Bill Text: MI HR0109 | 2021-2022 | 101st Legislature | Introduced
Bill Title: A resolution to urge the Congress of the United States to enact policies that halt United States funding of the Israeli military and encourage the end of the longest military occupation in the world.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2021-05-13 - Referred To Committee On Government Operations [HR0109 Detail]
Download: Michigan-2021-HR0109-Introduced.html
house resolution no.109
Reps. Hammoud and Aiyash offered the following resolution:
Whereas, The United States holds a duty to prevent human rights violations committed by countries to which it distributes aid. Military aid to foreign states is subject to several laws including the Arms Export Control Act, the Foreign Assistance Act, and the Leahy Law, which contain conditions of the receipt of aid regarding the promotion and protection of human rights; and
Whereas, Internationally recognized Human Rights Watch, as well as the leading Israeli rights group B'Tselem, identify and recognize Israel as an apartheid state; and
Whereas, The United States has provided approximately $146 billion in American tax revenue to fund Israel and its military since 1948. The United States is expected to provide the Israeli military an additional $38 billion by 2028, of which Michigan taxpayers will contribute approximately $95 million annually; and
Whereas, Israel has unlawfully extended the jurisdiction of their legal system and military authority by illegally expanding it to internationally occupied Palestinian territories; and
Whereas, Israel has committed countless human rights violations against Palestinian residents of all identities, religions, and ethnicities in this effort to annex Palestinian land. Violations include forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, theft of critical resources including water and cultivatable land, economic exploitation, unlawful detention of Palestinian children, and apartheid-style policies that subject Palestinians to disparate and dehumanizing treatment based on their Arab identity; and
Whereas, Recently and for decades the residents of Sheikh Jarrah have been unlawfully and forcibly displaced from their homes by the Israeli state as part of a long annexation effort that amounts to the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population from their homes; and
Whereas, The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner has acknowledged that "transfer of parts of an occupying Power's civilian population into the territory that it occupies is prohibited under international humanitarian law and may amount to a war crime."; and
Whereas, The United States continues to provide aid to the Israeli military despite ample evidence and acknowledgement of Israel's human rights violations; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives, That we urge the Congress of the United States to enact policies that halt taxpayer funded aid to Israel, which supports the military detention of Palestinian children; the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property; forcible displacement, harm, and killing of civilians in the West Bank; or any further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law; and be it further
Resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the members of the Michigan congressional delegation.
