Vietnam and Iraq all over again only worse. Urgent action needed

Here is the Brave Little Voices post:

Human Chains amongst Business as Usual

Regardless of what Trump does tonight, we must register our condemnation

https://open.substack.com/pub/bravelittlevoices/p/human-chains-amongst-business-as

Dear Readers,

As we all have heard by now, our president has issued a deadline of 8 p.m. tonight for a deal to be reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran doesn’t comply, then “a whole civilization will die tonight,” Trump wrote, “never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

Yesterday, Trump outlined the plan to destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran by midnight, CNN reported. “I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock.” Striking civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime under international law. “We’re seeing basically a direct threat to something that we know is going to be catastrophic to civilians,” Margaret Donovan, a former lawyer in the US Army’s JAG Corps, told CNN.

In response to Trump’s threats, the NYT reported that Iran’s leaders have stopped engaging in diplomatic talks and vowed revenge. Meanwhile, civilians are creating human chains across bridges and around power plants:

https://youtube.com/shorts/fqqWEK9roPo?si=5T_nk-PbAfeVSHO9

POWERFUL: The Iranian people are now forming human chains on bridges and around power plants after Trump threatened to attack civilian infrastructure — which is clearly defined as a war crime under international law. Share this widely.

Meanwhile, Iranians are questioning what happened to the values that the US was founded on. The Times interviewed Mohsen Borhani, a law professor at Tehran University, who said that he “thought about the global order established after World War II, centered around the United Nations and shaped under Roosevelt’s leadership. And I wondered, how it is possible for a U.S. president to undermine and discredit all American values and 250 years of human legacy?” Furthermore, he said, there’s the “false assumption” that enough military might will pressure Iran’s rulers to surrender. “Based on my understanding of Iranian society and governance,” Borhani said, “I can state clearly that even several nuclear bombs would not achieve such an outcome.”

Meanwhile, the resentment and vitriol amongst Iranians is building, even in those who long opposed their authoritarian government. As US warplanes bomb schools, universities, and civilian infrastructure, loyalties have shifted. As one former activist sympathizer told the Times, “So now, we are supporting Iran and whatever government is running it.”

Meanwhile, here in Vermont, I am about to go to the food co-op, run up a snowy trail in search of some endorphins, and then meet my sweet girls at home for “huggles” (our new word for hugs + snuggles) in front of the fire.

As Paul Krugman wrote this morning:

“Damned if I know what’s going to happen. I mean, at some level, I think that the civilization that may be destroyed tonight is our own. I mean, are we civilized if we do this kind of thing? If America as a nation doesn’t stand up against this, what are we?

“So, God help us. Normal life will continue. It’s going to be a really weird thing to be out there, you know, grocery shopping and taking the subway and all of those things. But this is, in a way, the defining moment. The fate of the whole American idea is on the line.”

What We Can Do Today:

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says that House Democrats will force another vote on a war resolution: “We only need one or two additional Republicans, and I think we’re on track to securing that.”

Let’s call our Reps and Senators and ask them to “return from recess and use every tool possible to stop Trump from committing war crimes and unilaterally launching us into a nuclear war.” Find find numbers and follow the 5 Calls Script here.

Final Note:

“When we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of those we see as part of us. We prepare ourselves to love beyond what evolution requires.”

~ Valarie Kaur

Braver Together ♡

Liza and Lorni

New here? Welcome! You can read more about what we’re up to in this post. As Calvin Coolidge once said, “If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the union and support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little state of Vermont

Please pass along Brave Little Voices—let’s grow our chorus!

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To the men and women of the 158th Fighter Wing bombing Iran,

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained how Israel forced the US into joining its attack on Iran. He said the US knew of Israeli plans to attack Iran. He explained that “if we didn’t pre-emptively attack” before Iran launched its retaliation, US forces based in the region “would suffer higher casualties.”

Americans understand that this war serves Israel, not the American people: A March 2 - 4 PBS News/NPR/Marist poll shows that only 36% of Americans approve while 54% disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran. The New York Times reports that only 41% of Americans approve “of the U.S. decision to take military action in Iran.”

An unprovoked attack during negotiations

Trump and Rubio made no valid case for the Israel-directed war. Iran was not threatening or attacking the United States, Israel, or any other country before the US-Israeli assault on February 28. In fact, Israeli and US missiles and bombs began striking Iran while US negotiations with Iran were set to continue, with the next meeting scheduled for Vienna the following week.

