As we
approach the one-year commemoration of "Operation Cast Lead," Israel's
three-week assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, which killed about 1,400
Palestinians, injured thousands more, and caused billions of dollars of
damage to Palestinian civilian infrastructure, Members of Congress are
responding to our advocacy
work and to the massive change in discourse already underway in the United States, and are beginning to protest against the humanitarian effects of Israel's
ongoing blockade of Gaza.
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TAKE ACTION
Call your Representative today at 202-224-3121 and ask her/him to sign on to the McDermott/Ellison and Moran/Inglis "Dear Colleague" letters protesting the humanitarian effects of Israel's blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip.
Set up a winter recess meeting with your Members of Congress to advocate for an end to Israel's blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip. Learn more by clicking here.
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Before Congress goes on its winter recess, scheduled for Friday, December 18, Representatives Jim McDermott and Keith Ellison are seeking signatures on a "Dear Colleague" letter to President Obama which criticizes Israel's blockade of Gaza as "de facto collective punishment" leading to the "unabated suffering of Gazan civilians".
Representatives Jim Moran and Bob Inglis are seeking signatures on a "Dear Colleague" letter to Secretary of State Clinton urging her to "press the Israeli government to end the ban on student travel from Gaza to the West Bank". (The full text of both letters are below.)
Call your Representative today and ask her/him to sign the McDermott/Ellison "Support Improvements in Gaza Humanitarian Conditions" letter and the Moran/Inglis "Support Higher Education Opportunities for Gazan Students in the West Bank" letter. Call the House switchboard at 202-224-3121 and asked to be transferred to your Representative, or find contact info for your Representative on our Congressional District Coordinator (CDC) map below.
While you're looking at our CDC map, you can also sign up to become a Congressional District Coordinator to help us build a national, grassroots movement to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality. To learn more about and join our CDC network, please click here.
Call your Representative now at 202-224-3121 and ask him/her to sign on to these two "Dear Colleague" letters. These letters will close for signatures this week, so please call now.
These "Dear Colleague" letters are positive signs that Members of Congress are concerned about the humanitarian effects of Israel's blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip. While supporting these letters, it is also important to continue to advocate for an end to Israel's blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip, an illegal act of collective punishment.
You can do so by setting up a meeting with your Members of Congress during the winter recess. Find out how to do so and download resources for your winter recess meeting by clicking here.
Don't forget to call your Representative now at 202-224-3121 and ask him/her to sign on to these "Dear Colleague" letters and learn more about joining our Congressional District Coordinator (CDC) network by clicking here.
McDermott/Ellison "Dear Colleague" Letter
Support Improvements in Gaza
Humanitarian Conditions
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Thank you for your ongoing work to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for your commitment of $300 million in U.S. aid
to rebuild the Gaza Strip. We write to you with great concern about the ongoing
crisis in Gaza.
The people of Gaza have suffered enormously since the
blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt following Hamas’s coup, and particularly
following Operation Cast Lead. We also sympathize deeply with the people of
southern Israel who have suffered from abhorrent rocket and mortar attacks. We
recognize that the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a
legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other
militant groups. This concern must be addressed without resulting in the de
facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip.
Truly, fulfilling the needs of civilians in Israel and Gaza are mutually
reinforcing goals.
The unabated suffering of Gazan civilians highlights the
urgency of reaching a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we ask
you to press for immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza as an urgent
component of your broader Middle East peace efforts. The current blockade has
severely impeded the ability of aid agencies to do their work to relieve
suffering, and we ask that you advocate for immediate improvements for Gaza in
the following areas:
- Movement
of people, especially students, the ill, aid workers, journalists, and those
with family concerns, into and out of Gaza;
- Access
to clean water, including water infrastructure materials,
- Access
to plentiful and varied food and agricultural materials;
- Access
to medicine and health care products and suppliers;
- Access
to sanitation supplies, including sanitation infrastructure
materials;
- Access
to construction materials for repairs and rebuilding;
- Access
to fuel;
- Access
to spare parts;
- Prompt
passage into and out of Gaza for commercial and agricultural goods;
and
- Publication
and review of the list of items prohibited to the people of Gaza.
