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IN THIS ISSUE
- Featured: Protecting the Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and Religious Freedom of Palestinians
- Palestine: Tell Your Story
- Legislative Tracker
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Protecting the Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and Religious Freedom of Palestinians
As the world witnessed on May 9th, Palestinians in Jerusalem were once again stripped of their basic human rights. The right of human dignity, the right to religious freedom, and the right to live free from fear. Though a cease-fire is welcomed, the violence of occupation is ongoing. The terror being inflicted on innocent men, women, and children is going unchecked by the international community as well as major media outlets. The United States must take leadership on this issue and make it clear that such violence will never be tolerated by any nation, let alone by a long-standing ally that has received military assistance for decades.
It is important to note that this is not simply a conflict in which Israeli security forces and extremists, along with heavily armed settlers, are attacking mosques and targeting Muslims: Palestinian churches have also been targeted in recent years. Furthermore, the destruction of vital infrastructure affects Palestinian Christians living in the area as much as it affects Palestinian Muslims. Many healthcare facilities, including Gaza’s only COVID-19 testing lab, have been severely damaged, if not reduced to rubbles. Medical supplies are already in short supply in the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli-imposed blockade. These inhumane attacks on hospitals, clinics, and healthcare providers are a humanitarian disaster and further compound the effects of the pandemic on an already battered population. This adds another exacerbating layer to the half century of violence, abuse, and devastation of the Palestinian people.
According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, in 2016, the United States and Israel came to an agreement on a ten-year military aid package that would provide nearly 40 billion dollars of direct aid assistance to the Israeli military.
Read the full article →
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Palestine, the world needs to hear your accounts of what is happening.
In order to advocate for meaningful change in U.S. policy impacting Palestine, the Muslim Public Affairs Council is amplifying human stories of Palestinians and their families by ensuring top officials in the Biden administration see them. To submit your story, please use the form below. Upon submission you will receive an email acknowledging its receipt. If your story is one we’d like to follow up on for further details or if we have questions, we will contact you at the phone number and email provided.
Your voice, and your stories can impact change.
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Review status of key legislation on issues we're covering —
The bills below seek to address the ongoing plight of the Palestinian people.
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HR.2590 Introduced by Rep. McCollum, Betty [D-MN-4]
To promote and protect the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and to ensure that United States taxpayer funds are not used by the Government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.
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S.Res.225 - Introduced by Sen. Sanders, Bernard [I-VT]
A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate regarding the value of Palestinian and Israeli lives and urging an immediate cease-fire and diplomatic efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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A Joint Resolution introduced in the House by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-NY-14}
A resolution calling for congressional disapproval of the proposed direct commercial sale to Israel of certain weaponry and munitions.
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GOOD TO KNOW
- Israel, Hamas agree to cease-fire after 11 days of conflict
- US approves release of oldest Guantánamo prisoner
- With 12 new laws, Washington State joins movement to overhaul policing
- With lethal injections harder to come by, some states are turning to firing squads
- Three inmates killed in less than a week in Alabama prisons
- Survivors of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre share eyewitness accounts
- 'His death is a catastrophe': Gaza doctors mourn specialist killed in air strike
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— THIS WEEK IN HISTORY —
May 16, 1948 - Egyptians enter Gaza; May 16, 1983 - Lebanese parliament accepts peace accord with Israel; May 16, 2005 - Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35-23 National Assembly vote; May 18, 1268 - The Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, falls to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Battle of Antioch; May 18, 1291 - After 100 years of Crusader control, Acre is the last Crusader stronghold reconquered and destroyed by the Mamluks under Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil; May 18, 1994 - Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip; May 19, 1919 - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Black Sea coast, beginning the Turkish War of Independence; May 19, 1925 - Malcolm X is born in Omaha, Nebraska (d. 1965); May 19, 1926 - French air force bombs Damascus Syria; May 20, 1996 - UN and Iraq agree to Resolution 986, which provides Iraq with the opportunity to sell $1 billion of oil for 90 days for a 180-day trial period; proceeds from the sale would be used for humanitarian purposes; May 21, 878 - Syracuse is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily; May 22, 1176 - Murder attempt on Saladin near Aleppo; May 22, 1941 - British troops attack Baghdad; May 22, 1967 - Egyptian President Nasser closes the Straits of Tiran to Israel.
May 16, 1771 - The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called "The Regulators"; May 16, 1777 - Button Gwinnett, Georgia delegate to US Continental Congress, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, wounded in a duel with political rival; May 16, 1868 - US Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson by one vote; May 16, 1918 - The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense; May 16, 1991 - Queen Elizabeth II becomes first British monarch to address US Congress; May 17, 1884 - Alaska becomes a US territory; May 17, 1954 - US Supreme Court unanimously rules on Brown v Topeka Board of Education reverses 1896 "separate but equal" Plessy v Ferguson decision; May 17, 1957 - Prayer Pilgrimage, biggest civil rights demonstration to date (DC); May 17, 1957 - School desegregation law, Brown v Board of Education; May 18, 1652 - Rhode Island enacts first law declaring slavery illegal; May 18, 1896 - US Supreme court affirms legitimacy of racial separation (Plessy v Ferguson), a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal"; May 18, 1964 - US Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional to deprive naturalized citizens of citizenship if they return to home country for more than 3 years; May 18, 1983 - Senate gives millions of illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program; May 19, 1856 - Senator Charles Sumner of MA speaks out against slavery; May 19, 1913 - Webb Alien Land-Holding Bill passes, forbidding Japanese from owning land; May 19, 1921 - Congress sharply curbs immigration, setting a national quota system; May 19, 1965 - Patricia R. Harris named first US black female ambassador (Luxembourg); May 20, 1942 - US Navy first permitted black recruits to serve; May 20, 1959 - Japanese-Americans regain their citizenship; May 20, 1961 - White mob attacks "Freedom Riders" in Montgomery, AL; May 21, 1918 - US House of Representatives passes amendment allowing women to vote; May 22, 1959 - Benjamin O Davis Jr becomes first black major general in US Air Force; May 22, 1973 - President Nixon confesses his role in Watergate cover-up; May 22, 2002 - A jury in Birmingham, AL, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.
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