Billboard In New Haven, Connecticut, Says “Stop Arming Israel”

The website connected to the billboard claims that Israel’s warfare amounts to a genocide against Palestinians and that the only way to stop it is to cut the weapons to Israel.

By Coalition to Stop Arming Israel, World BEYOND War

A number of groups and individuals have rented time on an electronic billboard in New Haven, Connecticut, over the I-95 highway to spread the message, “Stop Arming Israel.” The billboard is 48 feet wide and can be seen on the stretch of highway as I-91 empties onto I-95 South towards New York.  It will be visible through March 9 alternating with 7 other billboard ads.  It calls on viewers to go to the website: StopArmingIsrael.us.

The sponsor is a new group with the name “The Coalition to Stop Arming Israel.”  It’s made up at present of the Middle East Crisis Committee, Palestine Solidarity Committee of Danbury, Health Care Workers 4 Palestine – Connecticut, CT for a World BEYOND War, Veterans for Peace Chapter 18, Connecticut Palestine Alliance (CTPA), Tree of Life Education Fund, and Promoting Enduring Peace.

The website connected to the billboard claims that Israel’s warfare amounts to a genocide against Palestinians and that the only way to stop it is to cut the weapons to Israel.  The U.S. sends Israel $3.8 billion a year in regular payment and since October 7, 2023, has sent tens of billions in special funds for weapons.

John Miksad, representing Veterans for Peace and World BEYOND War, said, “The apartheid State of Israel is now seen by the vast majority of the world as a rogue state that flagrantly violates international law and human rights. It is apparent that it will not change voluntarily and, as a result, it will suffer the same fate as apartheid South Africa…worldwide condemnation, boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. It is our job as people of conscience to continue applying pressure to our elected officials on a local, state and federal level to demand they get on the right side of history, regardless of how resistant they may be today. This billboard is just one of the many ways we are saying loudly and clearly, Not in Our Name!”

Omar Antar said “The Connecticut Palestine Alliance is proud to be a member and co-sponsor of the Stop Arming Israel Coalition and its billboard project, to bring attention to the complicity of our governments in the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid of Gazans, West Bank citizens (Jenin especially lately), and Palestinians generally in the region. As citizens of the United States, and Connecticut in particular, we have the power to influence our governments to stop the relaunching of the genocide by blocking arms shipments/sales to and diplomatic cover for Israel, and divest from all investments by the Connecticut State Treasurer Eric Russell in the apartheid state of Israel, just as the state of Connecticut divested from the apartheid state of the Republic of South Africa in 1981.”

Stanley Heller, Executive Director of the Middle East Crisis Committee said, “President Trump said his goal is to take Gaza and to remove two million Palestinians from the area, a clear international crime. We call instead to restore Gaza and the livelihood of the people who live there. Stop the river of weapons fueling Israel’s genocidal attacks.”

On behalf of the Palestine Solidarity Committee of Danbury, Dr. Justine McCabe said, “The imperial and immoral actions of the US–in arming Israel’s genocide as well as in its support for autocratic regimes in the region—dangerously collide with the persistent striving for democracy by ‘decolonized’ people who overwhelmingly identify with Palestinians.” She continued, “While working as an anthropologist and psychologist in Gaza and West Bank, I witnessed the intense frustration and disgust among Palestinians for US unconditional support for Israel—long before this genocidal war. In fact, US support for apartheid Israel as its geopolitical proxy to control the Middle East makes both Israelis and Americans less safe, less secure. Tragically, in their ‘special relationship’ as hyper-militarized cultures, the US and Israel dehumanize their own citizens by their brutalizing dehumanization of Palestinians.”

Dr. Phil Brewer from Health Care Workers 4 Palestine (HCW4P) said, “Over the past 15 months the United States has shipped $26 billion in military supplies to Israel enabling it to conduct a massive genocide in Gaza with the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, the wounding and maiming of tens of thousands more, and leaving behind a catastrophic landscape devoid of the shelter, sanitation, food, medical care, and social programs necessary for life in Gaza.  As an American physician whose first commandment is to do no harm, I demand that my country stop arming Israel in order to bring an end to the genocide.”