‘Fund people, not bombs’: inside the US movement against war in Iran

Protests coincide with a congressional vote to stop arming Israel and a movement to withhold income taxes On Monday afternoon, dozens of people sat down in front of the New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Manhattan office. Shedding their casual-business attire, they revealed matching shirts that read “FUND PEOPLE, NOT BOMBS”. They were some of hundreds of protesters – including Chelsea Manning, actor Hannah Einbinder and artist Molly Crabapple – to tell Gillibrand and the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer that they disapprove of the US sending more weapons to Israel, as the two countries wage wars in Iran, Lebanon and Palestine. Nearly a hundred protesters, including Manning, actor Hari Nef and New York congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, were arrested after the group shut down traffic on Third Avenue. The action, coordinated by Jewish Voice for Peace, About Face: Veterans Against the War and several other groups, called on the senators to back a vote on joint resolutions of disapproval, introduced by the senator Bernie Sanders in March, to block sending hundreds of millions of dollars in bombs and bulldozers to Israel. This is the fourth such vote; Sc