Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)
Right now, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is holding its annual meetings in Washington, DC. Most of the over 200 Quakers attending the meetings include visits to the offices of their Congressional representatives. The focus of this annual meeting is to lobby senators to enact an arms embargo of offensive weapons to Israel. This link, No New Weapons to Israel, will take you to a web page that will give you suggestions of what to say to your senators and will connect you to their offices (by phone).
Right now, over 150 Quakers and peace advocates are on Capitol Hill, lobbying their senators to stop the U.S. from sending offensive weapons to Israel. Join your witness to theirs!
Violence is escalating in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the region. We know that only diplomacy – not more weapons – can achieve a peaceful settlement. The United States must use its leverage to push for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine.
No New Weapons to Israel
Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)
NEWS: Sanders Announces Vote Next Week to Block Arms Sales to Israel
- November 13, 2024
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) today released the following statement announcing his intention to next week bring to the floor Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRD) that would block the sale of certain offensive U.S. weaponry to Israel. The JRD is the only mechanism available to Congress to prevent an arms sale from advancing:
Next week I will bring to the floor of the Senate a number of Joint Resolutions of Disapproval in order to block certain offensive weapons sales to Israel. There is no longer any doubt that Netanyahu’s extremist government is in clear violation of U.S. and international law as it wages a barbaric war against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Out of a population of 2.2 million, over 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and 102,000 injured – sixty percent of whom are women, children, or elderly people. Israel has destroyed 70 percent of the housing in Gaza, the civilian infrastructure, the health care system, and hundreds of schools. It has bombed every one of Gaza’s 12 universities.
As horrific as the last year has been, the current situation is even worse. Today, Israel continues to restrict the flow of food and medicine to desperate people. Tens of thousands of Palestinians face malnutrition and starvation. The volume of aid reaching Gazans is lower than at any time in the last year. Blocking humanitarian aid violates the Foreign Assistance Act as well as the Geneva Convention.
This war has been conducted almost entirely with American weapons and $18 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. Israel has dropped U.S.-provided 2,000-pound bombs into crowded neighborhoods, killed hundreds of civilians to take out a handful of Hamas fighters, and made little effort to distinguish between civilians and combatants. These actions are immoral and illegal.
The United States cannot continue to be complicit in this war by supplying more military aid and weaponry to the Netanyahu government. Congress must act to block these arms sales.
NEWS: Sanders Announces Vote Next Week to Block Arms Sales to Israel
Additional information:
| Don’t Encourage War | https://unflinching.blog/2024/11/13/dont-encourage-war/ |
| Diverse New Anti-War Coalition | https://unflinching.blog/2024/11/12/diverse-new-anti-war-coalition/ |
unflinching 