300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: 202-465-8728
May 28, 2024
Honorable Richard Blumenthal
United States Senate
706 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Re: Israel-Hamas Form Letter (February 29, 2024)
Dear Mr. Senator:
With all due respect, we were appalled by your tendentious Form Letter to one of us regarding the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. You are a United States Senator who works for us as citizens,
not vice versa. Accordingly, we expect substantive responses to our criticisms as required under the First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances—a constitutional right you are sworn to uphold and defend.
The criticisms are numbered for ease of reference.
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“I have stated unequivocally and clearly that America must stand with Israel.” (Form Letter, p.1., paragraph 1. In other words, in your view, Israel right or wrong, including genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes, and multiple violations of Untied States laws, e.g., the Leahy Amendments or the Foreign Assistance Act, prohibiting arms to any country obstructing delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.
We submit your limitless support of Israel notwithstanding serial criminality is beyond the pale in the United States born of the gospel that the rule of law is king, the king is not law. We
suggest you consider that your unconditional support of Israel is at war with your oath of office.
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“On October 7, 2023, Hamas led a brutal and murderous attack on Israeli civilians.” Id. paragraph 2. The statement is misleading because denuded of context. Hamas succeeded because of Israel’s
stupendous intelligence failure. Have you considered that Israel craved a Hamas attack as a pretext for exterminating Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank? That is what happened to the great domestic political benefit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Moreover, you neglect the decades-long punitive Israeli siege of Gaza leaving 2.2 million Palestinian civilians starved of the bare necessities denied the right to self-determination celebrated in the American Declaration of Independence. Your categorical
condemnation of Hamas is like assailing Nat Turner’s rebellion without acknowledging slavery!
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“I am working with my colleagues to ensure that Israel has the military aid needed to prevail in this extraordinary crisis.” Id. You neglect that the miliary aid is aiding and abetting Israel’s
genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Israel, exposing the United States to accountability before the International Court of Justice. Further, Israel commands a staggering military advantage over Hamas because of billions of dollars of weapons
sales over decades to guarantee Israel a “qualitative military edge” over its neighbors. 22 U.S.C. 2776 note, Section 36 (h) of the Arms Export Control Act. You have inflated a flea, Hamas, into an elephant, and shrunk an elephant, Israel, into a flea.
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“I will continue to advocate for enabling lifesaving humanitarian assistance to reach all who need it in Israel and Gaza.” Id. paragraph 4. You have done no such thing. You have repeatedly
voted unconditional weapons deliveries to Israel notwithstanding the volumes of ocular evidence of Israel’s blocking humanitarian aid in Gaza, including the murders of seven World Central Kitchen workers. Impartial famine experts foresee 125,000 deaths in
Gaza from starvation within months if nothing changes—100 times Israeli deaths on October 7. Does this satisfy the international humanitarian law principle of proportionality?
You have shut your eyes to an easy way to open the humanitarian aid corridors and save lives: Dispatch American trucks flying American flags to make the deliveries. Depend upon it. Israel would
back away from its patron saint.
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You boast of your support for lavish foreign and military aid to Israel. Id. pp.1-2, paragraph 5. You omit that Israel is the superpower of the Middle East with more than ample ability to defend
itself without United States assistance. The arms the United States supplies emboldens Israel to become an aggressor—as witnessed in Gaza and the West Bank. They are superfluous to Israel’s self-defense. Have you asked your Connecticut constituents whether
they would prefer spending the billions gratuitously showered on the IDF on better Connecticut schools, roads, bridges, hospitals, and the environment?
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“Diplomatic efforts to achieve peace demand a renewed commitment to a two-state solution. I believe the Israeli-Palestinian peace process requires active engagement by the United States. I will
continue to support efforts to promote a two-state solution that is acceptable to all parties through direct negotiations.” Id. p. 2, paragraph 7. Your actions, however, speak louder than your misleading euphonious rhetorical flourishes. The Israeli government
adamantly opposes a two-state solution. Here is Prime Minister Netanyahu, fully supported by the Knesset, on January 21, 2024 (Twitter): “I will not compromise on full
Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan - and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.” Can you square the circle? How can you support a two-state solution while simultaneously standing unconditionally behind a party implacably fighting
a two-state solution?
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“I am deeply committed to ensuring lasting peace in the region.” Id. p. 2, paragraph 8. But you haven’t lifted a finger on that score. You have done everything possible to destroy the prospects
of peace by unconditionally arming Israel to the teeth with the objective of exterminating or exiling Palestinians. Emblematic was the statement of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on January 1, 2024: “We must promote a solution to encourage
the emigration of Gaza’s residents. [Evicting Palestinians] is a correct, just, moral human solution,” sans Zyklon B and gas chambers. Military gospel teaches that you cannot win your way to triumph by killing. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral
Michale Mullen, elaborated in 2008, “We can’t kill our way to victory.”
Stripped of euphemisms, misrepresentations, and evasions, your Form Letter salutes “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” a lawless national security policy tracing
back to Thucydides and The History of the Peloponnesian War. It is an embarrassment to the countless who have risked or given that last measure of devotion for a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal.”
We expect and deserve as citizens a response on the merits, not another amateurish Form Letter or an AI answer.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader Esq.
Bruce Fein Esq.