Congress Welcomes War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu | Palestine Policy Roundup 07.26.2024
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Rep. Cori Bush: “Congress must heed the calls of the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, and the entire international community, by ending further arms sales to the Israeli government and by revoking the invitation for war criminal Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “I will never back down in speaking truth to power. The apartheid government of Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. Palestinians will not be erased. Solidarity with all those outside of these walls in the streets protesting and exercising their right to dissent.”
Rep. Jamaal Bowman: “Last month, a Palestinian girl survived a missile strike in Gaza. Her brothers died, and she couldn’t get medical care for a month. Netanyahu is a war criminal. It’s a shame he is addressing our Congress. Our tax dollars should not be spent on killing children.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, on unions demanding Biden halt weapons to Israel: “This is extremely important. There is an effort to say that Netanyahu's war on Gaza and Palestinians only matters to a small group of people, but that is not the case. This issue matters to a broad swath of voters including unions, working people, Black, Brown, & young people. They don't want the US violating our own domestic laws and international law by sending offensive military assistance to a government that has killed over 38,000 Palestinians”
Rep. Jill Tokuda: “I cannot turn a blind eye to the horrific loss of life, indiscriminate bombing, famine, and suffering that have occurred in Gaza under his leadership, and I will not be attending the joint meeting.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
🚨 WAR CRIMINAL BENJAMIN NETANYAHU ADDRESSES CONGRESS, MEETS WITH PRES. BIDEN AND VICE PRES. HARRIS
Israeli Prime Minister and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a joint address to Congress on Wednesday, spreading lies and mistruths about Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and smearing millions of Americans who have protested for Palestinian rights and freedom. In his speech, Netanyahu ignored calls for peace and an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, vowing instead to “finish the job” while calling for more American weapons. Netanyahu also met separately with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday.
📺 WATCH: The IMEU streamed a live response to Netanyahu’s address featuring Palestinian-American policy analyst Omar Baddar following the conclusion of the speech.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Mustafa Barghouti, in an op-ed published in The Hill: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be honored for the fourth time with a speech before a joint session of Congress. Billed as a symbolic representation of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, it will serve instead to Palestinians like myself and many others as a shameful reminder of how the United States government has betrayed its own stated values and commitment to human rights for all people … When Netanyahu is honored this week by members of Congress, they will be honoring a man who is responsible for grave war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank and who has worked for decades to undermine and sabotage U.S. policy.”
Approximately half of Congressional Democrats chose to skip the speech, more than double the number of Congressional Democrats who skipped Netanyahu’s last speech to Congress in 2015. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, attended the speech and held up a sign which read “war criminal” and “guilty of genocide” on either side, while many Members of Congress specifically cited Netanyahu’s role in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s pursuit of a warrant for his arrest as reasons for boycotting the speech. Some of those members of Congress include:
Rep. Joaquin Castro: “Over the last nine months, Benjamin Netanyahu has prosecuted Israel’s war in Gaza with contempt for human life. Under his command, Israeli troops have bombed hospitals, ambulances, and schools, killing nearly 40,000 people, most of whom are civilians, and leaving millions homeless. … The opportunity to address a joint session is an honor that should be reserved for the most distinguished world leaders. Netanyahu should be standing in front of a criminal tribunal — not the U.S. Congress.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley: “Instead of platforming Prime Minister Netanyahu and continuing to send bombs that kill innocent civilians, the United States Congress should use its full leverage to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for disregarding U.S. and international law and operating with callous disregard for human life. That means the United States should stop sending offensive weapons to the Israeli military and we should use every diplomatic channel to push for a lasting ceasefire to save lives, return the hostages, and surge humanitarian aid to the region.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez: “Tomorrow, Congress will host an International Court-accused war criminal. We cannot work towards peace while giving Netanyahu the floor. We must listen to the American people and subject matter experts, like Major Harrison Mann, and demand an end to the atrocities. Not one more cent, not one more bomb, not one more excuse!”
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Since the war in Gaza began, at least 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and 89,000 injured. Netanyahu is a war criminal. He should not be addressing Congress.”
Rep. Greg Casar: “Today, I'm boycotting Netanyahu’s address. We don’t need a PR stunt — we need Netanyahu to stop bombing Gaza & secure a ceasefire deal so the hostages can come home. The U.S. must stop unconditional military aid & work toward a long-term peace for Israelis and Palestinians.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar: “I will not be attending Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress. It is utterly immoral and cruel to the millions of lives impacted by his catastrophic actions to platform him, let alone give him the honor of addressing Congress. He is a war criminal who is actively committing genocide against the Palestinian people while putting the lives of the hostages and the stability of the region in jeopardy. I fully agree with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice that he should be held accountable for his crimes, not addressing Congress.”
While Netanyahu was speaking, tens of thousands of protesters gathered just steps from the Capitol to register their rejection of the speech and of Israel’s war on Gaza. Police deployed pepper spray against journalists and protesters who attempted to march toward the Capitol. On Tuesday, nearly four hundred protesters organized by Jewish Voice for Peace were arrested after they staged a sit-in inside the Cannon House Office Building and called on the US to stop arming Israel ahead of Netanyahu’s address.
IN THE NEWS
✅ PRESIDENT BIDEN ENDS RE-ELECTION BID: HARRIS MUST SHIFT COURSE ON GAZA
President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign on Sunday and immediately endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket. Harris must take the opportunity to shift course from Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Poll after poll has shown that Biden’s policy on Gaza has eroded key Democratic bases of support: a poll published by Data for Progress shows that a majority of Democrats believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and another poll published by the Arab American Institute found that only 18% of Arab American voters in Michigan, Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania would vote for Joe Biden in the presidential election, a decrease of more than 40% in Democratic support from 2020. If Democrats are interested in winning in November, they must heed the calls of their base and of voters around the country who are demanding an end to this genocide.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Lily Greenberg Call, a Biden administration resignee and former Kamala Harris presidential campaign volunteer, wrote in The Guardian: “For months, the majority of Democrats and Americans, including American Jews, have supported a lasting ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. Harris must make clear that she supports using the US government’s leverage to end the bloodshed and reunite families. One clear way that she can do so is by supporting an arms embargo on offensive weapons for the Israeli military – a policy floated by Biden before he ultimately backtracked and greenlit Israel’s devastating ground invasion of Rafah … By setting herself apart from Biden’s failed policy, Harris has the opportunity to rebuild a coalition to defeat Trump that would include progressives, young people and Arab Americans among others.”
🧠 LEARN MORE: Check out the IMEU Policy Project’s social media post highlighting why the next Democratic presidential nominee must change course on Gaza.
⚒️ LABOR UNIONS CALL ON PRESIDENT BIDEN TO HALT WEAPONS TO ISRAEL
Seven major labor unions representing six million workers (nearly half of all unionized workers in the US) called on President Biden to halt all weapons to Israel in response to Israel’s violation of international and US law, including the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act. The letter was signed by United Auto Workers (UAW), the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), the National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) and United Electrical Workers (UE). This development demonstrates the growing demand across all sectors of US society for an end to US complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Biden administration must heed the call of these unions, and Members of Congress must pressure the Biden administration to halt all weapons to Israel.
⛓️ MORE PALESTINIAN PRISONERS CONTINUE TO REPORT TORTURE, ABUSE IN ISRAELI PRISONS
Eight more prisoners released by Israel from the Ofer prison have reported torture and abuse while in Israeli custody, providing more testimony contributing to mounting evidence that Israeli authorities are torturing Palestinians held in its facilities. This follows the testimony of lawyer Khaled Mhajne and Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa hospital, detained in November, who detailed gruesome acts committed in Israeli prisons, including rape. Many Palestinian prisoners are held in administrative detention, including Mohammed Arab–Al Araby TV’s Gaza correspondent–and Abu Salmiya, and are held without charge.
🎧 LISTEN: Listen to the latest episode of This Is Palestine, a podcast produced by our affiliated organization the IMEU, which focuses on the testimony of the lawyer for Mohammed Arab who has been detained by Israeli forces since March.
📺 WATCH: Al-Jazeera published a video report of some former Palestinian prisoners’ arrival in Gaza. They show clear signs of abuse and describe the torture suffered at the hands of Israeli authorities and the inhumane conditions they faced.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🎯 ISRAEL STRIKES KHAN YOUNIS MOMENTS AFTER ISSUING EVACUATION ORDER
More than seventy Palestinians were killed in renewed Israeli strikes on Khan Younis and surrounding eastern areas as Israel began another assault on the city. Israeli forces launched their assault on the city less than an hour after issuing an evacuation order, leaving very little time for Palestinians to find out from where they needed to evacuate and to where they could go. The evacuation order issued that day also reduced the size of the designated humanitarian zone near Al-Mawasi by 15%, exacerbating already dire problems of overcrowding and lack of resources in the area.
Many Palestinians were also reportedly hesitant to go to Al-Mawasi after Israeli forces struck the designated safe zone and killed ninety Palestinians last week. That attack was the tenth strike on the area since May 6th, demonstrating a pattern of Israeli forces disregarding their own designations. More than 150,000 people have fled Khan Younis since Monday, according to an estimate by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and more than 80% of Gaza has been placed under evacuation orders or marked as “no-go” zones by Israeli forces. Nearly all Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced, and are now faced with an impossible choice of fleeing to a shrinking designated humanitarian zone that is routinely attacked by Israel and faces major humanitarian issues due to overcrowding and lack of infrastructure, or staying in areas where Israeli soldiers routinely executed Palestinian civilians simply because they entered an area that the military defined as a “no-go zone.”
🧬 POLIO VIRUS DETECTED IN GAZA SEWAGE
The World Health Organization and the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza have detected the polio virus in sewage samples in Gaza, putting millions of Palestinians cramped into unsanitary conditions at risk of contracting the highly infectious disease. An official from the WHO warned that the organization is extremely worried about a mass outbreak of the virus in Gaza, due in part to Israeli restrictions on aid entering the territory potentially impeding a mass vaccination campaign. While no one in Gaza has yet been treated for the virus, Israeli forces in Gaza are receiving the vaccine.
This potential outbreak would be catastrophic because Gaza does not currently have the infrastructure to contain it as a result of Israel’s assault. 70% of sewage pumps and all of the wastewater treatment plants have been destroyed by Israel, according to a report published by Oxfam. Only 16 of Gaza’s hospitals are partially functional and less than half of primary health care facilities are operational, according to a report published by the WHO.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General in The Guardian stated: “Today, the detection of polio in Gaza is yet another sobering reminder of the dire conditions that people are facing. Continued conflict will not only add to the rising death toll in the territory, but it will hamper efforts to identify and respond to preventable health threats like polio. While immediate efforts to reach every child with polio vaccines are now being put into motion, ultimately, a ceasefire and free-flowing aid are the only definite ways to protect people and prevent an explosive outbreak.”