David -
I'm writing today to share a few thoughts on the ongoing situation in Israel and Palestine. I hope you'll take a few minutes to read the note below, and to pray for peace in the entire region.
As someone who has experienced the trauma of war, displacement, and living in a refugee camp firsthand, my heart is broken for thousands of people killed and many more displaced in the ongoing violence.
To be clear I condemn the horrific acts against children, women, the elderly, and the unarmed people who were being slaughtered and taken hostage in Israel.
Just as we honor the humanity of the hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians and 27 Americans who have been killed, we must honor the humanity of the innocent Palestinian civilians who have been killed and whose lives are being upended by the right-wing Israeli government.
Gaza’s population of over 2 million people is mostly children, who live under blockade in what Israel’s own former intelligence chief has called an open-air prison.
The overwhelming majority live in poverty. Many suffer lifelong psychological and physical trauma.
Palestinian residents of the West Bank have scarcely better lives than Gazans — with the routine destruction of their ancestral homes, destruction of their crops, and violent attacks by Israeli settlers.
According to Amnesty International, Human Rights watch, the UN, and Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, these policies meet the definition of apartheid. We know occupation and systematic apartheid are a violation of international law and it must end.
Palestinians have few recourses for justice and accountability. Attacks by the IDF and settlers against Palestinians are regularly met with impunity. Efforts to seek justice in international courts are stonewalled by the Israeli government, with U.S. support.
As the world is condemning Hamas’s attacks, we must also oppose an Israeli military response that has already taken the lives of untold numbers of Palestinians.
In recent days the Israeli Defense Minister said they are battling ‘human animals'. The military has cut off all electricity, food, and fuel to civilians, and last night ordered an immediate evacuation of over 1 million people in northern Gaza.
Let me be perfectly clear: The mass expulsion of over 1 million people in a day is ethnic cleansing.
We have to stop ignoring the thousands of Palestinian lives lost and millions at stake and use all diplomatic tools possible to stop this.
Many Palestinians are already wounded, displaced, and/or caring for a sick or injured relative, child, or senior.
With communications and electricity shut down by Israel, the order cannot be communicated. With roads bombed and cars out of fuel, fleeing becomes impossible for many.
Plus, with no announcement of a pause in hostilities to allow for safe civilian evacuation, people are afraid to leave and risk bombardment.
The mass expulsion of over a million civilians is a grave violation of international law, and not justified under any circumstances.
This collective punishment is a war crime, and the U.S. should oppose any violations of international law if we truly support a rules-based international order.
We must learn from the mistakes of our own war on terror — that military action alone rarely addresses the root causes. That peace and justice will not come from the barrel of a gun, and that targeting an entire civilian population will only sow more discord and perpetuate the cycle of violence.
The solution to this horror, as ever, is a negotiated peace — with Israelis and Palestinians enjoying equal rights and security guarantees.
I urge the United States at long last to use its diplomatic might to push for peace.
Our common humanity demands it.
Thank you for reading.
In solidarity,
Ilhan Omar
10/13/23--Thank you, Representative Omar, for speaking truth to this tragic moment, and inviting world leaders to address the systemic, sustained patterns of injustice that plague not just Palestinians, but Israelis as well. I'm struck by the vision of Jonathan Kuttab in Beyond the Two State Solution: that Jews need Palestinians in order to be fully free and authentically Jewish and safe in the world, and that Palestinians need Jews in order to realize their democratic visions and human rights. Kuttab says that there can be, there could be a single, united community/state--which is both fully Israeli and fully Palestinian, free and safe for Jewish practice, free and safe for Palestinian culture and practice. These two people need each other--and that journey begins with honesty, with truth, with prayer and kindness, with constitutional creativity and vision. I am saddened to compare your letter, Representative Omar, with those of other representatives and senators--whose call for war is precisely not the road to peace and reconciliation among these two dear and related peoples.--DGJ
