The congressional measure, backed by 21 Democratic legislators, calls for sanctions against Israel over Gaza horrors.
Democratic lawmaker Rashida Tlaib has introduced a resolution in the United States Congress to recognise Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza as a genocide.
While the proposal released on Friday has little chance of passing in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, it underscores the growing criticism of Israel in US politics.
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If the resolution did pass, it would officially recognise that “Israel has committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza” and call for an end to the transfer of weapons suspected of being used to commit atrocities to the US ally.
The bill also backs “facilitating investigations and domestic proceedings and taking action, including imposing targeted, lawful sanctions, with respect to the State of Israel”.
The resolution has been co-sponsored by 20 other Democratic members of Congress, including some prominent legislators.
Key progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, potential presidential candidate Ro Khanna, and Gen Z Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who is seen as a rising star in the party, are backing the measure.
The resolution comes as the 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that granted Israel $3.8bn in US military aid annually is set to expire next year – likely renewing the debate over the assistance as Israeli officials seek a new package.
Over the past two years, the US government provided additional assistance to Israel to help fund the war on Gaza – totalling more than $21bn.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, including at least 20,000 children, and turned most of the territory into rubble.
Throughout the war, Israel imposed a blockade on aid to Gaza, sparking a deadly famine in the enclave.
Even after a US-brokered ceasefire came into effect last month, Israel has continued to restrict the entry of food and fuel to Gaza. The Israeli military has also been carrying out air strikes and shootings in Gaza daily in violation of the truce.
Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, said the genocide in Gaza is ongoing.
“Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ was announced, Israeli forces haven’t stopped killing Palestinians,” the congresswoman said in a statement on Friday..
“Impunity only enables more atrocity. As our government continues to send a blank check for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, Palestinian children’s smiles are extinguished by bombs and bullets that say ‘made in the USA’.”
United Nations investigators and leading rights groups – including Amnesty International and Israel’s B’Tselem – have concluded that the Israeli offensive is a genocide.
A UN convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
Genocidal acts include killing and injuring members of the targeted group, preventing births and imposing “conditions of life calculated to bring about” the physical destruction of the group.
Tlaib’s resolution quotes public statements by Israeli political and military officials – including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog – calling for mass violence and collective punishment against Palestinians.
“This place will be a fallow land. They will not be able to live here,” Colonel Erez Eshel said in November 2023.
Despite the growing consensus among rights experts that the war in Gaza is a genocide, only a fraction of Congress members have adopted the label when describing the Israeli offensive.
In addition to the 21 House Democrats backing the resolution, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and progressive Senator Bernie Sanders have also accused Israel of genocide.
Experts say the description is important because the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide invokes a global responsibility to stop the atrocities and hold the perpetrators responsible.
More than 100 rights groups have endorsed Tlaib’s congressional proposal.
“This resolution is an important step towards recognising Israel’s actions against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip for what they are – genocide,” Elizabeth Rghebi, Middle East advocacy director at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.
“The US ratified the Genocide Convention, which imposes a duty on states to prevent and punish the crime. Amnesty International calls on all members of Congress to urgently support this resolution and ensure the US begins taking the actions necessary to prevent and punish Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
