When most people hear of Gaza, their first thought is Hamas, but they do not see or consider the people who are living there!
We are living in the world’s largest open air prison, for a crime we never committed
The congress members win votes, and the Gazan families are rewarded with bombs. United States sends “3.3 billion dollars” a year to Israel, but we are still waiting for President Biden to re-open the Palestine embassy here.
The whole debate is so one sided that it is a pretense to be here with Israelis as if this was a fair place or an even playing field
It is rigged from the start
Like Frederick Douglas said, agitate, agitate, agitate
He said that change could not come without struggle
And those with power do not want change and People like Citizens of Gaza without power have to win power and influence to change it.
This is the reason I am here to speak
I do not believe in leaving the table
I am here to make people accountable
People are telling my story
People are stealing my story
People want us to be silent BUT we will not
Our very existence is our resistance.
This is not about cooperation alone- we can be cooperating for a summer- that is great. BUT for 74 years, we are under siege and occupation
We cannot cooperate with bodies that fund this!
Who perpetuate that.
We cannot be friends with occupation and tyranny.
We must own the truth, US congress you affect my reality, you create my pain even as much Israel does.
So I am here to invite you into a real conversation.
to face the tragedy that every day, I CALL my life.
and you call good foreign policy.
You are funding the State of Israel with 3.3 billion dollars a year
Who claim that they have to kill children to keep Israel free
What kind of freedom is that!?
So my American friends in congress
Please do not dismiss my words as just angry rhetoric
Do not turn away because you want to remain innocent
Do not turn my volume down when the blasts of your bombs will never cease ringing in our ears
Do not turn a blind eye on our reality and the echoing through generations, never ending.
NO, congress you must have the courage of your conscience
you must change
and ONLY YOU can do that,
Not me, Not NSL, Not Israel. ONLY YOU
We normal citizens want a normal life
There are TWO million people in Gaza Strip, if there are TWENTY THOUSANDS are HAMAS, it does not mean that the other are!
What about the Million Children!? are we willing to help them have a better future, or we still stuck with the idea that GAZA equals Hamas and Hamas equals Gaza.
Congressmen, I call on you to hear us
I call on you to do what is right and moral
because this is finally about who you are, as a nation
not us- who are you America??
Loai Ahmed