A Saudi Arabian airstrike on Aug. 9, 2018, in Yemen’s Saada province — and Saudi Arabia’s savage murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi — was the last straw. A total of 100 activists protested in front of Saudi Arabia’s New York City consulate.

Calling themselves, Voices for Yemen, this grassroots coalition of peace groups held the demonstration.

“Stop the Starving! Stop the Bombing! Stop the killing of the children of the children of Yemen,” they chanted.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates having been waging on Yemen since March 2015. Merciless bombardments, the sealing of ports, disease, mass starvation, and the suffering of children have been its hallmarks. Since the war’s start, more than 85,000 children under the age of five may have died from hunger alone.

Prof. Jeremy Varon

In response, Jeremy Varon, wrote an essay that was published Nov. 29, 2018 in Public Seminar, whose mission is to confront fundamental problems of the human condition and provoke critical and informed discussion.

Varon is a professor of history at The New School, a private nonprofit university in Manhattan. He also serves as editor of The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture, and is a member of Witness Against Torture.

Read his full essay, here.