John,

This week, the Washington Post reported that the Biden administration has approved and delivered more than 100 military sales to Israel in the past 5 months, sending thousands of bombs and other weapons without notifying the public.

A former senior Biden administration official told the newspaper: “That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short amount of time, which really strongly suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S. support.”¹

Israel’s government has used financial, military, and diplomatic support from the U.S. to kill more than 30,000 Palestinians, orphan 17,000 children, and starve and displace millions.

In his State of the Union address this week, President Biden referred to Gaza and said that protecting and saving innocent lives must be a priority. If he wants to save lives, he should stop arming Israel’s military as it commits genocide.

Sign now to tell Biden: Listen to UN experts and the majority of the American people. Stop arming Israel.

The American people overwhelmingly support a permanent ceasefire, and a recent poll found that a majority of Americans also oppose weapons shipments to Israel.

At President Biden’s State of the Union address this week, several colleagues joined me in wearing keffiyehs and holding signs expressing the will of the people, saying “lasting ceasefire now” and “stop sending bombs.”

Outside the State of the Union, thousands of activists with Jewish Voice for Peace and other groups protested to demand Biden stop arming and funding Israel’s military.

Our movement is having an impact, with President Biden and his administration starting to use the word “ceasefire.” But they’re referring to a temporary pause in genocide.

Israel's government didn't even send a delegation to the latest round of ceasefire talks. Instead of using leverage to pressure Israel’s leaders for even a temporary pause, Biden’s administration continues to block UN ceasefire resolutions and other UN measures to criticize the Israeli military’s war crimes, such as massacres of Palestinians waiting for aid.

As human rights groups have pointed out, Israel is violating the United Nations International Court of Justice’s orders to prevent genocide, including the court’s demands to provide aid and stop the killing.

By blocking aid trucks, Israel is starving Palestinians while meals and maternity kits are only a few miles away. Meanwhile, Biden ended funding for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that’s the main provider of aid in Gaza.

Because of public pressure, Biden has air dropped some meals into Gaza, which amounted to a few truckloads’ worth of aid. But experts say that the millions of people in Gaza need at least 500 trucks a day to survive, which is about how many trucks came each day before last October.

While the UN International Court of Justice’s orders are legally binding, the court doesn’t have enforcement power. UN experts called on other countries that are members of the UN to follow their duty to prevent genocide by halting weapons exports to Israel.

Some countries have complied, but not the U.S., which is by far Israel’s biggest military supplier and funder.

Please sign if you agree with UN experts and the majority of Americans: The United States government should stop sending weapons to Israel’s military as it commits genocide.

Thank you. Together we will save lives, and we’ll keep pushing our government to invest in life-sustaining programs for our communities rather than spending billions of our tax dollars on death and destruction.

In solidarity,

Rashida

¹ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/06/us-weapons-israel-gaza/