Remarks delivered by Cole Harrison at Sen. Ed Markey’s press conference at the Embrace statue, April 8, 2026
Massachusetts Peace Action calls for the immediate end to the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran and Lebanon. Trump’s war violates the Constitution, US law, and international law. Yesterday he threatened genocide and said he would destroy Iran’s civilization. We welcome the temporary ceasefire but call for a permanent end to the conflict and to US threats against Iran, Lebanon, and to the genocide still underway in Palestine. Congress must provide no weapons to Israel of any kind, no funding for this war, and no funding for the Pentagon while the US is conducting aggression.
The war is an attack on the American people. Trump said last week that the federal government can’t afford to provide Medicare, Medicaid, and daycare. That is a lie. At the same time Trump is demanding a more than 50% increase in the Pentagon budget so that the US can fight even more destructive wars. We the people must say no.
President Trump must be impeached and removed from office. Democratic leaders who have long supported Israel no matter what it does, who have voted to send it more and more arms even during a genocide, who have refused and failed to stop this war, and who have harbored hostility to Iran for decades must also be removed from their positions.
US hostility to Iran is based on lies. US and British colonialism attacked Iran’s sovereignty in the 20th century. Iran has no nuclear weapons and no nuclear weapons program. The US is the country whose nuclear weapons threaten human civilization. Israel is armed with nuclear weapons. The US can and must reconcile with Iran. Israel’s settler colonialist state and its apartheid and genocide of Palestine is at the root of the tension in the Middle East. The US must stop enabling Israel and uphold the human and political rights of all peoples equally. The US must stop its blockades and sanctions on Iran and also on Cuba, Venezuela and other countries. The US must sign and ratify the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and end its nuclear threats against the people of the world.
