“All Those Experiences In My Life Did Not Exceed What I Saw In Gaza, In The First Week.”
UN General Assembly Votes In Overwhelming Opposition Against Illegal Israeli Occupation. Hear the Harrowing Testimony of a U.S. Surgeon Who Witnessed the Devastation in Gaza.
September 18th, 2024 –– Breaking news reports tell that the UN General Assembly has adopted by a margin of 10:1 a Palestinian-drafted resolution demanding that Israel end its “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months. 124 votes were in favor, with 43 abstentions, and the United states and 12 others voting “No.”
The passage of this resolution, the first to be put forward by the Palestinian Authority since it gained additional rights and privileges this month, demonstrates that Israel faces increasing isolation in the global community, and comes days before the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. This follows a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July which decided that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements is illegal and should be withdrawn.
The UNGA met on Sept. 17th to debate the resolution before the vote, where it was clear that the global majority of nations opposed Israel’s illegal occupation, which has not only endangered Israel’s security in the region, but has set a historical precedent for the decades of conflict and bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians. Before voting “No” today, the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors had dismissed the resolution, arrogantly expecting the world to ignore their crimes against humanity. “Each country has a vote, and the world is watching us,” Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the General Assembly on Tuesday, as reported in Reuters, “Please stand on the right side of history. With international law. With freedom. With peace.”
As an independent congressional candidate (District NY-15) it is my duty to intervene into this process on behalf of the innocent men, women and children who have lost their lives to senseless slaughter, by sharing a personal testimony given to me by an orthopedic surgeon who had the courage to go to the war zone and operate on hundreds of maimed men, women, and children in the Gaza Strip.
On Monday evening, September 16th, Dr. Mark Perlmutter joined both me and my running mate Diane Sare, a U.S. Senate candidate running against Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-D), to discuss what he witnessed as a surgeon in Gaza. Dr. Perlmutter’s credentials include being president of the World Surgical Foundation, and past president of the United States Section of the International College of Surgeons. Over 30 years, he has been part of 40 lifesaving missions, including significant disaster relief efforts at Ground Zero on 9/11, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and following the earthquakes in Haiti in 2010. Those experiences, he remarked to us, “did not exceed” the human suffering and pain witnessed in Gaza in the first week he was there. “Just the first week,” he reiterated.
Working 20 hours a day, with limited medical resources, Dr. Perlmutter encountered a disproportionate number of wounded children which made up nearly 50% of his patients—from cities and small towns. 2,000 pound bombs, provided with U.S. taxpayer money, have been dropped on these children who live in densely-populated Gaza. One of his most horrifying recollections involved having to treat two children who were each shot, twice, by IDF snipers. Both were shot in the chest and head. Such acts were not only deliberate, Perlmutter remarked, but indicated the gross neglect by the IDF for preventing civilian deaths, despite Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s empty words.
Furthermore, as has been documented copiously, journalists, nurses and doctors were deliberately targeted. Perlmutter recounted a specific incident he encountered, where a Palestinian nurse in Gaza who had refused to leave an operating room had been shot in the knee, kidnapped to an Israeli prison, tortured, “blind-folded, hand-cuffed and given a juicebox a day, dropped at the border with maggots coming out of his leg on the 45th day of no medical care; picked up after he crawled three kilometers in the dirt naked, not seeing where was going because his going-away present from the Israeli soldier who dropped him off was a rifle-butt in his right eye from which he is now blinded forever; and then I met him when he was brought to the hospital where we were working, you know, so you have a starved, tortured health care worker that was deliberately targeted, clearly not Hamas, because they let him go, and this is the perfect example of my next topic, which is why there were no journalists there, and that’s because they were also assassinated, or had their equipment confiscated.” Perlmutter went on state unequivocally that the “legacy American media” is “the problem,” explaining that he has also had to take up the mantle of a journalist solely because the media was derelict of its duty to inform the public of the truth. “The only way the truth is going to get out is if we say it,” he said.
In light of the important resolution passed today by the General Assembly of the UN of the Palestinian resolution today, I intend for Dr. Perlmutter’s account of these atrocities to be circulated to all the relevant ambassadors, diplomats, and staff workers at the UN so that it may be investigated, questioned, and taken into consideration.
My campaign is dedicated to speaking up on behalf of truth-tellers and courageous individuals. In 2020, I collaborated with former NSA technical director Bill Binney to get a real investigation into the so-called “Russiagate” scandal which accused Russia of hacking into the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Binney had done a technical analysis of the DNC files in question, and proved that the metadata indicated a leak from a DNC insider rather than a hack. Such evidence was not taken into account by the relevant authorities, or the legacy media, and we were then unsurprisingly and continually lied to about Russian election interference. I have intervened against notable political figures, such as Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and others, for their brinkmanship against Russia and China, and their failure to use diplomacy to resolve conflicts in the world. The horrifying butchery in Palestine now on display to everyone with a smartphone, computer, or television is being constantly ignored by the United States and most of its allies in the West. ICJ documentation of Israeli officials like Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referring to Palestinians as “human animals” have not resulted in an iota of sympathy among the majority of lawmakers in the United States who continue to arm Israel.
Because of this complicit silence of U.S. officials, who were among the 13 “No” votes today in the General Assembly, Dr. Mark Perlmutter’s true bravery and first-hand experiences must be heard and widely circulated, rapidly.
To hear Dr. Perlmutter’s account of his experiences, and to find out how to join the growing international movement for peace and development, watch the attached video from our last campaign meeting, and contact my campaign at (800) 498-8561.