LEGISLATIVE GUIDE

introduction to the freedom is the future palestine legislative guide

For decades, the U.S. has financially, diplomatically, and politically supported Israel’s human rights violations against the Palestinian people. Last year in a Letter to Congress, Palestinians wrote that Congress must “center those most harmed by violence and oppression—the Palestinian people—and follow their vision for a free, just, and peaceful future for all.” 

What Palestinians are asking for is simple: stop U.S. complicity in Israeli human rights abuses and divest from harm and violence. 

As the U.S. returns to the pre-Trump status quo of using the “two-states” framework as a cover for occupation and apartheid, Israel continues to encroach upon Palestinian land, further entrenching its apartheid system. Israel’s Nation State Law of 2018 reaffirms this apartheid reality into Israel’s constitutional code by declaring that the right of national sovereignty, the right to self-determination, is exclusive to Jews. The leading human rights groups B’tselem and Human Rights Watch recently issued reports echoing what Palestinians have been saying for decades: Israel is an apartheid state. 

Further, Palestinians are calling for a more accurate analysis of Israel’s control over their land and lives; Israel is not only an apartheid regime with separate legal systems and rights based on ethnicity, but it is also maintains its ongoing settler colonial project and a brutal military occupation. These three pillars of Israeli control--apartheid, settler colonialism, and military occupation-- threaten the lives of Palestinians through surveillance, exploitation, containment, and violence. U.S. funding of these abuses must end. 

The Freedom is the Future vision and policy demands by Palestinians in the U.S. present an alternative platform toward a just future for all. Here we outline legislative actions that align with these universal demands for equality, freedom, and justice.