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Abigail Fuller is chair of Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights and a member of the Maine Coalition for Palestine. She teaches sociology at the University of Southern Maine.
On the day that Sen. Collins and Sen. King voted for a bill giving $14 billion more to Israel’s military, I opened my Twitter account to a photo of three dead Palestinian children, killed by Israel. There it was: the tax dollars that I pay to our government could be sent by my congressional delegation to Israel, used to buy U.S.-made weapons, killing children.
What if that money stayed here in Maine? Each year, the U.S. gives $3.8 billion to Israel. Maine’s share — nearly $11.7 million — could provide 1,387 households with housing subsidies; provide free or low-cost childcare to 4,060 children; hire 127 elementary school teachers; or provide 33,224 households with solar electricity produced for a year, according to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
Instead, our tax dollars buy weapons that have killed more than 30,000 people so far in Gaza: For example, Israeli pilots fly F-35 warplanes made by Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, powered by engines manufactured in North Berwick, Maine by Pratt & Whitney, that drop MK-80 bombs made by General Dynamics in Garland, Texas, and equipped with guidance systems produced in a Boeing factory in St. Louis.
Those same tax dollars line the pockets of the top executives of these defense contractors: James Taiclet of Lockheed Martin, who made $18.1 million in 2022; David Calhoun of Boeing, $21.1 million; Gregory Hayes of Raytheon, $21.8 million; Phebe Novakovic of General Dynamics, $23.5 million; and Kathy Warden of Northrop Grumman, $19.9 million, according to Forbes.
If we do send military aid to other countries, we have a responsibility to ensure it is not used to violate human rights. Congress passed the Leahy Law to prevent this. Yet while security forces in other countries are vetted before receiving military aid, for Israel the money is generally provided first. Leading international human rights organizations ( Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch) have concluded, based on careful investigations, that the Israeli military commits human rights violations. Incredibly, even the State Department acknowledges this.
But Israel has never been found in violation of the Leahy Law. Any allegations of human rights violations are stymied in the State Department, where it is taboo to suggest cutting off aid to Israel, according to Josh Paul, who recently quit a State Department position overseeing arms sales in protest over U.S. aid to Israel.
In a particularly chilling story, the nongovernmental organization Defense for Children International Palestine informed the State Department of the alleged rape of a 13-year-old boy in an Israeli prison. According to Vox, Paul said this was “brought into the Leahy forum, was reviewed, was thought to be potentially credible, and was referred to the government of Israel.” The following day, Israel declared DCI a terrorist organization, raided its offices, and destroyed its computers, Vox reported.
Apparently, Israel does what it wants, with no consequences. Year after year, U.S. officials express concern about the actions of the Israeli military and promise that incidents like the shooting of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh are “being investigated.” Yet the U.S. government has never cut off aid to Israel, and, in December, President Joe Biden has said that he has no plans to do so.
Is this holding Israel to a higher standard than other countries? What about Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7? Or the Chinese persecution of the Uyghurs? My tax dollars do not go to Hamas or to China: they go to Israel. I believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. (If you object to that label, then call it something else: it still means one out of every 100 Gazans has died, more than 40 percent of them children). If I do not speak out against this, then I am complicit.
