Tell the US Congress:
No More Weapons to Anywhere
World BEYOND War and RootsAction

(September 11, 2024) — While US weapons shipments to Israel violate numerous laws, so do its arms shipments elsewhere — and nowhere is there a moral case for them. The weapons business accounts for over a half million deaths per year on average, as well as some 40% of corruption in all trade. The US accounts for over a third of the global arms trade, all of it running through the US government’s Foreign Military Sales program, making the US the top weapons supplier to most regions and most types of governments, including brutal dictatorships.

Most areas of the world with wars manufacture few if any weapons of their own. Most wars have weapons on both sides made by the same companies. Western companies were supplying Libya with weapons up to just days before the 2011 NATO war on Libya.

The US Committee to Expand NATO that moved NATO eastward to Russia’s border was chaired by Lockheed’s vice president, as Lockheed promised NATO membership to governments if they would buy its often malfunctioning weapons, while Lockheed’s executives dumped millions of dollars into the 1996 US elections, and subsequent elections. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the CEO of Raytheon declared it good for business.

Candidate Biden promised no more weapons to Saudi Arabia, but the weapons are flowing.

Enough is enough. No more weapons shipments to Israel, or Saudi Arabia, or United Arab Emirates, or anywhere else!

Let’s provide something useful to the world instead.

ACTION: If you are from the United States, click here to email Congress.

THE LETTER

I am writing to ask you to oppose the $20 billion weapons package to the Israeli government, announced by the Biden administration in August.

Since October 2023, the United States has continued sending unconditional military funding and weapons to the Israeli government, even as it acts in flagrant violation of U.S. law and international law. Numerous groups on the ground, including Oxfam and Human Rights Watch, have documented Israeli violations of international humanitarian law – including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, systematic blocking of aid assistance, strikes on or near several major hospitals and schools, and more.

Most recently, at least 19 people, including United Nations staff, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

We must immediately halt the sale and shipment of the weapons and warplanes that the Israeli government is using to slaughter and starve thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

Congress needs to stand up and use its authority to pass a Congressional Joint Resolution of Disapproval of these arms transfers. As a voting constituent, I strongly urge you to support these efforts and any other measures to block further arms transfers to Israel as it wages its brutal war in Gaza. Additionally, I urge you to speak out publicly in the media, including social media, calling for an end to transfers of weapons used by Israel in human rights violations.

A permanent ceasefire is desperately needed to end this war, but sending more weapons just adds fuel to the fire. We cannot end the killing and humanitarian catastrophe until more pro-human rights elected officials take a stand.

Please do everything in your power to oppose this weapons package, and to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to end the suffering and save lives. I look forward to hearing how you intend to act on this incredibly important issue.