This Holiday Season, Tell Congress to Align Spending in Israel/Palestine with Values of Peace and Justice
In the Christmas season, as our attention again focuses on Bethlehem and the story of Christ’s birth, we remember that Jesus was born under occupation, and that the Holy Family became refugees in Egypt soon after Jesus was born. Jesus’ early days and years were spent displaced.
Over the past year, the world has responded with appropriate compassion and care to the millions of Ukrainians displaced from their homes because of the Russian invasion and occupation. Yet, from the time of the Nakba – or catastrophe – in 1948, more than 5 million Palestinian refugees remain displaced from their homes and country until this day.
Further, while Israel receives $3.8 billion each year in military aid from the US, funds which enable Israel’s occupation and violations of international humanitarian law, funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), is constantly in threat being cut. UNRWA was established to provide essential health, educational, and response services, as well as jobs, for Palestinian refugees. Yet the Trump Administration slashed US funding for UNRWA in 2018 from $365 million to nothing at all. While President Biden promised to restore roughly two-thirds of the US funding for UNRWA in early 2021, but last month, its Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, stated that UNRWA is in dire need of funds to continue to provide basic services. With US foreign assistance being diverted to other places, including Ukraine, it is unlikely that U.S. support for UNRWA will meet urgently needed levels unless Congress intervenes.
Call on Congress to finish its end of the year budget negotiations, and put a value on peace and justice. Urge your Congressional representatives to align U.S. spending priorities with the values of a child born to become the Prince of Peace, one who was forcibly displaced from his homeland.
Tell your Congressional representatives to support the needs of Palestinian refugees by supporting UNRWA robustly – at least at pre-2016 levels which was $390 million – and to ensure the continuation of that funding for 2023 and beyond; and to hold Israel’s military accountable to US foreign assistance laws regarding respect human rights by withholding US military funding for Israel.