To the members of the U.S. State Department and Congress:

I echo the voices of thousands to implore you to block President Joe Biden's May 5 proposal to sell Israel specialized weaponry and technical data work $735,000,000 to Israel.

Representatives - I urge you to immediately support the first-ever Joint Resolution of Disapproval (H.J.Res 49) initiated on May 19 by Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to block the president’s arms sale to Israel. 

Senators - I urge you to immediately support the follow-up Joint Resolution (S.J.Res 19) introduced on May 20 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). 

If you have any moral conscience, you cannot help to traumatize, displace and kill more Palestinians. As Palestinian activists, American allies and international organizations recognize, Israel is a settler-colonial/apartheid state that is and has been for 73 years systematically engaging in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through mass murder, terrorization and assault during house raids, blockades on access to medical care, censorship of Palestinian voices on social media and in the news, and more.

Are you reluctant to admit that Israeli apartheid is real? As the late activist Michael Brooks said in Feb 2020, “if there was a population of Jewish refugees in Gaza and West Bank and an Arab government was operating an open-air prison, we’d all know what it was.” 

And while this issue is constantly reduced to one of religious identity (Jewish vs. Muslim), the fact that Palestinian Christians have for many years been relegated to second-class citizenship and have been targeted by Israeli police only emphasizes that this reduction is pure fallacy. The truth is that every single Palestinian has been targeted by Israeli occupation.  

The bottom line: we should have never funded and cannot continue to fund Palestinian genocide. As Palestinian activists and allies have been saying for decades, there are no two equal sides and the U.S. is contradicting its own mission to promote peace and democracy by choosing to empower and embolden Israel with yet another arms sale.

Use your power to choose differently. 

Constituents, after signing this petition, please text ‘SIGN PRJNCD’ to 50409 to send this petition directly to your local legislators. Ask 5-10 friends to do the same.

We cannot be (and should have never been) "neutral" or "quiet" in the face of genocide, especially one that is being funded by our tax dollars. And we have never before been closer to achieving a liberated Palestinian state - act NOW. 

Cover image from The Palestine Chronicle.