BY EMMA ABATA AND KELLY MYERS
Every Saturday for three years, we’ve stood in the streets in front of Ashley Pond protesting against genocide and for the truth.
When October 7 happened, many of us understood what we were watching through a history that did not begin that morning. We saw a Palestinian people who had spent generations living under occupation, displacement, apartheid and siege fighting against the colonial power that confined them and refused to treat them as equal human beings.
Those of us following investigative journalists in the aftermath of October 7, not Zionist owned mainstream media, looked at the rifles carried by Hamas resistance fighters, then at homes and vehicles obliterated by weapons only available to the Israeli military, and begin to ask questions we were never supposed to ask.
We knew Gaza was one of the most intensely surveilled places on earth. We quickly learned that Israel possessed Hamas’s detailed attack plans well before October 7 and had received warnings before the attack yet did not evacuate civilians or increase security measures. We knew Israeli tanks fired on buildings containing Israeli civilians and the IDF killed an unknown number of their own civilians that day. Israeli reporting even revealed orders to stop captives “at all costs” by killing them, an application of what’s known as the Hannibal Directive. (Source: The Grayzone) (Source: UN Commission of Inquiry) (Source: Haaretz)
A September 2026 Haaretz investigation reported that on the evening of October 7, Qatar told Israel that Hamas was prepared to release ALL CIVILIAN CAPTIVES and that Qatar was prepared to mediate. But it was Israel who refused to enter negotiations. (Source: Haaretz investigation) This detail contradicts the lie we were told for years, that Israel had a right to defend itself and that the bombing would stop if Hamas would simply “release the hostages.”
Do you see the strategic lies yet?
Palestinian American writer Susan Abulhawa put it plainly, “The truth is finally coming out.” Many investigative journalists and activists explain that Palestinians had spent years trying to negotiate an end to the siege, but Palestinians were left no choice but to fight back after decades of Israel refusing to negotiate in good faith. The Israeli government knew an attack was coming, allowed it to happen, and exploited October 7 as “Israel’s 9/11” to justify a project of destruction, ethnic cleansing and genocide whose history began generations earlier.
For three years, we’ve tried to get Los Alamos to look closer. We’ve been screamed at, cursed at and even spit on.
And still, every Saturday we came back.
Because Palestine was never a single issue.
Follow the money.
In just the first two years after October 7, the United States spent $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel and another $9.65 to $12.07 billion on related U.S. military operations. That’s more than $31 billion. (Source: Brown University Costs of War Project)
Meanwhile, Americans are told we cannot afford universal healthcare, affordable housing, adequately funded schools or childcare.
There is never enough money for human needs. But there is always money for imperial wars.
When Forbes launched its list of America’s 400 richest people in 1982, there were just 13 billionaires on it. Today, 590 American billionaires aren’t even rich enough to make the Forbes 400. (Source: Forbes)
This is the Epstein Billionaire Class. A grotesquely wealthy class operating through overlapping worlds of corporations, finance, politics, media, government, human trafficking and arms trafficking, while everyday working people are bamboozled into fighting each other for scraps instead of looking at the people and institutions pulling the strings and holding the power.
The Red Team vs. Blue Team bullshit keeps us staring at the puppets designed to distract you instead of looking up at the strings.
The truth is, we the 99% are getting fucking robbed.
Luckily, there are things we can do with the few dollars we have left.
The BDS Movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) asks ordinary people to stop spending money with specific companies it identifies as complicit in Israel’s crimes. Current campaigns include Chevron, HP, Microsoft, Xbox, SodaStream, and more. (Source: BDS Movement)
Our taxes are political. Our purchases are political. Military contracts are political. Budgets are political.
And here in Los Alamos, we have even less of an excuse to pretend this has nothing to do with us.
Modern Los Alamos was built around the Manhattan Project. Weapons development built this town. It employs our neighbors, pays mortgages and funds comfortable lives.
We need to ask ourselves what responsibility we have for what our labor, our taxes and our institutions enable.
For three years, that’s what we’ve been asking you to do.
Look closer.
Look at Gaza. Look at the money. Look at the weapons. Look at the corporations. Look at surveillance. Look at the expanding military state. Look at the Epstein Billionaire Class accumulating unimaginable wealth while ordinary people are told we cannot afford healthcare, housing, groceries or gas.
Look at how all of it is connected.
That is why we chose Seeds for Liberation to mark three years of continuous protest. The documentary centers Palestinian voices and connects the Free Palestine movement with Black, Chicano and other collective liberation struggles.
On Tuesday, October 13 at 6:30 p.m. at SALA Event Center, we invite our community to a free screening of Seeds for Liberation, followed by a live Zoom Q&A with the director, Matthew Solomon to honor three years of commitment to ending the genocide in Palestine.
For three years, we’ve been standing outside asking Los Alamos to listen. To learn. To see the connections.
Maybe it’s time we actually sit down together and talk.
Because Palestine was never a single issue.
And neither were we.
Letters to the editor represent the opinions of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or editorial stance of the Los Alamos Reporter. The publication assumes no responsibility or liability for the factual accuracy of statements made by contributors.