John,

Today is Nakba Day, marking 76 years since the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic), when nearly 800,000 Palestinians were violently forced from their homes during Israel’s creation in 1948. During that period of intense ethnic cleansing, 15,000 Palestinians were massacred and more than 500 villages were destroyed.

To this day, the Israeli government is still trying to erase an entire people.

Most of Gaza’s residents are refugees from the Nakba, and they’ve been forcibly displaced multiple times over the past 7 months. In this time, Israeli forces have killed over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza and have committed many well-documented violations of the Genocide Convention under international law.

Our country is actively participating in this genocide: Most of my colleagues in Congress are still voting to send Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu billions more in weapons without any conditions on upholding human rights. And across the country, many lawmakers are trying to criminalize criticism of Israel’s apartheid regime.

As part of my efforts to humanize Palestinians in Congress, I just re-introduced a resolution to commemorate the Nakba. The resolution also calls on the United States to continue to support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and to support the implementation of Palestinian refugees’ internationally-recognized legal right to return to their homes, as enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On this Nakba Day, will you sign on as a grassroots co-sponsor of my resolution to recognize Palestinians’ human rights and the history of the Nakba?

One refugee from 1948’s Nakba, Mustafa al-Gazzar, is now 81 years old. As a resident of Gaza, he’s been forced to flee multiple times in recent months. He said: “My hope in 1948 was to return, but my hope today is to survive. I live in such fear.”

Because of attempts to rewrite history and to silence Palestinians, Israel’s government is allowed to continue the ongoing Nakba with impunity. For example, the U.S. has skipped and even tried to block prior Nakba Day commemorations at the United Nations.

Last year, the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives tried and failed to cancel a Nakba event at the U.S. Capitol. But we were not silenced: Palestinian Americans who experienced the Nakba firsthand were able to tell their stories of trauma and survival to a packed, standing-room-only audience.

We must continue to ensure that Palestinian voices are heard and acknowledged, not only for healing, but also to create an honest pathway for peace.

The Nakba never ended, as Israel’s government has continued to steal Palestinian land, displace millions of Palestinians, and deny generations of Palestinians the right to live in and even freely visit their homeland. Our country is the largest weapons supplier and funder of Israel’s military, so U.S. residents in particular must speak out against U.S. support for Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime that treats Palestinians as less than human.

Supporting this newly re-introduced resolution is one way to keep educating lawmakers and keep the pressure on the U.S. government to stop enabling and unconditionally funding Israel’s human rights abuses.

Please sign on today to support my resolution in Congress to commemorate the Nakba, which also calls on the United States to continue to support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and to support Palestinian refugees’ internationally-recognized legal right to return to their homes.

Thank you. Together, we will continue demanding an end to genocide, apartheid, and occupation, while building a world where Palestinians and all people can live freely, with human dignity and equal rights for all.

In solidarity,

Rashida