We are teachers, workers, parents, business owners, community organizations and neighbors of California District 14. We are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian. We are people of many different faiths and backgrounds. Over the past month, we have watched with horror and grief as friends and family in Gaza have suffered a horrific massacre, funded by our tax dollars and sanctioned by the United States government. As each day the Palestinian death toll mounts – of children, the elderly, women, and fathers, brothers and sons — and the Netanyahu government sacrifices their own people to ongoing aggression, we cannot remain silent any longer.

We call on the Congressman Swalwell to take the following critical actions:

Endorse an immediate ceasefire by co-sponsoring House Resolution 786, the ‘Ceasefire Now’ Resolution.
Vote against any new weapons or military funding to Israel.
Support humanitarian aid entry to Gaza.

While we mourn for the dead and injured of both Israel and Palestine, we join the millions of people around the world and numerous U.N agencies in condemning Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

We have witnessed the depravity of bombs falling on homes, mosques, hospitals, and schools. It is impossible to ignore, and we refuse to look away. The pleas of the innocent, a vast many of them children, occupy our conscience, as it should your own.

In the last month, over 10,000 Palestinians have died, at least 4,200 of them children. How many more must die before you act?

Fifty thousand people from across the Bay Area marched in San Francisco last Saturday and three hundred thousand protesters shook the streets of DC, demanding a ceasefire. Many more have and are occupying, shutting down spaces just to be heard. 66% of all voters, and 80% of voters in your own party support a ceasefire. Meanwhile, our representatives, you among them, have defied the will of their voters, instead parroting unconditional support for Israeli acts of genocide.

We will judge you all for this act of complicity made in our name. At this pivotal moment, after a month of onslaught in Gaza, we ask you now to reconsider your position as a legislator, as a father, and as a human being.

We urge you to join the guardians of international law and UN officials calling for an immediate ceasefire in order to stop this genocide.

The ‘Ceasefire Now’ Resolution urges the Biden administration to immediately call for a ceasefire to end the current violence and facilitate de-escalation in order to secure the release of hostages from both sides; to promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza; to recognize the equal value of both Israeli and Palestinian lives.

De-escalation also means: stop arming Israel. This genocide is directly funded and rubber-stamped by the U.S. government. Our nation sends nearly 4 billion U.S tax dollars each year to Israel, which now enable this genocide in Gaza. This money could fund public housing for 451,735 families, or 41,490 teachers, or free healthcare for 1.3 million children, but instead, it funds bombs that kill Palestinian civilians. We urge that you vote against sending more of our taxpayer money to fund Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Representative Swalwell, a humanitarian pause is not enough. The world is watching: we need our representatives to take brave and necessary actions to stop the killing and stop Israel’s ongoing campaign to wipe Palestinians off the map.

Peace is not possible without justice, which begins with an end to Israel’s military occupation, theft of Palestinian land, and genocidal attacks on Palestinian lives. We ask that you take action to deescalate today. Please call for an immediate ceasefire and do not support further U.S. military funding to Israel.

Signed,

Concerned Constituents of CA-14