by Paul Shannon
On November 1, 2023, the Mass Peace Action Raytheon anti-war campaign chartered new territory in its efforts to end the hold of the U.S. military industrial complex on our country’s resources and its political agenda as well as on our lives and the lives of others.
For the past several years, the campaign has conducted numerous rallies and educational events focused on Raytheon’s key role in the deadly Saudi-U.S. war against Yemen and in the maintenance of the destructive U.S. -Saudi alliance. In a significant step forward in our opposition to or nation’s militarism, 40 or 50 of us gathered in Harvard Square on the first of November with two goals: 1) to demand a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and 2) to call attention to the fact that Raytheon-built weapons play a key role in the ongoing Gaza massacre. Our point is that because Masschusetts is the home of so many Raytheon plants and facilities, those of us living in this state have a special responsibility to stop the deadly wars from which the company reaps obscene profits.
According to research done by the American Friends Service Committee, Raytheon (now re-named RTX — perhaps an abbreviation for Tyrannosaurus ReX) makes missiles, bombs, components for fighter jets, and other weapon systems used by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians.Raytheon equipment is also integrated into Raytheon’s main weapons systems such as the engines, missiles, sensor and navigation systems for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets, and engines, radars and maintenance services for Israel’s F-16 fighter bombers.
The Raytheon anti-war campaign is now formulating plans for this new phase of our work. We hope that by revealing Raytheon’s extensive links to the war in Gaza and the use of Raytheon weapons to maintain Israel’s apartheid system, we can raise awareness of the complicity of Massachusetts-based companies in what many people view as a genocide; moreover, we hope that increasing awareness of the extent to which Raytheon profits from the slaughter of civilians in Gaza will lead to significant public pressure to end our government’s provision of Raytheon and other companies’ weapons to Israel, weapons being used to support criminal policies toward the Palestinians. Join us.
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(For information contact Paul Shannon at info@masspeaceaction.org)