1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

Humanity, at its core, is being vividly shaken as we bear witness to the horrifying atrocities happening in parts of the globe that most of us, in our comfortable lives, may never have to truly comprehend. The ongoing, publicly funded bloodshed in Palestine, especially, seems like a recurring nightmare that we refuse to wake up from, a testament to our collective complacency and silence. It is disgraceful to acknowledge that billions of our taxpayer dollars from the United States contribute to the funding of such atrocities, and even worse, that the weapons of violence responsible for innocent casualties are proudly stamped, 'Made in the USA.' The free world, it seems, stands unflinchingly still while Palestinian civilians suffer endless torment and devastation, training its focus on pleasing geo-political allies than on the sheer human obligation of preventing intentional harm to innocents. It is necessary to question whether our moral fibers have worn so thin that we cannot transcend political allegiances to condemn brazen crimes against humanity. How, then, do we teach our children about fairness, justice, and equality if we do not hold those values true for every nation and every human being? We direly need a ceasefire, an end to this brutal, senseless violence, and most importantly, we need a shift in policy towards supporting peace, not funding more war. We need to stop our contributions to the arms that are fueling destruction in Israel's actions against Palestinian civilians. Without swift, decisive action, we fail as a society to protect the very essence of what makes us human- our capacity to empathize, to act justly, and to defend the defenseless. These are not distant cries, these are the pleas of fellow humans who the world has forgotten. We too are human, and it is high time we started remembering it.