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Friends,

My friend Awdah was shot and killed by an extremist settler last week. I’m
asking for your help to make some meaning of it.

Awdah was raising three young kids in the South Hebron Hills. Since he was
a teenager, he’d been committed to nonviolent advocacy against Israeli
military occupation and extremist settlers who have spent decades trying
to push his community from their land.

He taught English to his neighbors. Organized his community. Filmed and
shared videos of settler attacks. He proudly worked on the Oscar-winning
documentary, No Other Land.

I met him on a J Street trip six years ago to Umm al-Khair, where many of
you reading this might’ve met Awdah as well. We organized a WhatsApp group
of Palestinians and American Jews so we could work together to expose
settler violence and press for action.

It was through that group that I got the message – and video – I’d long
been dreading: “Awdah was shot by a settler. Please pray for him.”

We’re used to pretty grim videos through the group chat, but this was the
hardest yet. It shows an extremist settler – Yinon Levi – shooting Awdah
in cold blood. You can hear the anguished screams from his friends.

This settler is infamous. He was sanctioned by President Biden for his
role in numerous violent attacks. And one of President Trump’s first acts
in office was to lift those sanctions.

The week before Awdah’s shooting, our group had been lobbying Members of
Congress to codify those sanctions into law by co-sponsoring the West Bank
Violence Prevention Act.

My ask of you today is to stand with Awdah Hathaleen’s family and
community and make two phone calls: One to the Israeli Embassy and another
to your Member of Congress.

Message guide for the Israeli Embassy (202-364-5500, Press ‘9’ for the
military attaché). Please note that the Embassy reopens tomorrow, and you
will only be able to share your message during operating hours.

* I’m a Jewish / pro-Israel American outraged by the killing of Awdah
Hathaleen;
* His body must be returned to his family so that he may be buried in
his community;
* Members of his community must be released from arbitrary detention;
* Yinon Levi and other violent settlers must be held to account in
criminal trials;
* Israel must end unlawful demolitions and settlements in the West Bank.

Message guide for Representative Holmes Norton's Office:
202-225-8050. If your Member of Congress has [ [link removed] ]already
co-sponsored, please call to say thank you.

* I’m a Jewish / pro-Israel constituent in [town/city];
* I want
Representative Holmes Norton to co-sponsor the West Bank Violence
Prevention Act;
* I support more efforts to provide deterrence and justice in the West
Bank;
* I want to see strong leadership to end the war in Gaza, get hostages
home and surge humanitarian aid.

[ [link removed] ]If you called and left a message, confirm your call here >>

Friends – Please don’t doubt that your stories and your
relationships with your Members of Congress can make a difference. I know
that they can.

Just a few weeks ago, Awdah flew to the United States at the invitation of
the Palestinian solidarity committee at Kehilla Community Synagogue.
Despite a valid visa, Awdah was detained and deported – and never made it
to his meetings with Members of Congress.

When I told one of those members what had happened – that Awdah had been
shot and killed by one of the very settlers he had tried to come to
Capitol Hill to talk about – they co-signed the West Bank Violence
Prevention Act that same day.

We can’t stay silent. We have to speak out. Please take two minutes to
call
Representative Holmes Norton and the Israeli Embassy.

Almost a year before his death, Awdah wrote an article titled In Umm
al-Khair, the occupation is damning us to multigenerational trauma. In it,
he described the demolitions that leveled his village and how, after
Israeli forces destroyed 11 homes, his young son began to stutter.

A doctor told him the best treatment was a safe environment, but Awdah
knew he couldn’t give that to his children. In Umm al-Khair, no one can.

Now Awdah’s children – who loved him so, so dearly – will have to brave
this place without him. They’ll grow up under military occupation, settler
mobs trying to steal their land, bulldozers flattening homes, farms and
water tanks. And they’ll have to do it without their father, a man who
stood for nonviolence, justice and hope.

His memory truly is a blessing, and let’s honor it by recommitting
ourselves to the cause of peace, humanity, courage and action.

Yours in grief,

Ben Linder
J Street Board Member


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J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy
Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the
Jewish people. Working in American politics and the Jewish community, we
advocate policies that advance shared US and Israeli interests as well as Jewish
and democratic values, leading to a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



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