1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

At the heart of our shared humanity lies a fundamental truth: every life is precious, every individual has the right to live with dignity, and peace is non-negotiable. Yet, with each passing day, these truths are undermined by our own actions, inactions, and the horrifyingly routine disregard for innocent human lives. Urgent attention must be brought to the prolonged struggle and suffering of Palestinian civilians, who are caught in the crossfire of unequaled power dynamics. Bluntly put, it's a slow and methodical bleeding that requires immediate redress, and it's being fueled by our funding. As I pen this letter, I grapple with the paradox that we, the United States of America, a beacon of democracy and human rights, are largely complicit in this unfolding tragedy. We stand on a shared moral high ground, preaching about empathy and justice, yet we are turning a blind eye to the sweeping agony of the Palestinian people. The constant volley of bombs that we supply keeps this deadly cycle in motion. Our direct involvement, our active partaking in this onslaught through the provision of funding and arms to Israel, deeply tarnishes our claim to uphold justice for all. I implore us to stop this facade of neutrality, and gaze directly at the frightening mirror revealing our hand in this brutal dance of destruction. In the end, it's not the artifice of politics nor the obscuring veils of diplomacy that will be remembered, but the lives we could have saved, the peace we could have fostered. It is in the courage to reassess, reimagine, and redefine our role in this conflict that we find the power to instigate change. We hold the capacity to abolish these crimes against humanity, to demand an enforceable ceasefire, thus demonstrating not merely our greatness, but our goodness. It's the ordinary people like me, who make this demand, who speak for peace, who hope for a dawn where every life, American, Israeli, Palestinian, matters.