A war of aggression

The attack was not just perfidy; it flatly violated a fundamental principle of international law embodied in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which is a ratified treaty: The joint attack launched a US-Israeli war of aggression.

In 1946, the International Military Tribunal’s judgment at Nuremberg called such a war the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Ten high-ranking Nazi officials were convicted and hanged, including seven for planning, preparation, initiation, or waging a war of aggression.

That is the unsavory legal and moral territory the Trump Administration entered by ordering you, our Vermont airmen, to attack Iran on February 28.

War crimes and crimes against humanity

US and Israeli strikes in Iran are targeting civilians and civilian buildings. The BBC reported that at least 1,230 Iranian civilians have been killed so far by US and Israeli missiles and bombs. NPR reported that 175 children were killed by “what appears to be a US cruise missile” striking an elementary school for girls.

The BBC reported strikes on schools, hospitals, and historic landmarks in Iran. On March 11, Drop Site News published reports from Iran that “over 1,000 children have been injured, including 65 under the age of 5, and 35 infants under two years old;” and that “at least 11 children under the age of 5 have been killed.” Also, that “over 19,000 civilian buildings across Iran have suffered damage since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began,” including “77 medical centers, 65 educational institutions, and 16 Red Crescent facilities.”

The Geneva Conventions and US military discipline require distinguishing civilians and civilian infrastructure from military objectives and prohibit an attack if the damage to civilians is disproportionate to the military advantage.

The March 8 Israeli and US strikes on the oil depots in the City of Teheran filled the air and the lungs of millions of city dwellers with thick black smoke, soot, and toxic chemicals, as reported in The Guardian. By targeting and blowing up these oil depots, the US and Israel produced a chemical weapon and used it as a weapon in the war against the civilian population of Tehran, in violation the 1925 Geneva Protocol and Article 1 of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Israel does not have a record of adhering to international law

Bombing Iran at the behest of Israel does not defend Vermont. It does not defend America or the American people. The Israeli government has maintained a system of undemocratic military rule over millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for decades. The Israeli government systematically oppresses half the people living under its rule who are Palestinians. This is the same government that the International Court of Justice issued findings and the Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, issued reports with overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

Israel lost public support

You are fighting for a Trump administration that got elected claiming to put “America First.” But it now uses you to advance the interests of a foreign power whose vicious conduct in Gaza lost it the support of most Americans: Sympathy with Israelis plummeted from over 60% in 2018 to 36% in 2026, according to the February 27 Gallop Poll.

Vermont’s congressional delegation declared the war illegal

As noted by members of the Vermont Congressional delegation, Trump ignored, bypassed, and violated the constitutional process. Congress did not declare war or authorize war on Iran. As Senator Bernie Sanders put it, “President Trump, along with his right-wing extremist Israeli ally Benjamin Netanyahu, has begun an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war.”

You have the power to say no and the duty to say no

You, members of the Vermont Air National Guard, have the power to say no. You are not robots. You are American citizens, bound by military law that allows you to refuse an unlawful order, as shown by Articles 90, 91, and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Six members of Congress put out a video on November 18, 2025 in which they took turns stating that members of the armed services can refuse and must refuse illegal orders:

Their statement was consistent with a decision of the US Court of Appeals for Military Appeals, which made refusal mandatory when “the order was of such a nature that a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know it to be illegal.” (United States v. Keenan, 18 U.S.C.M.A. 108, 39 C.M.R. 108 (1969).

The order to participate in (a) a war of aggression, that (b) targets civilians and civilian buildings starting with the girls’ school on the very first day of the war, and for which there was (c) no congressional declaration or authorization is an order of such a nature that a person of ordinary sense would know it to be illegal.

History provides a roadmap for you, members of the Vermont Air National Guard

During the Vietnam War, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines organized, spoke out, demonstrated, and took other courageous actions to oppose that illegal, immoral, and unjust war, as documented in the book, Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War.

The law of war, embodied in the DoD Law of War Manual and in DoD Directive 2311.01 exists to protect civilians. An order to bomb schools, hospitals, homes, or any other civilian target is an order to commit a war crime. You can refuse that order; you must refuse that order.