Winter has arrived and the needs of the people grow ever more
pressing. For example, the ban on building materials is preventing the
reconstruction of thousands of innocent families’ damaged homes. There is also a
concern that unrepaired sewage treatment plants will overflow and damage
surrounding property and water resources.
Despite ad hoc easing of the blockade, there has been no
significant improvement in the quantity and scope of goods allowed into Gaza.
Both the number of trucks entering Gaza per month and the number of days the
crossings have been open have declined since March. This crisis has devastated
livelihoods, entrenched a poverty rate of over 70%, increased dependence on
erratic international aid, allowed the deterioration of public infrastructure,
and led to the marked decline of the accessibility of essential
services.
The humanitarian and political consequences of a continued
near-blockade would be disastrous. Easing the blockade on Gaza will not only
improve the conditions on the ground for Gaza’s civilian population, but will
also undermine the tunnel economy which has strengthened Hamas. Under current
conditions, our aid remains little more than an unrealized pledge. Most
importantly, lifting these restrictions will give civilians in Gaza a tangible
sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their
conditions.
Your Administration’s overarching Middle East peace efforts
will benefit Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region. The people of
Gaza, along with all the peoples of the region, must see that the United States
is dedicated to addressing the legitimate security needs of the State of Israel
and to ensuring that the legitimate needs of the Palestinian population are
met.
Sincerely,
[Members of Congress]
Moran/Inglis "Dear Colleague" Letter
Support Higher Education
Opportunities for Gazan Students in the West Bank
Dear Secretary Clinton:
We write to express
our concern with Israel’s ban on travel between the West Bank and Gaza as it
relates to Gazan students who wish to study in the West Bank.
Like you, we believe that education is a key to prosperity, stability and
peace. We applaud your efforts to support educational opportunities for
Palestinian youth, including your initiative to increase U.S. funding for
Palestinian universities and educational programs in Gaza and the West Bank.
Unfortunately, Israel’s near-total ban on travel from Gaza to
the West Bank, even for educational purposes, has meant Gazan students have no
access to the many degree programs that are not available in the Gaza Strip,
including in humanitarian fields such as occupational and speech therapy. This
leaves only the difficult and expensive option of traveling abroad for study – a
path available only to a privileged few. For cultural reasons, it is also not a
realistic alternative for most of Gaza’s female students, for whom study in the
West Bank is the only viable option outside Gaza.
As you know,
since 2000, Israel has banned Palestinian students from Gaza from studying at
West Bank universities. It has done so despite the recommendation of the
Bertini Report, incorporated into the “Road Map,” that "Israel should ensure
that all children, students and teachers have full access to schools and
universities throughout the West Bank and Gaza". In 2007, Israel's High Court of
Justice ruled that students from Gaza should be allowed to study in the West
Bank because it was “likely to have positive humane implications.” Despite the
Court's recommendation that a mechanism be devised to screen individual
applicants as exceptions to the overall policy banning study in the West Bank,
in practice, no mechanism has been formulated, and to the best of our knowledge,
since this judgment in 2007, Israel has not issued a single entry permit to a
Gazan student for the purpose of traveling to study in the West Bank – despite
numerous applications.
Toward the end of the 1990s,
approximately 1,000 students from Gaza were studying in West Bank institutions.
In contrast, very few are studying in the West Bank today. Those that are risk
being forcibly removed at any time. The recent case of Berlanty Azzam, a young
female student Israeli authorities forcibly deported to Gaza two months before
she was due to complete her degree at Bethlehem University, is a stark reminder
of the risks these students take in order to pursue an education.
Ensuring that students from Gaza have access to a higher education in the West
Bank promotes U.S. foreign policy interests by investing in the future of the
region – those bright, talented young people seeking to better themselves and
their society.
We urge you to raise this issue with the
Israeli government, making clear that the U.S. considers access to higher
education, including in the West Bank, a crucial opportunity for Palestinians in
Gaza. We urge you to press the Israeli government to end the ban on student
travel from Gaza to the West Bank, and in its place establish an effective
mechanism to evaluate and approve requests from Gaza residents to study in the
West Bank in a timely manner.
Sincerely, | 
