3rd Thursday Alert: Call on Congress and the Biden Administration to End Military Aid and Shipments to Israel
As war in the Middle East continues, it paramount for people of faith to continue to advocate for a ceasefire, for increased humanitarian assistance to Gaza, for the withholding of arms to Israel, and an end to the occupation. There is no military solution that will produce lasting peace in Gaza, the West Bank, or between Israelis and Palestinians. Both Congress and the Biden administration have the obligation to change policy on Israel in both military aid and diplomacy. Palestinians and Israelis desperately need a ceasefire, the return of hostages and prisoners detained without charge, and for a new political future where all can ‘sit under their own fig tree’ in peace and justice (Zechariah 3:10).
The destruction of Gaza, with the full support of the Biden Administration, is nothing short of cataclysmic. Leaders of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ have called it genocide. All universities in Gaza, along with most hospitals, 85% of school buildings, 60% of residential buildings, and 80% of commercial facilities have been severely damaged or destroyed, along with 57% of Gaza’s agricultural land. Since October, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and 95,000 injured, with some estimates putting the number dead at more than 186,000. At present, experts estimate it will take 14 years and 30-40 billion USD to make Gaza livable again.
Palestinians in the West Bank fear the violence unleashed in Gaza is coming for them next. On August 28, Israel drastically increased military offensives in the West Bank with airstrikes, forced displacement, and extrajudicial killings like the recent murder of U.S. citizen Aysenur Eygi. In Jenin, the Israeli military has destroyed all roads within the city. Throughout the West Bank, Israel’s armed forces supported settler violence has depopulated Palestinian villages.
Congress and the Biden administration have both a legal and moral obligation to change course on policy toward Israel and the Middle East. The Biden Administration has ignored each of its own redlines given to Israel and its military engagement in Gaza to be breached without recompense.
Rather than using its leverage to force a ceasefire, Congress and the Biden Administration continue to allow military sales and shipments virtually unabated to Israel. Since October 7, the Biden Administration has sent over 600 arms shipments including more than 10,000 highly destructive 2000-pound bombs. In August, Congress approved a 20 billion USD military sale including 50 F-15 fighter jets.
