To: President Joe Biden<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve often spoken of how much you care about children and how terrible it is when they\u2019re murdered. \u201cToo many schools, too many everyday places have become killing fields,\u201d you said<\/a> at the White House last spring on the one-year anniversary of the school shooting in Uvalde. At the time of that tragedy in Texas, you had quickly gone on live television, speaking<\/a> gravely<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are parents who will never see their child again,\u201d you said, adding: \u201cTo lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. . . . It\u2019s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that\u2019s left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And you asked plaintively: \u201cWhy are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God\u2019s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies?\u201d<\/p>\n This year you\u2019ve asked similar questions many times, as in the aftermath of shootings at a grade school in Nashville<\/a>, Michigan State University<\/a> and the University of Nevada<\/a>.<\/p>\n The massacre in Uvalde took the lives of 19 children. For nearly three months, the ongoing massacre in Gaza has taken the lives of that many children every few hours.<\/p>\n In mid-November, after five weeks of Israel\u2019s bombing of Gaza, the director-general of the World Health Organization reported<\/a> that children were being killed at an average rate of six per hour, adding that \u201cnowhere and no one is safe.\u201d Palestinian civilians of all ages continue to undergo slaughter, with the death toll surpassing 20,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n You have continued to voice support for Israel\u2019s military assault on Gaza and its residents. After 10 weeks of the carnage, when you got around to expressing a bit of concern<\/a> about Israel\u2019s \u201cindiscriminate bombing,\u201d you were meanwhile still doing everything you could to greenlight<\/a> and fast track<\/a> massive U.S. shipments of weapons and ammunition to Israel so that the indiscriminate bombing could continue.<\/p>\n Even your belated and inadequate words on Dec. 12 about \u201cindiscriminate bombing\u201d apparently caused you to have second thoughts. The next day, Voice of America reported<\/a> that \u201cthe White House appears to be walking back\u201d your comment about \u201cindiscriminate bombing.\u201d<\/p>\n Most important, of course, are not words but deeds. As commander-in-chief, since early October you have approved large-scale shipments to Israel of 2,000-pound bombs \u2013 described by the New York Times<\/em> as \u201cone of the most destructive munitions in Western military arsenals,\u201d a weapon that \u201cunleashes a blast wave and metal fragments thousands of feet in every direction.\u201d<\/p>\n In a Dec. 21 video report based on analysis of \u201caerial imagery and artificial intelligence\u201d \u2013 headlined \u201cVisual Evidence Shows Israel Dropped 2,000-Pound Bombs Where It Ordered Gaza\u2019s Civilians to Move for Safety<\/a>\u201d — the Times indicated that \u201cIsrael used these munitions in the area it designated safe for civilians at least 200 times.\u201d Those 2,000-pound bombs have been \u201ca pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the war in Gaza began 11 weeks ago, the Times<\/em> reported, \u201cthe U.S. has sent more than 5,000 2,000-pound bombs\u201d to Israel. And after a long phone conversation with Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Netanyahu on Dec. 23, you told<\/a> the press: \u201cI did not ask for a ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n With your ongoing help, Israel is continuing to murder children and other civilians in Gaza just as methodically as the gunman murdered children at the elementary school in Uvalde. And you have continued to provide weaponry for the murders just as surely as the gun shop in Uvalde sold firearms and ammunition to the man who went on to kill at the elementary school.<\/p>\n But that is an unfair comparison \u2013 unfair to the Uvalde gun-shop owner, who did not know the intended use of the weapons and ammo. But you know what the billions of dollars\u2019 worth of weapons and bombs gifted by the U.S. government are being used for.<\/p>\n When three 9-year-old students were among those shot to death at a school in Nashville last March, you spoke<\/a> about them the next day. \u201cA family\u2019s worst nightmare has occurred,\u201d you said. \u201cThose children should all be with us still,\u201d you said. And you said: \u201cWe know the names of the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n But you don\u2019t know the names<\/a> of the children you\u2019ve helped to murder in Gaza. And there are so many.<\/p>\n