NY-09 for Palestine calls upon all voters in New York’s 9th district to write-in Hind Rajab on their ballots for Congress in the upcoming general election on November 5th, 2024 instead of casting a vote for our current Democratic congresswoman Yvette Clarke. We believe Rep. Clarke’s complicity in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians makes her morally unfit to represent our district.

Hind Rajab was a six-year-old girl who was murdered by the Israeli army in Gaza City on January 29th of this year, along with five family members and two paramedics who heroically attempted to rescue her, while Yvette Clarke was still refusing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Hind is just one of the over 41,000 Palestinians, including over 16,500 children, confirmed killed by Israel with the help of funding, weapons, and political cover provided by AIPAC-endorsed members of Congress like Representative Clarke. The true death toll of Israel’s genocide is still unknown; including missing persons and deaths from starvation and disease resulting from the blockage of aid and the destruction of health infrastructure it could be in the hundreds of thousands.

We can and must do better than to vote for a politician who is ignoring her constituents at home and abetting war crimes abroad. Instead, let's bring Hind's memory with us to the polls.

Read on for more information!

How do I write-in Hind Rajab? Will my vote be counted?

On your ballot, locate the row labeled “Representative in Congress.” Yvette Clarke’s name will be on the Democratic line, and Menachem Raitport in the Republican and Conservative line. Do not fill any of the bubbles next to their names. Instead, fill in the bubble in the write-in box to the right of the column, and write “Hind Rajab” as clearly as you can.

Any person’s name written in the write-in section will be counted (even if they are not eligible to be elected) and your vote will be tallied alongside other write-ins. After the election, the Board of Elections will report the total count of write-ins, and, we are hoping, the number of specific votes for Hind.

Not sure if you live in New York’s 9th District? You can verify your Congressional district here.

Why write-in Hind Rajab?

Hind, like so many other Palestinian children, should be alive and thriving right now. Her murder was made possible by the heartlessness and moral cowardice of elected officials like Yvette Clarke, who have excused and ignored Israel’s genocidal actions while supplying the weapons that even now are raining death on Gaza. By carrying Hind Rajab’s name into the voting booth, we are keeping her memory alive, rejecting a sick mainstream culture that normalizes the dehumanization and slaughter of Palestinians, and rebuking the politicians who enabled her killing and would like us to forget she ever existed.

Hind’s story has already been a catalyst for activism here in New York City. Here’s an interview with Hind’s mother, Wissam, who speaks about the devastating loss of her daughter and her hope that Hind’s memory could make change for other children like her.

What happened to Hind?

On January 29th, 2024, a car transporting Hind and five members of her family in Gaza City was attacked by an Israeli tank, which fired 355 bullets into the car from close range. Hind survived the initial attack, but was wounded, and her terrified call to the Palestinian Red Crescent begging to be rescued has been heard around the world. When two paramedics arrived in an ambulance to rescue her, they, too, were killed by the Israeli military. Hind’s body was found in the car alongside her family two weeks later. Here is a brief video from Rashida Tlaib about what happened to Hind and a longer analysis from Forensic Architecture, a U.K. based research group that independently investigates episodes of state violence.

What is Yvette Clarke’s record on Palestine?

Yvette Clarke is funded and endorsed by AIPAC, and along with every other politician supported by this ruthless pro-Israel lobby, she has spent the last year demonstrating her complete apathy to the loss of Palestinian (and now Lebanese) lives through her statements and votes.

Shortly before Hind was murdered in January 2024, a small delegation from NY-09 for Palestine met with Yvette Clarke to implore her to support a ceasefire in Gaza. Congresswoman Clarke responded by telling us that we were naïve activists who didn’t understand how politics work. In March, she finally issued a weak ceasefire statement but in spite of this has continued to be a rubber stamp for weapons shipments to Israel.

On April 20, Yvette Clarke voted for H.R. 8034, which not only sent $17 billion in “offensive and defensive” military aid to Israel, but also defunded UNRWA, the relief agency on which so many Palestinians depend for survival. Even after Israel’s reckless ground invasion of Lebanon, she issued a statement on October 2nd calling for the U.S. to “support our ally, Israel,” with additional weapons shipments.

Who is running against Yvette Clarke?

Yvette Clarke ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and now faces perennial failed candidate Menachem Raitport, who is running on the Republican and Conservative ballot lines, in the general election. Raitport earned just 18% of the vote when he faced Clarke in 2022 and has no realistic chance of unseating her in 2024.

Irrespective of what we do on November 5th, Yvette Clarke is almost certain to continue being our district’s representative in Congress. But even though we cannot unseat Congresswoman Clarke right now, we can and must continue to confront her with the memory of the children of Gaza - children like Hind Rajab - whose lives she has so callously thrown away.

Free Palestine! Show up for Hind Rajab at the polls on November 5th! (Early voting starts on Oct. 26!)

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