9 - Call for an end to Israel’s 14 year long blockade of Gaza.

(+) Build on Dear Colleague letters that urge the State Department to end total Israeli control of movement and goods in Gaza.

• For years, the United Nations and others have noted that the situation in Gaza is untenable. U.S. military funding and diplomatic support for Israel enables ongoing abuses such as the blockade.

• The February 2020 Pocan- Dingell letter to the Secretary of State “urges [former Secretary of State Pompeo] to support an end to the blockade of Gaza,” and notes:
  “Israel’s continuing control of Gaza’s air, sea and borders, and its restrictions on the freedom of movement of people, legitimate goods and equipment in and out of Gaza, make the humanitarian situation worse...we ask that you push our partners to end the blockade on the movement of people and legitimate good and equipment...especially for materials and supplies related to critical projects like medicine, hospital supplies, and water treatment.”

10 - End weapons and military funding transfers to support Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

(+) End U.S. support of Israeli extrajudicial killings of Palestinians, detention and torture of Palestinian children and home demolitions using U.S.-supplied weapons and funding. Co-Sponsor H.R. 2590. Members of Congress should use all means available to them to regulate and limit foreign military funding, including the Leahy law, the Arms Export Control Act, reporting requirements under the Foreign Assistance Act, and others to end U.S. complicity and support in:

• Extrajudicial killings using U.S. supplied weapons and military funding. Click to Read More.
  • Ali Abu Aliya from al-Mughayyir was excited to celebrate his 15th birthday on December 4 when Israeli forces shot and killed him. He and his community were protesting Israeli settlements threatening their land and their safety. Congress has the power to stop the flow of weapons, like the US-made rifle that killed Ali, that rountinely kill Palestinian children. Since 2013, there have been 155 killings of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers: only three indictments have ever been issued.
  • Representative McCollum noted Ali’s killing in the Congressional record:
    “I strongly urge the incoming administration of President-Elect Biden to investigate Israel’s killing of Ali Abu Aalya, as well as Israel’s on- going pattern of using state sponsored military violence against Palestinian children. Members of Congress and the American people deserve to know whether U.S. taxpayer fund- ing to Israel’s Ministry of Defense is being used directly or indirectly to facilitate or enable violence against Palestinian children. Commit- ting human rights abuses with impunity and with U.S. taxpayer aid is intolerable and there must be accountability on the part of the U.S. Government.”

• Israeli child detention and torture of Palestinian children by co-sponsoring H.R. 2590 Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act. Click to Read More.
  • From H.R. 2590: SEC 2. FINDINGS
    • (9) The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem issued a report in 2018 describing the treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli military occupation: “Every year, hundreds of Palestinian minors undergo the same scenario. Israeli security forces pick them up on the street or at home in the middle of the night, then handcuff and blindfold them and transport them to interrogation, often subjecting them to violence en route. Exhausted and scared—some having spent a long time in transit, some having been roused from sleep, some having had nothing to eat or drink for hours—the minors are then interrogated. They are completely alone in there, cut off from the world, without any adult they know and trust by their side, and without having been given a chance to consult with a lawyer before the interrogation. The interrogation itself often involves threats, yelling, verbal abuse and sometimes physical violence. Its sole purpose is to get the minors to confess or provide information about others.”

    ---

    • (11) The nongovernmental organization Defense for Children International Palestine documented 36 Palestinian children detained and placed in administrative detention, or detention withpout charge or trial, since israel renewd the practice against minors in October 2015
    • (12) DCIP collected affidavits from 610 West Bank children who were detained between 2016 and 2020, and concluded that—
      • (A) 73 percent of the children endured physical violence following arrest;
      • (B) under Israeli military law, children do not have the right to a lawyer during interrogation;
      • (C) 97 percent of the children did not have a parent present during their interrogation;
      • D) 67 percent of the children were not properly informed of their rights by Israeli police;
      • (E) interrogators used stress positions, threats of violence, and isolation to coerce confessions from detained children;
      • (F) 135 children were held in pre-trial, pre-charge isolation for interrogation purposes for an average period of 15 days.

• Home demolitions and settlement expansion. Co-sponsor H.R. 2590, and see policy ask #7 for suggested policy language using the Arms Export Control Act. Click to Read More.

  • From H.R. 2590:

    Sec 2. FINDINGS

    (14) Israel’s drive to perpetuate its control over the occupied West Bank results in other serious violations of international law, including the unlawful demolition of Palestinian homes and the forcible transfer of Palestinian civilians.

    (15) The destruction of property in an occupied territory is prohibited under international humanitarian law, unless absolutely necessary for military operations.

    (16) The Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions reports that Israel has demolished more than 48,000 Palestinian structures since 1967, of which 24,000 are estimated to be homes.

    ...

    (22) The United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported in January 2021 that during 2020, Israeli authorities demolished or seized 851 structures across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, displacing 1001 Palestinians as a result, including over 524 children. This is the highest number of home demolitions since 2016.

    (23) OCHA noted that one of the major trends observed in 2020 was the increased use of military orders and other legislation, preventing or limiting the ability of Palestinians to legally challenge the targeting of their homes and sources of livelihood in Israeli courts.

    (24) OCHA reported in February 2021 that 53 schools in the West Bank, which are attended by 5,200 children, are subject to demolition orders issued by Israeli authorities.

    (25) Demolitions clearly and deliberately undermine the prospects for a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians and create oppressive conditions that leave Palestinians with no other choice than to leave their homes and lands.

  • Additional language from the March 2021 Tlaib-Pocan led letter to Secretary of State Blinken:

    "We are greatly heartened that the Biden Administration is opposed to Israeli annexation; however, Israel’s ongoing colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, alongside its demolition of Palestinian homes, is a form of ongoing, de facto annexation which needs to be unequivocally opposed by the United States. The message from this Administration must be clear: settler colonialism in any form—including Israel’s settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank—is illegal under international law and will not be tolerated."

11. Support international accountability measures such as the International Criminal Court’s investigation into Israel.

+ Lead with our values and support national and international accountability

This year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it would begin an investigation into Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people. Rather than playing a supporting rule for international institutions that attempt to redress abuses of power - in this case the 2014 bombing of Palestinians in Gaza and continued killings of hundreds of Palestinians, and injuring of thousands more since then - Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, focused on Israel’s “national security” as a blanket talking point to prevent Palestinians any recourse and justice through the ICC, erasing the rights of the Palestinian people.

We must focus on the facts, and lead with our values: Israel has consistently refused to prosecute and hold accountable those who have killed and injured protestors and bombed homes, hospitals and schools, and this lack of internal accountability and any justice for the Palestinian people makes the need for an ICC investigation transparent and urgent, and one that is in line with the U.S.’s stated commitment to the rule of law and international human rights standards.

"And while the ICC prosecutor will not be able to change the past, she may be able to positively influence the future. In opening an investigation and subsequently prosecuting senior Israelis, the ICC will be sending a powerful message that Palestinians, like all other peoples, are worthy of justice, and that redress is not a gift but a right that must be unconditionally fulfilled." - Nida Kiwanson, Al Haq