John,

Over this past week, tens of thousands of people have rallied in cities across the U.S. for a ceasefire. Over 100 Jewish Americans have been arrested while protesting to end the Israeli military’s unfolding genocide against Palestinians, and thousands blocked entrances to the White House on Monday calling for a ceasefire.

In Congress, I just joined 12 other Democrats to introduce the Ceasefire Now Resolution, urging the Biden administration to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine, and to send humanitarian aid and assistance to people under siege and trapped in Gaza.

The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians is a war crime, a moral outrage, and an egregious violation of humanitarian law.

Please sign on now to become a grassroots co-sponsor of the Ceasefire Now Resolution.

We need legislation that saves as many lives as possible, no matter one’s faith or ethnicity. So I’m joining some of my colleagues and a growing coalition of human rights advocates in calling for de-escalation, ceasefire, and a strong humanitarian response that prevents more devastating civilian casualties across the region.

The answer to war crimes is not war crimes.

Since Saturday October 7, Israel’s government has been dropping around a thousand bombs a day on 2.2 million trapped Palestinians—over half of whom are children. This includes white phosphorus bombs, an illegal incendiary weapon that burns through skin down to the bone.

As of Monday, October 16, the UN and the WHO reported that 1 million Palestinians have been displaced, and Israel’s military has targeted 111 medical facilities, killed 12 health care workers, and bombed 60 ambulances. Recent reports indicate hundreds have been killed in the bombing of a hospital sheltering thousands of civilians.

Calling Palestinians “animals,” Israeli politicians have openly broadcast their collective punishment of civilians. The Israeli government has cut off water, food, fuel, medicine, and electricity to Gaza, while refusing to accept Palestinian Americans from Gaza or to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

As Jewish group IfNotNow said while supporting the Ceasefire Now Resolution: “Even as Biden allows Israel's genocide of Palestinians, we will not allow more mass murder in our name.”

Unfortunately, many U.S. political leaders are supporting this violence and calling to send more weapons to Israel’s military, while dehumanizing and disregarding Palestinian civilians. The Biden administration, most of Congress, and U.S. State Department officials have actively tried to silence calls for de-escalation and a ceasefire.

The hate and racist rhetoric coming out of Washington D.C. is pushing incendiary, hateful, and dehumanizing anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim rhetoric that must be called out. A 6-year-old boy—Wadea Al-Fayoume—was stabbed to death in Chicago for being Palestinian American.

My colleagues are trying to silence me, the only Palestinian American in Congress, because I want the violence to stop—no matter whether it’s toward Israelis or toward Palestinians. I cannot believe I have to beg our country to value every human life, no matter their faith or ethnicity. We cannot lose sight of the humanity in each other.

Please sign if you agree: The U.S. government must urgently save Palestinian, Israeli, and American civilian lives. We must bring Americans in Israel and occupied Palestine safely home, and we must push Israel’s government to stop the siege on Gaza and ensure humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Thank you for taking action.

Right now, we must keep showing massive public support for ending the violence. And in the long-term, we must keep building the movement to end the Israeli government’s apartheid system against Palestinians. Everyone in the region deserves to live safely, in freedom and with equal rights.

In solidarity,

Rashida