An Open Letter to Rep. Elise Stefanik: Resign Over Your Support for Genocide in Gaza

Representative Elise Stefanik

United States House of Representatives

318 Cannon House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congresswoman:

We, the undersigned, urge you to resign immediately for your aiding and abetting genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by voting to send arms to the IDF to perpetrate the crime in violation of the Genocide Convention. It is altogether fitting and proper that you do this.

At a recent congressional hearing held on December 5, 2023, you voiced outrage at the resistance of the Presidents of Harvard, Penn, and M.I.T to declare categorically that any student who hypothetically called for genocide of Jews would be expelled. No evidence was adduced suggesting such a student is more than a figment of your fevered imagination.

At the same time, you were aiding and abetting an actual and not a hypothetical genocide: namely, the Israeli government’s siege of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to create conditions of life calculated to destroy them physically in whole or in part. “No food, no water, no power, no medicine, no shelter, no hope.” The siege fits the definition of genocide in section 2 of the Geneva Convention like a glove. It is open and notorious and aggressively executed by the Netanyahu administration.

The siege has been accompanied by industrial scale bombings of homes, places of worship, marketplaces, journalists, refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, United Nations marked schools, roads, everything in sight. Babies clinging to life in incubators have foreseeably died because of the siege. Reported Palestinian deaths approach 20,000, with the true number probably a multiple of that number. More than 80 percent of the entire civilian population in Gaza have been displaced and confront death by disease, starvation, or bombing.

These facts establishing genocide are inarguable. Yet you have eagerly implicated yourself by voting unconditional military assistance to the Israeli government to facilitate the crime of crimes.

According to your standards, a university president who neglects categorically to pledge to expel a hypothetical student who calls for genocide of Jews should resign, as the President of Penn has done.

A fortiori, you should resign without tarry for aiding and abetting genocide of real people, 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza (whom the Israeli Defense Minister has sub-humanized as “animals”) with the use of weapons you voted to supply.

To borrow from Joseph Welch at the Army-McCarthy hearings, have you no sense of decency.

Resign and let us be done with you!

Sincerely,

Your constituents and groups representing District members and concerned citizens:

David Doonan

Mark Dunlea

Jennifer Baumstein

Linda LeTendre

Frederick Balzac

Bruce Krug

Ekaz Qureshi

The Green Party of New York

Peter LaVenia

Maureen Basalla

Dan Spilman

David Doonan

Howie Hawkins

Jim Brown

Matthew J Funiciello

Cassandra Lems

Janet Clarke

Gail Soltan

Tom Newman

Joseph Naham

Christine Schmidt

Paul Gilman

Daniel Devine

Jim McCabe

Lamia Hermas

Nidal Said

Fadua Shabban

Amal Abdallah

Debra Rosario

Maha Adileh

Adla Rimawi

Waleed Khan

Ama Baj

Lulzime Borova

David Walker

Salma Faraj

Arizena Hazin

Emelyn Judge

Ibtisam Mustafa

Nancy Shihadeh

Martha Janajri

Karen Lopez

Rob Devito

Gloria Mattera

Adam Travis

Matt Oill

Cody Owen

Chris Edes

Darin Robbins

Beth Jacobs

Lena Mara

Christine Farranone

Naomi Jaffe

Ekaz Qureshi

Anna Schupack

Charles Knaebel

Joseph Koczaja

Lou Sebesta

Charles J Gull

Haider Khan

Zion Ayer

Jon Flanders

Bryan Watkins

Joseph Koyajn

Danny Smith

Robert C. Sodowski

Heidi M. Woolever

Felix Simpson

Lou Stoucher

Courtney Novak

Felix Simpson

Andrew Lynn

Colleen Welch

Rafael Ohnson

Shahid Hasan

Maureen Hasan

Noureen Hasan

Collin Thomas

Gail Brown

Sadie Harrison

Gary J. Lessard

Neal Pritchard

Trudy Quaif

Mike Pelly

Alexis Goldsmith

Kristoffer Ross

Eleanor Stein

Ava Berman

Mary Baker

Angela Bartlett

Haley Powers

Spencer Bowen

Tracy Frisch

Lily Bartlett

Sean Seary

Gustaf Myhrberg

Christian Garramone

Jane Hirschmann

Richard Levy

James Rees

Ilham Almahamid

Amanda Bourgoine

Rebecca Hein

Fatimah Brown

Laura Mandel

Line Henriksen

Zuhair Al-Atwi

Luke Bateman

Michael Keenan

Bob Ellenbogen

David Motta

Ryan Featherston

Elissa Davis

Robert Washo

Robert Alft

Keith Jewell

Susan Duncan

Dan Wilcox

Larry McGory

Selina Dean

Leo Parascondola

Karyn Pomerantz

Aneil Rallin

Ian Barnard

Gary Rock

Stephen Ruzbacki

Donna Lessard

Chris Pezzulo

Dorothy Richards

Teresa Roben

PS. We are circulating this letter and will continue to send you updated lists of names.

Contact:

David Doonan

518-692-7215

dadoonan@gmail.com

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