Friend,

Activism works. Thanks to international pressure, late yesterday the Israeli government agreed to a ceasefire.

But it may not last. Early this morning, Israeli forces fired tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, and stun grenades on Palestinians praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as they celebrated the ceasefire. Last week, repeated violent Israeli police raids at the mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, was one of the escalating factors leading to the last 11 days of bombardment.¹

Clearly, our work is not over. And Israel’s bombing of Palestinians was not self-defense; it was part of a decades-long campaign of ethnic cleansing that has stripped Palestinians of their rights and safety.

We need more than a ceasefire. We need an end to the occupation.

Read Rashida’s full email below and then sign the petition to the Biden administration to hold Israel’s government accountable. We must end apartheid and end the root causes of the violence against Palestinians.

Thank you for all you do for human rights at home and around the world.

-Team Rashida

Friend,

Our activism in solidarity with Palestinians is working. After he vowed that the bombing would continue in full force, Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government finally agreed to a ceasefire.

But we still cannot look away or forget what just happened. Over the last week, the Israeli military has sent U.S.-made aircraft to drop U.S.-made bombs over Gaza, massacring refugees who are stuck in the world’s largest open-air prison.

Among over 70,000 displaced Palestinians, many homeless families have sought refuge at UN-run schools. Yet the Israeli military bombed a number of such schools, along with media offices and already-overwhelmed hospitals and medical clinics, including the region’s only COVID testing site—all in violation of international humanitarian law.

Meanwhile, Gazans have been running out of medical supplies, water, food, and electricity. They have nowhere to go.

Israel’s bombing of Palestinians was not self-defense; it was part of ethnic cleansing. We need more than a ceasefire. We also need an end to the occupation.

Please sign now to demand that President Biden and his administration hold Israel’s government accountable, end the occupation, and end the root causes of the violence.

We call on President Biden to take swift, forceful action to:

• Stop a $735 million weapons sale to Israel, which will likely be used to commit further war crimes.
• Condition U.S. military aid to Israel on ending the occupation, human rights abuses, and war crimes. If those conditions are not followed, we must end the aid altogether. Israel’s government has the power and duty to end its decades-long campaign of forced displacement, home demolitions, illegal settlements and land theft, illegal sea and air blockade of Gaza, military control over and restriction of Palestinians’ movement, and control over Palestinians’ access to medical supplies and resources like water and electricity.

2021 marks 73 years of an ongoing Nakba, or catastrophe, for the Palestinian people, involving forced displacement and violent dehumanization in their own homeland. For me, this is very personal. I have been through checkpoints with my grandmother in the occupied West Bank as the Israeli military interrogates her, simply for trying to seek services such as healthcare.

During April and May of this year, in the holy month of Ramadan, Israel’s government accelerated the expulsion of families from their land, to make way for Israeli settlements that violate the Geneva Convention. And then, during the holiest days of the month, Israeli forces attacked Muslim worshippers kneeling to pray in the sacred Al-Aqsa mosque.

The Israeli military subsequently launched air strikes into a captive refugee population in Gaza—killing at least 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, in 11 days of bombardment.

I’ve heard heartbreaking stories from people in Gaza, including a son who was buried under rubble with his mother. As he watched her die, he asked her, “Please don’t leave me.”

It is unacceptable that our taxpayer money funds these killings. Our country’s unconditional military support ($3.8 billion each year) has dangerously aided and emboldened what Israel’s own human rights organization has recognized as apartheid policies.

The U.S. is complicit in and contributing to the Israeli government’s war crimes and human rights abuses. And we’ve recently learned that the Biden administration has approved sending $735 million in precision-guided weaponry to far-right Prime Minister Netanyahu, with no strings attached. I am co-leading a House resolution opposing this arms sale of U.S.-made weapons to the Israeli government.

When I spoke with President Biden recently, he promised me that he would do everything he can to make sure my family in Palestine would be safe. He’s also pledged to put human rights and democracy at the center of his administration’s foreign policy. Let’s hold him to his promises. End the occupation. End apartheid!

Please sign now to tell President Biden and his administration: We need more than a ceasefire. We need an end to the occupation. You cannot enable further human rights violations on our watch, with billions of our taxpayer dollars. You must hold Prime Minister Netanyahu and his leadership accountable.

Together, we can create a world where everyone is free.

In solidarity,

Rashida