An Open Letter to Rep. Elise Stefanik: Resign Over Your Support for Genocide in Gaza
Representative Elise Stefanik
United States House of Representatives
318 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Congresswoman:
We, the undersigned, urge you to resign immediately for your aiding and abetting genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by voting to send arms to the IDF to perpetrate the crime in violation of the Genocide Convention. It is altogether fitting and proper that you do this.
At a recent congressional hearing held on December 5, 2023, you voiced outrage at the resistance of the Presidents of Harvard, Penn, and M.I.T to declare categorically that any student who hypothetically called for genocide of Jews would be expelled. No evidence was adduced suggesting such a student is more than a figment of your fevered imagination.
At the same time, you were aiding and abetting an actual and not a hypothetical genocide: namely, the Israeli government’s siege of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to create conditions of life calculated to destroy them physically in whole or in part. “No food, no water, no power, no medicine, no shelter, no hope.” The siege fits the definition of genocide in section 2 of the Geneva Convention like a glove. It is open and notorious and aggressively executed by the Netanyahu administration.
The siege has been accompanied by industrial scale bombings of homes, places of worship, marketplaces, journalists, refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, United Nations marked schools, roads, everything in sight. Babies clinging to life in incubators have foreseeably died because of the siege. Reported Palestinian deaths approach 20,000, with the true number probably a multiple of that number. More than 80 percent of the entire civilian population in Gaza have been displaced and confront death by disease, starvation, or bombing.
These facts establishing genocide are inarguable. Yet you have eagerly implicated yourself by voting unconditional military assistance to the Israeli government to facilitate the crime of crimes.
According to your standards, a university president who neglects categorically to pledge to expel a hypothetical student who calls for genocide of Jews should resign, as the President of Penn has done.
A fortiori, you should resign without tarry for aiding and abetting genocide of real people, 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza (whom the Israeli Defense Minister has sub-humanized as “animals”) with the use of weapons you voted to supply.
To borrow from Joseph Welch at the Army-McCarthy hearings, have you no sense of decency.
Resign and let us be done with you!
Sincerely,
Your constituents and groups representing District members and concerned citizens:
David Doonan
Mark Dunlea
Jennifer Baumstein
Linda LeTendre
Frederick Balzac
Bruce Krug
Ekaz Qureshi
The Green Party of New York
Peter LaVenia
Maureen Basalla
Dan Spilman
David Doonan
Howie Hawkins
Jim Brown
Matthew J Funiciello
Cassandra Lems
Janet Clarke
Gail Soltan
Tom Newman
Joseph Naham
Christine Schmidt
Paul Gilman
Daniel Devine
Jim McCabe
Lamia Hermas
Nidal Said
Fadua Shabban
Amal Abdallah
Debra Rosario
Maha Adileh
Adla Rimawi
Waleed Khan
Ama Baj
Lulzime Borova
David Walker
Salma Faraj
Arizena Hazin
Emelyn Judge
Ibtisam Mustafa
Nancy Shihadeh
Martha Janajri
Karen Lopez
Rob Devito
Gloria Mattera
Adam Travis
Matt Oill
Cody Owen
Chris Edes
Darin Robbins
Beth Jacobs
Lena Mara
Christine Farranone
Naomi Jaffe
Ekaz Qureshi
Anna Schupack
Charles Knaebel
Joseph Koczaja
Lou Sebesta
Charles J Gull
Haider Khan
Zion Ayer
Jon Flanders
Bryan Watkins
Joseph Koyajn
Danny Smith
Robert C. Sodowski
Heidi M. Woolever
Felix Simpson
Lou Stoucher
Courtney Novak
Felix Simpson
Andrew Lynn
Colleen Welch
Rafael Ohnson
Shahid Hasan
Maureen Hasan
Noureen Hasan
Collin Thomas
Gail Brown
Sadie Harrison
Gary J. Lessard
Neal Pritchard
Trudy Quaif
Mike Pelly
Alexis Goldsmith
Kristoffer Ross
Eleanor Stein
Ava Berman
Mary Baker
Angela Bartlett
Haley Powers
Spencer Bowen
Tracy Frisch
Lily Bartlett
Sean Seary
Gustaf Myhrberg
Christian Garramone
Jane Hirschmann
Richard Levy
James Rees
Ilham Almahamid
Amanda Bourgoine
Rebecca Hein
Fatimah Brown
Laura Mandel
Line Henriksen
Zuhair Al-Atwi
Luke Bateman
Michael Keenan
Bob Ellenbogen
David Motta
Ryan Featherston
Elissa Davis
Robert Washo
Robert Alft
Keith Jewell
Susan Duncan
Dan Wilcox
Larry McGory
Selina Dean
Leo Parascondola
Karyn Pomerantz
Aneil Rallin
Ian Barnard
Gary Rock
Stephen Ruzbacki
Donna Lessard
Chris Pezzulo
Dorothy Richards
Teresa Roben
PS. We are circulating this letter and will continue to send you updated lists of names.
Contact:
David Doonan
518-692-7215
dadoonan@gmail.com
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