The bullshit response I got from Rep. Scholten in response to our demands calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to US Military Aid for Israel

I hate it when politicians send form letters, especially when they don’t even address the content of our demands.

Rep. Scholten, as we have been documenting for several months, has unconditionally supported Israel, ever since they began their brutal retaliation for the Hamas attacks on October 7. There is no way that she could NOT know where lots of her constituents stand on this issue, since there was a large protest last weekend that came to her home just south of Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Grand Rapids. In addition, various groups collaborated on sending her (and Senators Stabenow and Peters) an action alert with the following 3 demands:

• A Call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza
• An End all US military aid to Israel
• For her to vote no on the proposed additional $14.3 Billion in US military aid to Israel

Rep. Scholten’s failure to address our demands is not only insulting, it is cowardly. What is worse is the fact that Scholten’s response reeks of pandering, even gaslighting. What follows is Rep. Scholten’s response in italics, with some commentary from me in bold.

Thank you for reaching out to my office regarding the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Words matter and this opening comment avoids naming what is actually happening, which is the brutal Israeli assault on Palestinians, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank. This is NOT a conflict, but a heavily armed state punishing civilians.

I’m so grateful for your care and concern about this important issue, and I share your deep compassion for the loss of human life, and the humanitarian crisis. It is imperative the United States shows our support for the innocent lives impacted by this crisis, and of course, to respond–and urge our allies to respond–within the parameters of international law. Really, when does the US care about innocent lives and international law. What Israel is doing right now, are clearly War Crimes, as defined by the Geneva Convention. 

Internationally, peace and dignity for all individuals and cultures is always the ultimate goal. My heart breaks for all Israelis and Palestinians whose lives have been lost and those who are now in danger due to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. The United States should continue to work with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to help negotiate a two-state solution and block harmful efforts to circumvent those negotiations, such as unilateral actions and human rights abuses. We must support efforts to foster peace and allow for humanitarian aid to reach innocent people. However, we need willing partners on both sides to make those efforts possible. Peace and dignity for all has not been the history of US foreign policy. See the long list of US Military Interventions that were compiled by Professor Zoltan Grossman, which also provides the reasons for the intervention. The idea of a negotiate settlement or working on a two-state solution has never been part of the US agenda with Israel/Palestine. See any of the 16 book list we put together on this history, particularly, Dishonest Broker: The US Role in Israel and Palestine, by Naseer Aruri. 

I want to make sure you’re aware of some of my actions on this matter since the beginning of this conflict. First, I signed a bipartisan letter urging the State Department to use all resources necessary for Americans who are currently in Israel and struggling to come home. Our office has helped facilitate such returns directly. Additionally, I have joined my colleagues in sending letters to both the Biden Administration and the Egyptian Ambassador, urging the creation of safe zones for civilians in harm’s way and a rapid deployment of humanitarian aid to those in need in the Gaza region. I have been aware of what Rep. Scholten has been doing, as I have been critiquing her stance on this matter since July, when she voted for a resolution stating that Israel is not an Apartheid State. Rep. Scholten can send all the letters she wants to the Biden Administration, but they are doing nothing to guarantee the safety of civilians who are in “harms way.” First, Palestinians are not in harms way, they have been told by the Israeli government to vacate Gaza, which is illegal, and they are experiencing the brutal Israeli air and ground assault, which has left over 16,000 Palestinians dead, with over 6,000 of them being Palestinian children.

The United States played a critical role in the recent pause in fighting and accelerating the delivery of food, water, and medicine in the region. We remain engaged to facilitate the continued release of hostages and deliver more aid to those in need. I am in constant communication with the White House about the importance of the United States playing a prominent role in protecting human life and ensuring we can achieve lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Rep. Scholten provides no evidence that the US played a role in the recent pause or the humanitarian aid that was to be made available to Palestinian civilians. In the second sentence of this section, Rep. Scholten continues to ignore that the Israeli hostages are contingent on the release of Palestinian prisoners, thus excluding a critical aspect of the exchange. Lastly, Rep. Scholten can be in as much communication as she wants with the Biden Administration, but she completely ignores the fact that the US is complicit in Israeli war crimes, since the US provided diplomatic support for Israel has provided many of the weapons they are using to murder Palestinian civilians, along with the $3.8 billion in US Military Aid to Israel this year alone. These facts make a mockery of the notion that the US wants to protect life and ensure a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, especially since the Israeli could not commit war crimes without the US. 

There is more in the letter response from Rep. Scholten, but that information has to do with how to contact her in DC and her office hours in Grand Rapids.

At this point, it seems clear to this writer that Rep. Scholten is either ideologically committed to the Zionist cause, it taking this stance because she is following what the Biden Administration wants her to follow, or she is willfully ignorant of what is actually happening on the ground with the Palestinians. It’s probably a combination of these reasons, but regardless of what is motivating Rep. Scholten’s position, she is party to war crimes and genocide.