Folks,

I’m writing today to ask you to join me in making an urgent contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has just had their federal relief funds frozen by the governments of the US, UK, and others.

If you missed the news, here’s what happened:

The UNRWA is the United Nations relief agency specifically designated to support for Palestinian refugees, and for the last 115 days it has been a primary source of food for over 2 million people in Gaza being ethnically cleansed by the Israeli government.

Despite all efforts to thwart the movement of aid into Gaza, the UNRWA has been the only thing standing between many Palestinian people and mass starvation.

Needless to say, Netanyahu has been desperate to stop that aid, and he finally found a way.

This week, Israeli intelligence lobbed an outrageous accusation against this relief agency, alleging that 13 UNRWA employees participated in some fashion with the October 7th attacks coordinated by Hamas.

Let’s put aside for a moment that Israel has not offered independent observers or any member of the media a single shred of evidence to back up this claim. Let’s also put aside for a moment the fact that Netanyahu and his intelligence agencies have REPEATEDLY made claims that were later debunked – before and after October 7th.

The specific allegation made by Israeli intelligence claims that 12 people employed by the UNRWA were involved in the Hamas attacks in some indeterminate way.

That’s 12 out of more than THIRTY-THOUSAND UNRWA employees worldwide, and out of 13,000 in Gaza alone.

The absurdity of such a charged claim backed by absolutely no evidence was only matched by the speed with which the United States government and our allies suspended federal funding for their relief work.

It was the fastest way to turn off what little humanitarian aid was getting through.

Let me repeat: The Biden administration has, with no evidence that has been disclosed to the public whatsoever, suspended all US federal funding for one of the primary relief agencies keeping people fed in Gaza.

The only outcome can be that countless innocent Palestinians will suffer and starve on nothing but the word of a thoroughly disgraced, genocidal apartheid state.

Last week the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel has displayed the intent to execute genocide, and that South Africa has standing to bring a case to a full hearing later this year.

In the interim, the ICJ has directed Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter and take other measures to stop the horrifying violence they are raining down on Gaza – though notably the court did NOT explicitly call for an immediate ceasefire. That part was only implied.

It’s no surprise then, in the face of this international pressure to allow aid into Gaza and institute a ceasefire, that Israel’s next move would be to discredit the primary providers of that humanitarian aid.

If you need any further proof of this, travel back in time less than two weeks ago when State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller said this in response to a reporter’s questions about UNRWA:

SOURCE: State Department daily press briefing, Jan 17, 2024

In the span of a few days, the United States government went from unapologetically praising UNRWA and their selfless work under life-threatening conditions – to stripping funding on the word of unsubstantiated Israeli intelligence claims.

If Israel is found to have manufactured the claims against the UNRWA as well, we will add it to their rapidly growing list of war crimes in Gaza.

But while we wait for history to hold them accountable, children in Gaza will go to bed hungry tonight, shivering from the cold and shaking under Israeli bombardments. The vital work of the UNRWA must continue.

As we work to pressure our government officials to reverse this catastrophic decision and pressure Israel for a ceasefire, we can keep the UNRWA’s program operational with grassroots contributions.

Folks, I am sickened by what our government is doing right now. One of the biggest reasons I’m running for Congress is to stand up against decisions like these and call it out from the heart of the federal government.

This time of month I would normally be writing to ask your help in closing the gap on my campaign’s monthly fundraising goal. If you were planning to kick my campaign some money and you can only give to one, I’m asking that you give what you can to the UNRWA instead.

We will never give up on Gaza.

#CeaseFireNow

#FreePalestine

In solidarity,

Jason