Bringing Gaza Home to Middle America’s Flyover Country

Will a jury in Middle America’s flyover country care enough about the genocide in Gaza to acquit 4 protesters arrested for nonviolent civil resistance? Will it matter once they’ve seen “Bringing Gaza Home?”

That’s the question eight jurors will decide in Toledo a few weeks from now when they hear from four activists arrested October 3 for blocking the entrance to the local office of U.S. Senator John Husted. They, along with the local peace movement had run out of patience with Husted because of his continuing support for Israel’s genocide.

The final straw was when Husted refused to even make a statement supporting our friend and fellow Toledoan, Phil Tottenham, a former Marine, who was abducted in international waters by Israel during last fall’s Sumud Flotilla. That simply demanded the strongest nonviolent response we could make. We simply could not sit in comfort here in Toledo and watch this obscenity and simply hold a sign on a street corner to protest. We had to do more.

The other three people arrested were Al Compaan, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Toledo; Nancy Larson, retired counselor-social worker; and Steve Masternak, retired industrial engineer. Two others were arrested but have since pled guilty and paid fines.

Information we will show the jury is included in the extensively documented Veterans For Peace report, “Bringing Gaza Home.” The report is compiled from information published by international news outlets such as The Guardian, Al-Jazeera and Anadolu Agency, reporting on the effects of two years of Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine.

What makes it local to Toledo, county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, is comparing the destruction in Gaza to what Lucas County would be like after similar bombardment. The methodology simply compares Gaza’s area and population to Lucas County’s and calculates the comparable numbers.

We will hold up large photos and show videos of human casualties and physical destruction in Gaza, and describe to jurors what the effect would be in our own neighborhoods. We will tell the jury, “if this sounds utterly impossible or like a horror movie script, it’s neither. But for the grace of God this could be us instead of Gaza.”

· 27,292 county residents would be dead, including 350 medical personnel, 528 people seeking food aid from official sites and 61 reporters and media workers

· 93 people starved to death

· 737 imprisoned without charges or trial

· 450,170 tons of bombs dropped on our county in two years — four times what was dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, London, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined in WWII

· Over 34,300 people wounded; over half are women and children

· 324,520 people (75% of the county population) infected with disease from polluted water and open sewers

· 384,500 people (90% of the population) endured severe lack of food

· Over 90% of residential buildings are destroyed and 92% of all schools require complete reconstruction

· 264,000 people (62% of the population) have lost legal documentation for property ownership

· Over 340,000 unexploded bombs lie buried in Lucas County.

Our hope at trial is that our fellow citizens and neighbors will be as abhorred by what Gazans have suffered as we are and decide it’s time to stand and be counted; that blocking the entrance to a Senator’s office is a minimal response to a genocide.

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