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Let the #ApartheidDelegation know that their shameful trip will not be swept under the rug

Dear Email,

Despite Israel’s continued violations and abuses of human rights, members of Congress, including some who claim to be progressives, participated in the #ApartheidDelegation last week, which was led by Speaker Pelosi. These members included Reps. Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff, Ted Deutch, Eric Swalwell, Ro Khanna, Bill Keating, and Andy Kim who visited #ApartheidIsrael, effectively whitewashing Israel’s crimes against humanity.

This trip came just two weeks after Amnesty International’s groundbreaking report “Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity”. The report concluded in two hundred and eighty pages of thorough and meticulous research and documentation, that Israel has established, maintained, and institutionalized a “regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis – a system of apartheid – wherever it has exercised control over Palestinians’ lives since 1948.” As the report asserts, this is a "crime against humanity."

Ironically, however, Pelosi and her #ApartheidDelegation declared “Our first stop will be in Israel, recognizing our shared democratic values and mutual security.” If this is not some kind of mockery, then what is? Despite the lip service she paid to a two-state solution "that enhances stability and security for Israel, Palestinians and their neighbors," Pelosi and her #ApartheidDelegation reiterated the United States' "ironclad" support for Israel's security.

Apparently, the #ApartheidDelegation didn’t have the time to, or was simply not interested in, visiting the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, one of the hotbeds of ethnic cleansing carried out by Israel that confirms it is an apartheid state. The neighborhood is only a few blocks away from the Israeli Knesset where Pelosi delivered her remarks, lavishing the apartheid state.

It didn't end there, Pelosi and her #ApartheidDelegation also promised that Congress will "very soon" approve additional funding for the Iron Dome anti-missile system, which Israel uses to intercept homemade rockets fired from the blockaded Gaza Strip. Pelosi failed to acknowledge the fact that the Gaza Strip has been languishing for more than fifteen years under a suffocating Israeli siege. More than two million people living in the Strip are deprived of clean water, food, medicine, security, and freedom of movement.

If this doesn’t prove that Israel is an apartheid state, what will? Israel does not hesitate to inflict tragedy on Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip through the warplanes and the weapons and missiles that we provide them with. It could be that the #ApartheidDelegation doesn’t understand the severity because they didn’t have the moral courage to visit the Gaza Strip. If that is not complicity, then what is?

Rather than condemning Israeli violations and demanding an immediate end to U.S. support of apartheid, these members of Congress chose to aid and abet an apartheid state that is consistently, and openly, ethnically cleansing, killing, arresting, and oppressing the Palestinian people.

Please call, email, tweet at the #ApartheidDelegation today and deliver a clear message to these members of Congress: Your attempt to whitewash Israeli apartheid makes you an accomplice in its "crime against humanity.” Do you really want to be on the wrong side of history?