Recently, a phonebank volunteer asked me, “What’s the point of calling Congress when years of calls haven’t done anything?”
If you had asked me this a few years ago, I would’ve talked about pressuring Congress as a small part of a much broader strategy of media interventions, public demonstrations, direct actions, and targeted boycott campaigns.
Calling politicians in D.C. was something we needed to do now to register the growing uptick in supporters for Palestinian freedom and counteract our opposition, so that maybe, years down the line, we would see the impact of our efforts.
All of those other strategies are still critical. But we’re in a moment unlike any I’ve ever seen before in the last seventeen years that I’ve been organizing in the Palestinian freedom movement.
If there ever was a time to call Congress, this is it.
Recently, we’ve seen a number of unprecedented votes in Congress. On July 15th, over 100 Democrats in the House, including party leaders like Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, voted to cut funding to Israel completely.
That same week, the Senate blocked the Pentagon spending bill (the NDAA) from moving forward to a full floor vote, some citing the U.S.-Israeli Military Merger provision as a primary reason for their objection. (The last time this happened with the NDAA was in 2010 during a fight over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”)
Longtime advocates are privately sharing their shock as representatives speak to constituents and then actually flip their position, *in public.*
It may not always be visible, but these shifts are major and they can be historic if we can keep up the momentum.
In 2023, when Israel was bombing hospitals and schools in Gaza, D.C. insiders thought you would “move on” in a couple of months. Now, almost three years later, they are watching political dynasties be toppled by principled, clear-eyed anti-genocide candidates. They are seeing AIPAC money become a serious political liability. Suddenly, Congress is listening *and voting* in a way we’ve never seen before.
That’s why Israel is trying to make it harder for U.S. funding and weapons to be voted out. They can see the writing on the wall just the way we can. They see poll after poll going in one direction, and one direction only.
The next few weeks will determine what barriers we’ll face over the next few years as we work to end U.S. complicity in Israel’s genocide and ongoing ethnic cleansing project.
As Congress returns from recess, they will be resuming discussion on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the deadly proposal within it to merge U.S. and Israeli weapons development and technology infrastructure.
We have a small window of opportunity before the next vote to make a difference and use the unique leverage that we have right now.
That’s why we’re co-sponsoring a week of action this week, Monday Aug 24th-30th, led by our partners at U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) Action. We need your help to demand that Congress strip the Deadly Merger provision from the Pentagon spending bill and reject Netanyahu’s plan to make the U.S. and Israeli militaries even harder to untangle.
But wherever you are, we need you on the phones tomorrow. We’ll be calling constituents of key Senators and House Representatives who will be important decision makers on which version of the Pentagon spending bill proceeds to the next vote, and whether or not it will include the Deadly Merger. Together, we'll call other AJP, USCPR Action, and Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) supporters and be able to connect them directly with their representatives’ offices.
Mark your calendars now, and join us tomorrow night. Bring your friends.
Audrey Bruner Digital Director Adalah Justice Project
Adalah Justice Project is a Palestinian-led advocacy organization based in the U.S. that builds cross-movement coalitions to achieve collective liberation. Our work is rooted in the conviction that drawing the linkages between US policy abroad and repressive state practices at home is crucial to shifting the balance of power.
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