300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: 202-465-8728
March 12, 2025
Senator Josh Hawley
115 Russell Senate Office building
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Hawley,
We, the undersigned, alerted by your constituents in Missouri, have
reviewed your outburst during the confirmation hearing of then Secretary
of Education-designate Linda McMahon. Your display of cruelty and
racist bigotry towards the Palestinian people suffering a relentless
genocidal massacre requires a response.
Palestinian-American students have been mistreated by universities far
worse than your exclusive concern with the pro-Israeli government
Jewish-American students. For their peaceful protests and occasionally
non-violent civil disobedience – an American civil rights tradition from
Henry David Thoreau to Martin Luther King – supporters of Palestinian
human rights have been hit with penalties, suspensions, cancellations,
dismissals, and mass beatings (e.g., at the UCLA campus).
Have any Jewish-American students been disciplined, rebuked, or warned
for cheering Netanyahu’s slaughter of over 400,000 Palestinian
civilians, mostly women, children, and elderly, divorced from October 7?
Why have you supported congressional weaponizing this intentional
attack on civilian families (apartments, schools, markets, refugee
camps, hospitals, baby incubators, clinics, water mains, electrical
networks, mosques, churches, and even agricultural crops)?
Do you dispute high Israeli officials declaring after October 7 that
they would turn Gaza into rubble with “no food, medicine, water,
electricity, fuel” – clear, genocidal language?
Do you dispute the promise of Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that Palestinians would be treated as “human animals?”
Do you dispute the words of a Holocaust survivor in Israel, commenting
on Netanyahu's mysterious collapse of the multitiered border security
system: “It should never have happened”?
How much do you know of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Do you know of
the Israeli's brutal military attacks over the decades, occupational
incarceration, seizure of land and water in the West Bank, kidnapping of
thousands of Palestinian civilian hostages, and many other forms of
oppression, such as denying access to ambulances after raids in
Palestinian West Bank towns? All illegal under international law, that a
Yale Law graduate should recognize.
Given your high intellectual self-regard, we believe you should welcome a
meeting in your office with Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American
Institute and leaders of Jewish Voice for Peace, American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and Bruce Fein. They are peace
advocates and well-informed about the situation in Congress and in the
Middle East. Mr. Fein is a Republican and served in the Reagan Justice
Department before testifying over 200 times before Congress. Senator
Blumenthal met with Attorney Fein, a constitutional and international
specialist and appellate lawyer, following our attached letter to the
Senator. The letter's contents apply to your conduct as well.
We are attaching some excerpts from Israeli history that address your violent antisemitism against Palestinian semites (“
The Other Anti-Semitism” by Jim Zogby’s address before an Israeli university). In addition, an insert in the
Congressional Record by
Congressman John Larson of six prominent Israelis urging Congress to
disinvite Netanyahu last year and an Open Letter by 16 Israeli human
rights groups “
Stop the Humanitarian Catastrophe in Gaza” December 12, 2023,
New York Times.
Also, more recently, some 350 rabbis, including some in the state of
Missouri, have signed their opposition to expelling Palestinians from
Gaza (a crime against humanity under international law) in no uncertain
terms in a full-page ad in the
New York Times on February 13,
2025. Do you know more than they do, Senator? Are Palestinians to be
denied the right to government by the consent of the governed to secure
unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
celebrated in the American Declaration of Independence? What legal
authority endows Israel with the right to violently occupy or control
the West Bank or Gaza? Shame!
St. Louis radio station giant KMOX would probably be eager to host a
program featuring you with some of the above-mentioned people. Are you
willing, or do you wish to hide from debate?
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
![]()
Ralph Nader, Esq.
![]()
Bruce Fein, Esq.
Enclosed: