It only took 20 days.
I didn’t have to sleep on the cold, wet ground, live in a tent; relieve my bowels and bladder in the open like everyone around me; watch my children burn to death or die in my arms because all the hospitals were purposely destroyed; drink polluted water, dodge snipers or hear deadly drones buzzing day and night.
I’m here in New York, a city millions come to visit and where residents pay outrageous amounts just to live. I drink all the clean water I want, have a warm bed at night, walk about safely, see the greatest buildings and smell the most varied eateries in our land.
With 6 other members of Veterans For Peace and the president of World Beyond War, I stand every day across the street from the famed United Nations headquarters, in front of the U.S. Mission to the U.N., with signs that read Feed Gaza!, We can’t say we didn’t know!, and another that changes slightly every day: “Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza! Day # ___.” Tomorrow is #24, heading for 40.
We are the core of the “Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza,” that will soon have 1,000 participants in the U.S. and seven other nations. We restrict ourselves to 250 calories a day, the average amount reported early this year to be available to Gazans, who are now used as IDF target practice when they go to the rare aid distribution site.
Four days ago, our fast met the halfway mark. Without access to quality health care, I would have met my end.
I had highly underrated the importance of Potassium, one of those critical elements for life we take for granted. Almost everybody gets more than enough in a decent diet. But unbeknownst to me, the cancer meds I’m on reduce Potassium uptake.
One online health journal says: A serum (blood) potassium level below 2.5 mmol/L is a medical emergency because it can lead to cardiac arrest and death. The patient will be treated in the hospital with immediate infusions of potassium through an intravenous (IV) line, along with other potential treatments to stabilize the heart rhythm.
At 20 days of fasting, hunger had gnawed at that unknown condition until friends prevailed upon me to I visit the V.A. center “just to get a check.” It revealed unnoticed heart arrhythmias and a Potassium level of 2.1 mmol/L, inches from dying…silently, painlessly, quickly…among all the pleasures and benefits of this marvelous city. Without the vomiting, stomach cramps, hellish noises and crushing despair that is killing the children of Gaza.
Almost accidentally, I am writing to you from a clean, comfortable bed on Floor 13 of the Veterans Administration hospital in Manhattan, surrounded by friends and the privileges we assume as our birthright. I survived, escaping with a valuable lesson in human physiology. Today the doctor strongly recommended I quit the fast “at least until we can get you stabilized.” Just now, I finished my first actual meal in three weeks.
I survived and learned much of value. I met my personal goal to do more than hold a sign on a street corner to denounce the U.S. and Israel’s sick savagery against the innocents. That savagery is waged in broad daylight, visible to anyone who wants to see it, including the well-manicured “suits” who long ago let the love of money and power destroy their love of humanity.
They are the ones supplying Israel with the tools to carry out its plans. Netanyahu’s advisers calculated they couldn’t get away with “Final Solution: Plan A” – marching Palestinians to the ovens. They had to choose Plan B, which is coincidentally much more profitable to the Madmen Arsonists who run our country: bomb them, destroy them, incinerate them, degrade them, terrorize them and starve them into submission. Or better yet, wipe them from the earth.
If you’d like to join us and the soon-to-be 1,000 others in the U.S. and in Ireland, Italy, Germany, Australia and Canada, participating in our cry of anguish and resistance go to this web site, created by our partners at Friends of Sabeel, North America. Choose at what level you can participate. All are welcome. Come join the beloved community that one day must remake this world.
Mike Ferner is the former National Director of Veterans for Peace who served as a hospital corpsman during the American War in Vietnam. You can reach him at mike@veteransforpeace.org
