To mark Nov. 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston, Democratic Socialists of America – Boston and Mass Peace Action held a rally in Downtown Crossing and then marched to the JFK Building in Government Center to deliver this letter to the offices of Senators Warren and Markey. The letter was endorsed by 28 MA-based organizations.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MASSACHUSETTS CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION
Two decades of ruinous wars in the Middle East have killed up to a million people and extracted more than $6 trillion from US taxpayers, while military contractors have reaped colossal profits. The end of the Afghanistan war has not stopped the Senate Appropriations Committee from proposing a $29 billion increase to the Pentagon’s budget, bringing it to some $726 billion. Included in this amount is $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome.
This additional $1 billion is on top of the annual $3.8 billion in military aid the US gives every year to Israel, a country that ranks in the world’s top 20 economies, with a per capita GDP well above that of the UK, Japan and France. Most of those funds are used to purchase US armaments, further inflating the wealth and power of the ‘military-industrial complex’ that President Eisenhower warned the nation about 60 years ago.
What do these tax dollars mean for Massachusetts?
The proportional share of the yearly $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel shouldered by Massachusetts taxpayers amounts to approximately $130 million annually, a sum that could be applied to addressing urgent needs within the Commonwealth that have been intensified by the pandemic.
It is difficult to imagine residents favoring more funding for the bloated US arms industry – in this case Massachusetts-based Raytheon - the builder of the Iron Dome whose head reaped $19,397,106 in total compensation in 2020 – at a time when so many Massachusetts residents are struggling to feed themselves and their families, to avoid eviction, to help their children make up for a lost year of schooling, to find affordable child care and cope with rising health care costs. Hit the hardest are communities of color that have played such crucial ‘front line’ roles since the pandemic began.
What would taxpayers prefer – to give $130 million to Israel for weapons purchases or use it to improve schools and support a thousand teachers, or provide 85,000 people with food assistance?
What do these tax dollars mean for Palestinians?
The more Americans know about how the military aid given Israel is used to kill and oppress Palestinians, the more likely they are to oppose it. It helps sustain a discriminatory Apartheid system, as detailed by the Israel human rights group B’tselem, Human Rights Watch and two former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa, Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel, among many others.
While Israel’s illegal settlements are being expanded throughout the West Bank, Palestinians are being driven into small enclaves surrounded by walls and checkpoints, as growing numbers lose their land, livelihoods and homes. The Gaza Strip, blockaded from the world for 14 years, has been called an open air prison and a lab to try out advanced US weapons.
On a 2017 visit, Mandla Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, stated in an interview that “what we have experienced in South Africa is a fraction of what the Palestinians are experiencing. We were oppressed in order to serve the white minority. The Palestinians are being eliminated off their land…and this is a total human-rights violation. I think it is a total disgrace that the world is able to sit back while such atrocities are being carried out by Apartheid Israel.”
What should the US Congress do?
• Congress should stop giving Israel everything it wants and start enforcing its own laws. The pass given to Israel over the decades to exempt it from the human rights protections in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 and the Leahy Laws must be brought to an end. This would be in line with the wishes of a considerable majority of Democratic Party voters, who are against giving Israel unrestricted military aid if it continues its settlement expansion, according to a May 2021 Arab American Institute poll.
• Massachusetts Representatives should stand with Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Rep. Stephen Lynch as co-sponsors of H.R. 2590, ‘Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living under Israeli Military Occupation Act.’ This bill provides a sorely needed measure of transparency on how the aid the US gives Israel is used by requiring the Secretary of State to certify that none of the funds support Israel’s military detention and abuse of Palestinian children, seizure of Palestinian property and displacement. Senators Markey and Warren should sponsor a Senate version of H.R. 2590.
• The Massachusetts delegation should reject an additional $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome if this provision is in the final version of the FY22 Defense Appropriations Act. This weapon is not, as argued, ‘purely defensive’ but rather is part of Israel’s system of domination, shielding it as it carries out massive military assaults on what is essentially a captive and defenseless population in the Gaza Strip. Israel is a country whose per capita GDP exceeds $43,000. If it considers the purchase of Iron Dome receptors from Raytheon to be an urgent matter, Israeli taxpayers can pay for it. US taxpayer funds are urgently needed at home!
November 29, 2021, the 44th anniversary of the
UN-declared International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
This letter is endorsed by:
1for3.org
Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia
Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
American Friends Service Committee
BDS Boston
Brookline Peace Works
Cambridge Bethlehem People to People Project
Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security
City Life/Vida Urbana
Democratic Socialists of America - Boston
Dorchester People for Peace
Grassroots International
GreenRoots, Chelsea MA
Human Rights Awareness: Palestine Israel
If Not Now
Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston
KAIROS West MA/UCC
Massachusetts Peace Action
MIT Students in the Coalition Against Apartheid
Peace and Social Justice Committee of Friends Meeting at Cambridge
Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 Veterans for Peace
Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, Harvard MA
Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East – MA chapter
United American Indians of New England
UMass Boston Students for Justice in Palestine
UMass Boston Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine
Visualizing Palestine
Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment
