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Call for Israeli Ceasefire in Gaza, end to annual US Funding of Israel and more humanitarian aid to Palestinians!





January 04, 2024


Honorable Gus Bilirakis

U.S. Congressional Representative

12th District, WestCentral Florida

 

Dear Representative Bilirakis,


Members Of The NatureCoast Coalition for Peace and Justice request a meeting with you regarding Congressional funding and support of the Israeli war on Palestinians.


As the New Year begins, the majority of your West Coast Florida constituents, and the country, are dismayed and rightfully upset with the reality of U.S. taxpayer-funded genocide being perpetrated on the Palestinian people.  


We are petitioning you to call upon the U.S. Congress to demand a Ceasefire in Gaza and an immediate end to the annual $3.8 Billion of our taxes that are given carte blanche to the country of Israel as it continues its war on the people of the West Bank and Gaza. 


The horrendous attack by Hamas on October 7th must not give Washington an excuse to support an ongoing, brutal cleansing of the people of Gaza, half of whom are children.   The vast majority of Gazans are direct descendants of refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, resulting in the infamous massacres, mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, known to Palestinians as The Nakba or Catastrophe.


Since the Nakba, Israel has made ceaseless, violent, illegal settlements on Palestinian lands through numerous unprovoked wars and occupations (too many for the scope of this letter). Israel illegally occupies the West Bank and East Jerusalem along with the Golan Heights in Syria.  The government of Israel maintains a separate legal standard for Palestinians than for Israelis that qualifies Israel as an Apartheid state.   


Israeli scholar Norman Finkelstein indicates that “Since the 2007 blockade of Gaza began, Israel has regulated  and maintained a starvation plus diet for Gazans with no one allowed to enter or exit.  50% of Gazans are food insecure.  And periodically, with no provocation, the Israeli Defense Force conducts what it calls “mowing the lawn”-- gunning down men, women and children of Gaza.” 


Blocking the entry of food, fuel and water into Gaza, is a world-accepted marker of genocide.


It is unconscionable that so many people in Washington ignore the longstanding reality of Israel's illegal occupation and war on Gaza and the West Bank and the Palestinian people. Perhaps they are afraid to lose their AIPAC dollars. It is our fervent  hope that you and your congressional colleagues will realize soon that funding and promoting genocide, especially of children and women, is not a good look on the United States, the supposed leader of the free world.  


Maybe the threat of a false claim of anti-Semitism prevents you and your colleagues  from speaking out against Israeli impunity for crimes against humanity.  But at the center of the campaign to end the blockade are many Jewish community leaders.  The genocide must stop!  


As this letter was being written, South Africa brought a charge of genocide for Israel's crimes on Gaza to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.  This monumental event took place after the US shamefully used its veto power at the UN for the third time to vote down the overwhelming global votes for a ceasefire in Gaza. 


We are asking you to support an immediate ceasefire and increased humanitarian assistance in Gaza, an end to the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, and an end to the $3.8 Billion of our taxes given to Israel annually as it terrorizes the people of the West Bank and Gaza.


Sincerely,


Brian P. Moore and Harriet Heywood

Spring Hill and Homosassa, Florida

 

 

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