FAIRFIELD, CA/TRAVIS AFB - Activists from across Northern California converged today at Travis Air Force Base, during the early morning commute to demand that Travis personnel:
- Stop transporting U.S. weapons that support Israel’s illegal and immoral genocidal campaign in Gaza
- Stop aiding illegal mass deportations that violate immigrants' right to due process and traumatize families and communities.
- Disobey all orders that enable the unprovoked and illegal U.S./Israeli War on Iran.
Dozens gathered at the main gate for a vigil, while a smaller group regrouped at the remote North Gate, where a flood of military traffic enters in the morning. A “human blockade” quickly formed to oppose U.S. complicity in the crimes against humanity being committed in Gaza by Israel. While chanting and stretching 2 large banners across the entrance road, traffic came to an abrupt halt. The banners read: “Travis, No Genocide, No Deportations” and “Food to Gaza, Not Weapons to Israel.”
Ultimately 5 women elders in their 70’s, including several grandmothers, were arrested, handcuffed and detained by Fairfield police. They were later cited and released.
A Japanese immigrant and U.S. citizen who was arrested at Travis today for the 2nd time this year expressed her motivation: “These nonviolent direct actions should be taking place all over the world, because without U.S. support Israel could not continue it’s brutal aggression on Palestine and the Middle East."
This was the sixth nonviolent protest, and the fourth "human blockade" at Travis AFB organized by the People’s Arms Embargo, since November, 2024. The People’s Arms Embargo is a coalition of 30 peace and justice organizations determined to continue these nonviolent protests at Travis AFB until Travis ceases to ship U.S. weapons to Israel that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children. This time the protest highlighted the recent unprovoked U.S./Israeli war on Iran as well.
“The US is facing a moral crisis. We cannot continue to choose war over good faith diplomacy,” says Eleanor Levine, co-organizer.
For decades, trillions of U.S. tax dollars have supported a state of endless warfare in the Middle East that now includes complicity in a 20 month long Israeli-U.S. genocide in Gaza.
“The recent unprovoked attacks on Iran by the U.S. and Israel, that directly targeted nuclear sites, severely threatens global and environmental stability and puts us all at risk for WWIII. We want our tax dollars funding basic human needs and environmental justice, not US weapons industry profits," says Toby Blomé, co-organizer.
