Dear Representative Beatty,

We the undersigned are representatives of the Columbus chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the United States and an unabashed supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. We are joined by allied community members and organizations who represent your voter base in the Third District and have added themselves as signatories to this letter. Together, we write to demand that you stand against Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza.

The human cost of Israel’s atrocities is unbearable. The Israeli military, with full U.S. political and financial support, slaughters more Palestinians every single day. As of December 7, at least 17,177 Gazans have been killed, including at least 7,112 children. Israeli airstrikes have targeted schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and refugee camps. Since the siege on Gaza began, Israeli settlers and police have killed at least 266 Palestinians in the West Bank and injured at least 3,365. Journalists, medics, relief workers, United Nations employees, and relatives of a former Member of Congress are among the civilians murdered.

The Director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently resigned in disgust over the organization’s failure to address what he calls “a text-book case of genocide” in Palestine. The most powerful of our national and international institutions have chosen to no longer even recognize Palestinians as human. You can be different.

All of us alive today will be remembered by what we did or did not do in response to Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza. How we respond today is how we would have responded to all the genocides and massacres that occurred in generations past.

Accordingly, we make the following demands:

- That you call for an permanent ceasefire in Gaza,

- That you co-sponsor Representatives Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib’s “Ceasefire Now” resolution, and

- That you pledge to vote against additional U.S. military aid to Israel.

Additionally, you must provide an explanation for removing your name from the December 1 letter to President Biden in support of a ceasefire, and publicly recognize that Israel is an apartheid state.

We grow sick and tired of you ignoring your constituents. The people of central Ohio have taken the streets week after week to express their loyalty to Palestinian liberation. The majority of Americans, including 76% of Democrats, support a ceasefire in Gaza.

You must take a stand to stop the killing and save lives. If you do not, you will lose our votes. We cannot in good conscience cast our ballots for an accomplice in ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Stop the killing. Save lives. Ceasefire now.

Signed,

Free Palestine Working Group, Columbus Democratic Socialists of America