Last week, 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including a United Nations employee went missing. They’ve since been discovered buried in a mass grave, each of them executed one by one by Israeli military forces.
This is just one of the many atrocities that have come to define Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Each day, a new redline is crossed and a previously unthinkable horror becomes grim reality. And with Israel intensifying its bombardment and reportedly plotting a ground invasion with the goal of direct military occupation of the Gaza Strip, the already unimaginable situation is worsening.
These actions, however, are not merely the crimes of a foreign government in a faraway land. Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians has been made possible by the United States. It is our government, acting in our name, that has provided the bulk of the weapons, extended diplomatic cover for egregious human rights abuses, and greenlit the war.
But now you have a way to end our government’s complicity in these crimes.
This week Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will force a vote on Joint Resolutions of Disapproval that, if passed, will block Trump’s sale of $8.8 billion in bombs and other munitions to Israel.
And in the House of Representatives, U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D- WA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) have introduced four Joint Resolutions that would block the sale of 2,000 and 1,000 pound bombs to Israel, along with other weapons.
As a domestic civil liberties group with an emphasis on free expression, we don't take stances on international issues. But when our government provides weapons that are used to violate human rights and commit atrocities, that implicates our core mission. Defending Rights & Dissent has opposed drone strikes, assassinations, CIA secret prisons, torture, rendition and covert action. These crimes may take place outside our borders, but they are crimes committed by our government.
Whether it’s Trump or Biden, our government’s arming of Israel violates our own laws. US law prohibits the transfer of weapons to those who commit gross violations of human rights. Under the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, a treaty ratified by the US Senate (such as the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention) is the law of the land. On top of this, we also know Israel is using our weapons to deliberately target and assassinate Palestinian journalists - making our government actively complicit in the worst threat to free expression rights in the world today.
We need Congress to stand up to the administration and block the sale of US weapons being used in gross violations of human rights. And that’s why we need you to contact your member of Congress and tell them to support the joint resolutions of disapproval.