And you must refuse to harm Vermont children anymore

We know the path that led you here was paved with a deliberate callousness by Vermont political and military leaders. You trained using your 115-decibel F-35 jets thousands of times a year from the Burlington International Airport. You took off from the runway in one of the most densely populated cities in Vermont, even as the Air Force itself had said that repeatedly exposing a child to the extreme military jet noise of the F-35 can cause hearing loss and cognitive impairment. The Air Force said that nearly 3,000 households would be exposed to that high-decibel noise and cited studies showing impaired reading, concentration, memory, and problem-solving for the children living in those 3,000 households. This state-sponsored child abuse continues to this day under the direction of the governor and with the ongoing support of Vermont’s two US senators.

Why F-35 training was located in a city

Locating F-35 training in the City of South Burlington was not an accident. The decision came after years of careful study, including the production of a 1000-page Environmental Impact Study by the US Air Force. The selection of the city location was deliberate.

No valid purpose was announced for that location. But after such deliberation, the purpose of using that city runway for your F-35 training could only have been to do what it actually did: normalize the infliction of severe harm on civilians, especially children. So you, the pilots and ground crew, are used to violating the military discipline that prohibits targeting civilians. So you would readily load and drop bombs on civilian targets when called up for another regime-change war, like the one in Iran.

Refuse illegal orders to drop bombs on civilian targets

Trump counts on your obedience. He counts on your compliance and on your silence.

Your illegal F-35 training is why Trump selected your unit for callup for his “Operation Epic Fury” in which he seeks to inflict such massive violence and destruction that Iranian citizens will rise up. However, targeting civilians and civilian property for political change—well, that’s the definition of terrorism. You can refuse. You must refuse.

1. Refuse to commit the crime of aggression.

2. Refuse orders to bomb civilians or civilian property.

3. Refuse to bomb any more oil depots, inflicting chemical warfare on civilians.

4. Refuse to hurt the children in Iran, who are as innocent and precious as the children in Vermont.

5. Defend the Constitution. No to sending the state national guard or any military forces to war without a declaration by Congress, as required by the constitution.

The best way to support our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines is to bring them home now. No to any funding for this illegal, immoral, and unjust war of aggression.

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Vermont Town Meeting plus People Power!

But before giving you the 4 big questions we just want to share one story of how Town Meeting votes made a difference. This was back in 2007. After a Town Meeting resolution to impeach Bush and Cheney passed in over 40 towns, 130 Vermonters came to the State House to lobby for its passage. Then-President of the Vermont Senate, Peter Shumlin, told two activists at a meeting in his office at the State House, “read my lips, impeachment will not come up for a vote in the Senate.” But within a few days he changed his mind and allowed it to come up for a vote: The impeachment resolution passed by a wide margin in the Vermont Senate, as reported in local and national news media: The Times Argus, Green Mountain Daily, Reuters, The New York Times, NBC. The most complete story, including what happened in the Vermont House was in the Green Mountain Daily

Here are the 4 related “big question” items. Select one or more of them to move for a vote in your town (one at a time). Here is how: When “other business” is announced by the moderator, immediately raise your hand and get up to get his or her attention, clearly read the resolution you choose, and be sure to have someone ready to immediately second the motion. Feel free to modify the wording for your town.

1. The people of ________[Town Name] condemn the terror and murder being perpetuated by I.C.E. operatives and call on the U.S. Congress to de-fund and abolish the agency as it now exists.

2. The voters of _______ [Town Name] oppose President Trump’s military buildup for war with Iran and believe the best way to support our Vermont Air National Guard F-35 personnel stationed there is to bring them home now.
(Note: if bombs are already falling on Iran before your Town Meeting vote remove the words, “military buildup for.”)

3. The Town Meeting of __________ [Town Name] requests that the Vermont legislature adopt the “Defend the Guard Act” to prevent the Vermont National Guard from being sent into combat absent congressional authorization, consistent with the Constitution’s assignment of war-making authority to Congress.

4. The people of ______ [Town Name] AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people; OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; DECLARE ourselves an Apartheid-free community, and to that end, PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.

Immediately after the meeting ends, send an email to us with your name and town, the issue or issues voted, and the results for each issue. We will compile and share the results with news media that night.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of us.
Thank you.
Dan DeWalt <patrioticresponse@yahoo.com>
Duncan Nichols <duncandnichols@gmail.com>
Isaac Evans-Franz <Isaac@isaacforvermont.com>
Paul Fleckenstein <pflecken@gmail.com>
Jennifer Decker <galloway.jennifer@gmail.com>
James Marc Leas <jolly39@gmail.com>

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