Friends,
While 34 senators
signed onto this letter, we Marylanders notice that Ben Cardin did not place
his name on it. It is obvious that the Trump administration is following
the orders of the Israeli government to severely punish the Palestinians.
What hope can these suffering, but courageous people have? We must stand
with them in challenging their many oppressors.
Following the release of this letter, 112 House members sent a similar letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Sadly, only three of them were from Maryland – Anthony Brown, John Sarbanes and Jamie Raskin. Four other Maryland legislators refused to sign on, most conspicuously Elijah Cummings was one of them. We can’t expect too many profiles in courage these days.
Kagiso, Max
1.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2018
VAN HOLLEN, FEINSTEIN, COONS LEAD
LETTER FROM 34 SENATORS STRONGLY OPPOSING CUTS TO AID TO PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
WASHINGTON – Today U.S. Senators Chris Van
Hollen (D-Md.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Chris
Coons (D-Del.) led a letter of 34 Democratic Senators to President
Trump to express strong opposition to his decision to cut more than $500
million in aid to the Palestinian people – funding that was passed into law to
provide clean water, food, education, and critical medical services to families
in the West Bank and Gaza.
“We
are deeply concerned that your strategy of attempting to force the Palestinian
Authority to the negotiating table by withholding humanitarian assistance from
women and children is misguided and destined to backfire. Your proposed
cuts would undermine those who seek a peaceful resolution and strengthen the
hands of Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip, as the humanitarian
crisis there worsens,” the Senators wrote.
They
continued, “For these reasons, we strongly believe it is in the national
security interest of the United States, our ally Israel, the Palestinian
people, and our other partners and allies in the region to expeditiously
obligate the FY17 Economic Support Fund assistance originally planned for the
West Bank and Gaza and to sustain U.S. contributions to UNRWA. We urge you to
reverse your decision and look forward to your prompt response.”
Working
with United States Agency for International Development’s implementing
partners, Senator Van Hollen’s office has prepared a snapshot of programs and
partnerships impacted by these cuts in funding that can be found here.
In
addition to Senators Van Hollen, Feinstein, and Coons, the letter was
signed by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dick Durbin
(D-Ill.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patricia Murray
(D-Wash.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Jack
Reed (D-R.I.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Martin
Heinrich (D-N.M.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Catherine Cortez Masto
(D-Nev.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar
(D-Minn.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tom
Udall (D-N.M.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tammy
Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and
Gary Peters (D-Mich.).
The
full text of the letter is available below and here.
Dear
President Trump:
We
write in strong opposition to your decision to cut some $200 million in Fiscal
Year 2017 (FY17) Economic Support Fund assistance originally planned for the
West Bank and Gaza and to end U.S. contributions to the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency (UNRWA), including more than $300 million in assistance this
fiscal year. Eliminating funds for programs that provide clean water, food,
education, and medical services for Palestinians will exacerbate poverty, fuel
extremism, further reduce the chance of a future peace agreement and threaten
Israel’s security. Both the FY17 and FY18 funds were approved by the Congress
with overwhelming bipartisan support—a recognition among Republicans and
Democrats alike that these programs are in the U.S. national interest. We urge
you to reverse course and obligate these funds as Congress originally
intended.
By
law, U.S. foreign assistance cannot be directed to the Palestinian Authority or
Hamas. Instead, Congress has appropriated funds to provide assistance directly
to the Palestinian people, including millions of children in the Palestinian
territories. The cuts you have proposed would make a desperate situation even
worse.
Specifically,
according to the organizations implementing USAID-funded programs in the West
Bank and Gaza, these cuts will prevent:
·
nearly 140,000 individuals from receiving emergency food aid;
·
3,000 children and their caregivers from receiving healthcare
for anemia and malnutrition;
·
up to 71,000 individuals from receiving access to clean water;
·
800 children from receiving rehabilitation services for cerebral
palsy; and,
·
16,000 women from receiving clinical breast cancer treatment.
In
addition, your decision to end U.S. contributions to UNRWA puts at risk:
·
civilian, secular education for 525,000 kids, 50 percent of which
are girls, in more than 700 schools;
·
food assistance to one million residents in Gaza, half of its
population; and,
·
public health in the refugee population, where UNRWA has long
achieved a 100 percent vaccination rate.
We
are deeply concerned that your strategy of attempting to force the Palestinian
Authority to the negotiating table by withholding humanitarian assistance from
women and children is misguided and destined to backfire. Your proposed
cuts would undermine those who seek a peaceful resolution and strengthen the
hands of Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip, as the humanitarian
crisis there worsens.
For
these reasons, we strongly believe it is in the national security interest of
the United States, our ally Israel, the Palestinian people, and our other
partners and allies in the region to expeditiously obligate the FY17 Economic
Support Fund assistance originally planned for the West Bank and Gaza and to
sustain U.S. contributions to UNRWA. We urge you to reverse your decision and
look forward to your prompt response.
Sincerely,
###
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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