John,

I’m outraged that the State Department is moving forward with plans to build the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on land stolen from Palestinian families. By doing so, the U.S. is complicit in the illegal confiscation of Palestinian property.

Please sign the petition to the Biden administration: Do not build on land stolen from Palestinian families.

The proposed site primarily belongs to Palestinians whose roots in Jerusalem go back more than 1,000 years. Historian Rashid Khalidi’s ancestors were among the families who rented the land to British people, but the land was stolen as part of the 1948 Nakba, which violently removed Palestinians as part of the establishment of the state of Israel.

And as Khalidi wrote in the New York Times: “The Biden administration should reject building on seized land, showing that the United States won’t tolerate, let alone be complicit in, the theft of any more Palestinian property, in Jerusalem or anywhere else.”¹

Please sign now to tell the Biden administration: The U.S. must not be complicit in land theft. Do not build a new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, especially not on land seized from Palestinian refugees. Move the embassy back to Tel Aviv.

2023 is the 75th year since the Nakba, since hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were murdered and displaced.

This year, the Biden administration should reverse the Trump-era policy of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as a capital, and marking it as Israel’s capital violates UN agreements and endangers Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.

Instead, the administration should move the U.S. embassy back to Tel Aviv.

And at minimum, the administration should not perpetuate land theft or the ongoing Nakba.

As Rashid Khalidi said last year: “We are demanding that the United States not build an embassy on our land. This is our property. It’s not the property of the state of Israel to give or rent or lease to the United States.”²

Please sign to demand the Biden administration END plans to build the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on land stolen from Palestinians.

In solidarity,

Rashida

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/opinion/embassy-jerusalem-israel-palestine.html