Friend,

Although the Biden administration refuses to acknowledge or condemn the Israeli military’s ongoing bombing of Gaza, the Israeli government’s recent assault has now killed at least 212 Palestinians, including 61 children. No child, whoever they are, should have to worry that death will rain from the sky.

Because we’re defending Palestinians’ human rights, my Squad sisters and I have faced attacks by our fellow member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene. She has proved herself to be an Islamophobic far-right extremist time and time again, promoting right-wing violence. Now, she has labeled us as the “Jihad Squad” for supporting Palestinian civilians and Black Lives Matter activists who she falsely calls terrorists.

She and many of my colleagues are saying the same thing to Palestinians fighting apartheid as they’re saying to my Black neighbors who are fighting against police brutality here: There is no form of acceptable resistance to state violence.

But I’m not backing down. Our struggles for justice and human rights are interconnected, and we can’t let up now. This is the time to dream bigger and work harder for the world we all deserve.

Please chip into my campaign now so I can keep fighting back against right-wing violence and intimidation, and so we can achieve justice and liberation from Detroit to Palestine.

Although radical right-winger Marjorie Taylor Greene called for us to be expelled from Congress for “supporting terrorists,” she is in fact associated with and continues to support the white supremacists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6th—which the FBI has called a domestic terrorist attack.

And while she’s been removed from her committee assignments on a bipartisan vote for her past anti-semitic, racist behavior (including calling for acts of violence against myself and other Democrats), she’s faced no consequences from Republican leaders in Congress for her ongoing racist attacks and dissemination of conspiracy theories. Instead, Republicans are punishing members of their own party who continue to acknowledge that President Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

When Ilhan and I became the first two Muslim women in the U.S. Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene said that we represented “an Islamic invasion into government offices.” I ran for Congress to fight back against this type of hate, and it motivates me to work harder.

I am who I am because of Palestinian seeds and my Detroit roots. I’m the proud daughter of Palestinian immigrants and the granddaughter of a loving Palestinian grandmother who’s still living in occupied Palestine. And I was raised in Detroit: one of the most beautiful, Blackest cities in America, where movements for civil rights and social justice are birthed.

In Detroit, I learned to always speak truth to power. I cannot stay silent while injustice exists.

And as the only Palestinian American member of Congress now, my mere existence has disrupted the status quo. I am a reminder to my colleagues that Palestinians do indeed exist, that we are human, that we are allowed to dream. Can you help me show that Palestinians aren’t going anywhere?

Please chip in to my campaign now so I can keep unapologetically fighting against intertwined systems of oppression—and fighting for human dignity, justice, and freedom.

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I’m going to keep pushing my colleagues and the Biden administration to acknowledge and defend Palestinian human rights, the same as they do for Israelis. We should not pick and choose whose human rights our government will stand up for, or whose human rights matter.

Recently, 330 of my own colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, signed a letter pledging that Israel shall never be made to comply with basic human rights laws that other countries receiving our military aid must observe. This unconditional support of Israel has emboldened the Israeli government’s apartheid policies and enabled the erasure of Palestinians and the denial of the rights of millions of refugees.

This past weekend, Palestinians commemorated the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe—the 1948 ethnic cleansing and destruction of Palestinian society, when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and 15,000 Palestinians were massacred during the formation of the Israeli state. We marked 73 years of an ongoing catastrophe for the Palestinian people, including continued forced displacement and violent dehumanization in their own homeland.

And on the same day, the Israeli military bombed and destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza, which they knew housed the offices of The Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and other news organizations. This is intentional targeting of the media, so the world can't see the Israeli government's war crimes and killings.

In the face of violent intimidation, it’s vital to keep speaking out so the world sees and pays attention. We must continue the struggle for freedom, justice, and human dignity—so we can all be free.

Please donate now so I can keep fighting for marginalized people in the U.S. and across the world.

In solidarity,

Rashida