||| FROM THE OFFICE OF REP. RICK LARSEN |||
“My heart goes out to the families of the victims on both aircraft following last night’s awful tragedy. I offer them my deepest condolences for their unimaginable loss.
“The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation into the cause of the collision with the FAA playing a supporting role, as well as being a party to the investigation. It never does any good to speculate on the causes of aviation accidents before we have the facts and the details. It is important to let the NTSB complete its work before we consider any potential policy response.
“Finally, I want to thank the brave first responders who quickly jumped into action last night trying to save lives in very adverse conditions.”
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I too mourn the loss of lives stemming from the recent aircraft collision. And like you Sen. Larsen, I also offer the families of the victims my deepest condolences for their unimaginable loss.
Meanwhile, as both your office and mainstream media helps fixate all eyes and ears on the loss of the 67 people that were aboard the civilian airliner and military helicopter that collided over the skies of Wa. D.C. a quick online search shows that your top non-industry campaign supporter is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and that in April of 2024 you voted to affirm $13 billion of U.S. taxpayers dollars to fund the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, a bill that while specifically prohibiting funds from being used for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), also provides billions of U.S. taxpayers dollars to be used for the explicit purpose of replenishing U.S. stocks of equipment and weapons that are being sent to the Israeli military and U.S. military operations in support of an illegal long-term Israeli military occupation, illegal total land, sea, and air blockade, and the illegal confiscation of Palestinian land and resources. This is funding that is in clear violation of the U.S. Leahy Act as well as multiple resolutions confirmed by international law as they are knowingly being used to support war crimes, and crimes against humanity of the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian civilian population in both Gaza, as well as supporting Israeli military assaults on civilians and the building of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Conservative estimates show nearly 50,000 murdered civilians in the ongoing genocide in Gaza (including 18,000 children), with more dying daily due to the lack of medical services for the wounded, and of starvation, disease, and hypothermia, (this being a death toll representing one out of every 50 people living in Gaza). There are also conservative estimates of tens of thousands of dead that are unaccounted for in both mass graves and those that remain buried beneath the rubble.
According to the World Health Organization there have also been over 110,265 injured, with nearly a quarter of the injured, an estimated 22,500 people, having life-altering injuries that require but are not receiving rehabilitation, (this figure representing nearly 1 out of every 20 people living in Gaza). Severe limb injuries are the main type of injury needing rehabilitation, and according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, every day 10 children lose one or both legs with operations and amputations conducted with little or no anesthesia due to Israel’s blockade.
Like yourself Sen. Larsen, I too feel for the families of the victims of the recent air crash in Wa. D.C. But unlike you, I have friends that live in Gaza and I hear of the hardships that they are forced to endure due to our tax dollars supplying weapons to the Israeli war machine in support of the Greater Israel Project on a near daily basis.
I would greatly appreciate your taking less influence ($$$) from the Israeli lobby and the U.S. military industrial arms complex, and spend less of my tax dollars on arming a foreign government that is performing the genocide and ethnic cleansing of innocent men, women, and children in order to help achieve the militaristic goals of the Israeli government. Though the consistent meddling of the Israeli Government in U.S. domestic affairs should be of great concern to all Americans, Palestine hosts absolutely no threat to the U.S.
Remember the U.S.S. Liberty, the Day Israel Attacked America– https://www.aljazeera.com/program/featured-documentaries/2014/10/30/the-day-israel-attacked-america–