Pro-Palestine protesters rallied in Portland’s Monument Square on Aug. 21, 2024. (Photo by Eesha Pendharkar/ Maine Morning Star)
Roughly 160 businesses and organizations in Maine signed on to a letter calling on U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King to support a resolution that would block the sale of offensive U.S. weaponry to Israel.
“Continued arms transfers to the Israeli government are contrary to U.S. law and the Biden administration’s own arms transfer policy, which include restrictions on arms transfers to any country based on human rights, international humanitarian law, and humanitarian assistance criteria,” reads the letter, which was delivered to both lawmakers’ offices on Thursday, ahead of an expected Senate vote on the resolution next week.
The Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, introduced in September by U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch of Vermont, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, is the only mechanism available to Congress to prevent an arms sale from advancing, according to a release from Sanders’ office.
The measure argues that continued arms sales to Israel is in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act, which require that such transfers are consistent with internationally-recognized human rights.
Neither King nor Collins’ office immediately responded to questions about the letter or their support for the resolution.
The letter was delivered the same day the international organization Human Rights Watch issued a 154-page report detailing Israel’s actions against Gaza and accusing the Israeli government of “widespread and systematic” acts of forced displacement against Palestinians, which it said amounts to war crimes.
Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Office released a study of those killed in Gaza from November 2023 to April 2024, noting that roughly 70% of the victims were women or children, with the majority of those killed between the ages of five and nine years old.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has reported a death toll of more than 43,300 people over the past 13 months, which is believed to be a severe undercount due to the likely number of bodies buried in building rubble.
Citing an October analysis by Brown University that found that U.S. spending in support of Israel’s military operations has already topped $22.76 billion dollars, petition organizer Erin Kiley with the Coalition for Palestine, said: “The Biden administration and Congress are enabling a genocide with our taxpayer dollars.”
“We all have a moral imperative,” Kiley continued, “to use every tool to stop Israel’s unchecked aggression. Congress can stop this all tomorrow just by enforcing our own laws and ending weapons transfers to Israel.”
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