Our momentum to stop the weapons sale to the Saudi regime keeps growing!  

Now we need top Senate Foreign Relations members Chris Murphy and Bob Menendez to commit to blocking the sale of missiles to the Saudis!

Thousands of JFP supporters signed our petition last month asking Senators Rand Paul, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Lee, and Chris Murphy to force a vote to block the unconscionable $650 million sale of missiles to the Saudi regime while they bomb and blockade Yemen into the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”

We delivered that petition to them. And — we won! Rand, Bernie, Mike Lee, and Elizabeth Warren have all cosponsored the resolution. That’s four out of the five senators that JFP supporters asked to lead this!

But we kept pushing. And now we have added as cosponsors Senators Markey, Merkley, Wyden, Murray, and, most significantly of all, Senator Patrick Leahy, the legendary human rights champion, Senior member of the Senate and chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee!

The support of Leahy and so many other Senators is huge — a major blow for those in the White House who are pushing this sale. Leahy, who authored the landmark “Leahy Law” that aims to prohibit weapons from going to human rights violating units, is widely respected and is retiring at the end of this term.

But now we have still have two critical Senators that we need to get behind this to ensure it passes and gets sent to the President’s desk:

Senators Chris Murphy, who was a longtime champion to end the Yemen war, and Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Both Senators have joined Rand Paul in efforts to block weapons to Saudi Arabia in the recent past.

But this time, we are deeply concerned that Murphy and Menendez are strongly considering siding with the Saudi regime. News reports and activists who have talked to them tell us that these Senators may support the sale, claiming that the weapons are actually “defensive”!

This claim has been debunked many times. As dozens of organizations wrote to the Senate in a letter jointly led by JFP, “[t]hese missiles lend another tool for Saudi-led forces to maintain and enforce their brutal blockade, particularly by raising their ability to threaten aircraft that would seek to land.” As longtime CIA and National Security Council veteran Bruce Riedel explains, “The main purpose of air to air missiles is to achieve air superiority over the enemy. The goal is to destroy the opposition Air Force. [...] Securing air superiority is an inherently offensive action.”

With the Saudi war on Yemen nearing its 7th anniversary, now is not the time to make excuses to arm the brutal Saudi regime. Instead, we must heed the over 100 members of the House and Senate who are insisting that we use our leverage, including arms sales, to force the Saudis to end the blockade and war that is causing the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

Add your name to our petition calling on Senators Murphy and Menendez to do the right thing and commit to voting to block this unacceptable weapons sale to the Saudi regime.

After you sign, be sure to share the petition on Twitter. The tweet tags their offices and will flag the petition for their staff!