Peace Not Walls Action Alert: Urge Congress to Prevent Genocide
Sumud, formerly known as Peace Not Walls, is the ELCA campaign working to find peaceful and just solutions to the long-running conflict in Israel and Palestine. This week, they sent out the following action alert:
On Feb. 7, Israel rejected a proposal for a cease-fire with Hamas that had been negotiated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar. In doing so, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the proposal as “delusional” and called for the dismantling of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides essential services for millions of Palestinians in Gaza and throughout the Middle East. Netanyahu also said that the war would continue until Israel achieved "absolute victory.”
Since the escalation of violence by Hamas and affiliated groups on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli military assault on Gaza, more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and almost 70,000 have been injured, with thousands still unaccounted for, according to the health ministry in Gaza. In January, South Africa argued in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel has violated the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. On Jan. 26 the ICJ ordered the Israeli government to take measures to save lives and prevent genocide, and affirmed that it must provide Palestinians with humanitarian aid and basic services, among other things.
The United States is a signatory of the convention, yet it has enabled Israel’s continuing punishment of Palestinians in Gaza through its diplomacy and its provision of military aid to Israel, including armaments. President Biden has bypassed Congress more than once to fast-track materiel to Israel. Despite the president’s executive order in early February that conditions this aid on human rights standards, the White House has said that suspension of aid is unlikely. Congress is currently considering $14 billion in new assistance to Israel, adding to its arsenal. Granting this aid would sanction the massive loss of life and destruction of communities in Gaza and would disregard the obligations of Israel, the United States and the international community, which have been affirmed by the ICJ.
At the same time, the U.S. announced in late January that, along with 15 other countries, it had suspended its funding of UNRWA due to allegations that 12 UNRWA staff had participated in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israelis. While scant details or evidence of the staff’s involvement was shared with the UN agency, the U.N. has preemptively fired several staff over these allegations while investigations are ongoing. UNRWA was established to provide Palestinian refugees with essential health, educational and response services, as well as jobs in those areas, and has been operating continually since 1949. It currently employs over 30,000 Palestinians -- 13,000 in Gaza alone -- and is the only way for many of the 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees to access health care, hospital services, medical clinics and schools.
In ratcheting up its already massive military funding for Israel while cutting off support for UNRWA, the U.S. has only implicated itself further in acting contrary to its obligation to prevent the crime of genocide. By providing further military assistance and aid to Israel and denying necessary humanitarian and relief assistance through UNRWA, the longest-serving and most expansively capable agency positioned to provide it, the U.S. continues to contribute directly to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Urge your congressional representative and U.S. senators to uphold the U.S. obligation to prevent genocide in Gaza by rejecting more military aid and assistance to Israel and by supporting continued U.S. financial contributions to UNRWA.
