Religious Scholars Urge Maryland Senator To Stand For Justice On Gaza

By Ibrahim Moiz

Bism Allah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim

Open Letter

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U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Over fifty imams and Islamic academics in the eastern American state of Maryland have written an open letter to Senator Chris Van Hollen, urging him to stand for justice and against the indiscriminate Israeli slaughter in Gaza. The letter highlights the importance of the United Nations’ regional aid agency (UNRWA), which Van Hollen defended against baseless Israeli accusations of militancy that had led to the suspension of its funds by a number of pro-Israel states two months ago. The letter also reminds Van Hollen of the war’s enormous costs, which have personally struck much of his constituency, and urges him to continue to take a principled stand for peace.

At last count a month ago, the bloody Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, portrayed as a reprisal for a Palestinian raid from the long-blockaded region, has killed well over thirty thousand people, half of them children. A supposed retaliation for the October 2023 Palestinian attack led by Hamas, the Israeli campaign has torn up much of the region without discrimination, with officials as high as the presidency and much of the Israeli populace stripping the Palestinians of any humanity and calling instead for their displacement – in other words, ethnic cleansing – to the neighboring Sinai Peninsula so that the ethnonationalist militias that comprise a key component of the far-right Israeli regime’s support base might settle there.

The galling slaughter has been highlighted further by the glaring discrepancy between official claims, where most of Tel Aviv’s traditional supporters in countries like the United States have repeatedly echoed rapidly disproven Israeli propaganda, and the brutality caught on social media by both beleaguered Palestinians and their gloating opponents.

Attacking a Lifeline

Displaced Palestinians wait to receive United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aid, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

The United Nations’ regional refugee agency – the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East, or UNRWA, led currently by Philippe Lazzarini – has been a lifeline for Palestinians in the region since its foundation in 1949, taking on added importance after Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank in 1967. Given that Israeli policy since the 1980s has often been to make the region uninhabitable for its Palestinian natives – a key policy aim of the Likud Party and its governing coalition – UNRWA has often been targeted by Israel, notwithstanding official claims to international law.

Even as the International Court of Justice found plausibility of a genocide during a complaint issued by South Africa two months ago, Israel lashed out by accusing United Nations aid workers of having partaken in the October 2023 Hamas attack. Notwithstanding the fact that nearly every Israeli accusation since October 2023 had been belied by subsequent investigation and that Tel Aviv clearly had an established motive for calumny, a number of countries, foremost the United States, promptly withdrew their funds at a moment when the agency’s work was more vital than ever.

It transpired that Israel’s case against the agency rested on confessions obtained through torture; many United Nations workers have been killed under Israeli fire, so the targeting was hardly unprecedented. By then, though, much damage had already been done as Gaza enters an artificially imposed famine.

Flat-Out Lies

To Van Hollen’s credit, he dismissed the prevailing propaganda in no uncertain terms, calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s accusations against UNRWA “flat-out lies”. The open letter by Muslim community leaders applauds the senator’s stance and calls for the reinstatement of American funds, which comprised nearly a third of the agency’s pledged budget as of 2022. The European Union also restored funds to UNRWA, the letter quotes, after its humanitarian aid commissioner Janez Lenarcic found no corroboration for Israeli accusations. It also highlights the devastating impact of the war, even on Van Hollen’s considerable number of Muslim and Arab constituents: some 350 thousand Muslims, and nearly thirty thousand Arabs, live in Maryland.

“Here in Maryland, hundreds of our congregants have lost several members of their families,” the letter reads. “They have no pause in their grief as every day more people are losing their lives. Ramadan is not the same this year for so many of our communities.”

The letter also addresses the increased atmosphere of anti-Islamic sentiments, some of which have been pointedly stoked by official and semi-official Israeli platforms as part of a pattern of the Likud Party’s ideological history and political coalitions. Most shockingly, a six-year-old boy was murdered and his mother strangled by their landlord in Michigan explicitly for their Muslim faith only a few days after the Israeli campaign, with its rabble-rousing rhetoric, began. But more broadly, Israeli propaganda taps into and encourages a broader pattern of international anti-Muslim animus, violent and otherwise, that has gone on for years.

“The increased Islamophobia has impacted students, teachers and many of community members who dare speak up about their support for Palestine at work,” the letter goes on. “We are at a loss as the sin of paying for these massacres with our tax money weighs heavy on our hearts.” American support – financial, military, and diplomatic – has been a key bulwark of the Israeli state for decades: Tel Aviv is the biggest recipient of American foreign aid in the world.

Calling For a Just Solution

“As a retired educator, I recognize the need for our tax dollars to be invested in the education of our youth and the revitalization of our cities. The needs of our state are many, and I witness this daily as a resident of Baltimore. Maryland dollars must be reinvested in Maryland instead of being diverted overseas to commit atrocities against vulnerable populations. I appreciate your stance, speaking the truth about  Gaza, and I urge you to be relentless in the continued pursuit of justice,” states Ustadha C Islaah Abd’al-Rahim, who signed the letter to Senator Van Hollen. 

Though the United States has long portrayed itself as the guarantor of a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, such a skewed bias in favor of one side has consistently stood in the way of justice. The letter highlights the importance of a just solution to resolving the conflict: “We firmly believe that peace can only be achieved through justice and mutual respect.”

The letter concludes with a prayer, “May you be guided by the principles of compassion and justice as you work to support the rights and dignity of all people, including Palestinians.”

Related:

– 5 Steps To Grow From Passive To Active Bystanders During The Genocide Of Gaza

– Real Time Scholasticide: The War On Education In Gaza