Washington, DC – Palestinian Americans have held a day of advocacy at the United States Capitol under the spectre of a new $۲.۸bn arms transfer to Israel reportedly approved by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action) group, which organised Tuesday’s event, said more than ۳۰۰ constituents from across the country met with the offices of more than ۱۰۰ US lawmakers. They advocated on behalf of a slate of legislative initiatives related to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, surging Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank, and efforts to use immigration law to stifle Palestinian advocacy in the US.
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Jenna Escheik, a ۱۹-year-old meeting with lawmakers and staffers from Virginia, including Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and Republican Representative Rob Wittman, said she was planning to speak with “some very challenging and interesting people”.
“I think the main point that we’re trying to get across to every single office is that we’re all proud to be American, and we all have our taxpayer dollars that we just don’t want to see going to wars,” said Eschiek, who is originally from outside of Ramallah in the West Bank.
Yaseen Shaikh, a ۲۲-year-old who travelled with a delegation from Cleveland, Ohio, said he will be meeting with the offices of Republican Senator Jon Husted, who faces a competitive midterm race against former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, as well as the state’s other Republican Senator, Bernie Moreno.
Both Republican senators have consistently voted against legislative efforts to limit arms sales to Israel.
“As I stand among my peers here, among people who I stand on their shoulders, I can only feel hopeful and optimistic that we will make a difference and that change will come,” Shaikh told Al Jazeera.
“We just have to be vehicles for that,” he said.
Palestinian rights ‘catching up’ with lawmakers
Successive presidential administrations, as well as Congress, have for decades resisted calls to condition US military aid to Israel, including throughout Israel’s latest war in Gaza, which will reach its three-year mark early next month.
To date, nearly ۷۴,۰۰۰ Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October ۷, ۲۰۲۳, with nearly ۱,۴۰۰ killed since a “ceasefire” agreement went into effect in October ۲۰۲۵.
Last week, US media widely reported the Trump administration approved a US taxpayer-funded $۲.۸bn military package to Israel, which included ۹۰۷kg (۲,۰۰۰-pound) MK-۸۴ bombs known to have already caused widespread civilian devastation in the Palestinian enclave.
The package reportedly included ۲۰,۰۰۰ of those munitions, as well as ۲۰,۰۰۰ BLU-۱۱۷s, a close variant.
Several Democrats have vowed to block the transfer, with the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Gregory Meeks, using his leverage last week to at least slow congressional clearance.
Osama Abu Irshaid, AJP Action’s executive director, said the new weapons package runs counter to public opinion polls, which have regularly found majority support for conditioning at least some weapons to Israel, as well as surging support for Palestinian rights.
Abu Irshaid said the polls underscore a new political reality for lawmakers.
“I think now we are functioning within this context, where what happens in Palestine, the genocide that took place and continues to take place, what the terrorist settlers are doing in the West Bank, what the US and Israel are doing in the Middle East is catching up with us here,” Irshaid said, “and we’re paying a price”.
While entrenched support for arming Israel has persisted among some segments of the Democratic Party, advocates have hailed what they see as a historic shift in recent months.
In July of last year, ۲۶ Democrats in the Senate voted to block some arms transfers to Israel, the first time in history a majority of Democratic lawmakers in the chamber did so. In April, similar resolutions gained a record ۴۰ votes in the Senate, all Democrats, but ultimately failed to pass in the ۱۰۰-member chamber.
The so-called Block the Bombs Act in the House, which calls for a partial arms embargo against Israel, reached ۸۱ co-sponsors as of August.
Twenty-two Democratic senators also introduced a resolution last week to force the US Department of State to conduct an investigation into the violence committed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, in which at least nine US citizens have been killed in recent years.
Abu Irshaid was optimistic that headway could also be made among Republicans, who have been reckoning with an internal divide over US support for Israel, with exceedingly few members of the party currently willing to vote to limit aid.
A December poll by the IMEU Policy Project found a majority of Republicans under ۴۵ said they would prefer to support a presidential candidate in ۲۰۲۸ who “supports reducing taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel”.
“I think what we’re seeing now is that the dam within the Republican Party is cracking,” Abu Irshaid said.
“But the question is, ‘What is after Donald Trump when Donald Trump no longer owns the Republican Party, owns the MAGA movement?’ I think that’s when you will see more cracks taking place.”
‘The same system’
Advocates on Tuesday also focused on what they called the Trump administration’s practice of using immigration law to stifle pro-Palestine advocacy.
Among their policy priorities, those meeting with lawmakers sought to reform language in the Immigration and Nationality Act of ۱۹۵۲, which the Trump administration has cited in efforts to deport individuals whose presence in the US the administration deems to have “adverse foreign policy consequences”.
Among those speaking at the US Capitol on Tuesday was Salah Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, who was detained by ICE in April and released in June. His legal team has charged that the three-decade US resident was targeted based on a coerced confession when Sarsour was detained by Israeli forces as a young man.
Sarsour, who continues to face deportation proceedings, said the ICE detention reminded him of being held in Israeli detention.
“Those criminals that [detained me], they still exist,” he said. “The same criminals that destroy Gaza, they killed tens of [thousands] of children and women, and men and family members.”
Leqaa Kordia, who was among those targeted by immigration enforcement agents following a wave of pro-Palestine protests that swept US campuses in ۲۰۲۴, also recounted the “dehumanisation” of her ۳۶۸ days in ICE detention.
“And then it hit me that…the same system that threw me in an ICE jail is the same system that funds and arms the military prisons in Israel,” said Kordia, who, like Sarsour, still faces deportation proceedings.
“The same dehumanisation logic that allowed a guard to humiliate me allows the Israeli soldier to kidnap Palestinians and throw them into the shadows,” she told those gathered.
“The same power that keeps my case in limbo is the same power that sends billions of US tax dollars in bombs and weapons to fuel the Palestinian genocide.”
