An Open Email to RFK Jr.

The one major impediment to the goal of electing you the first independent President of the United States is your unwavering support of Israel’s response to 10/7/2023. On this point, you align with Presidents Biden and Trump, and you alienate millions of young voters, Arab-American voters, and the majority of democrats who are horrified by Israel’s live-streamed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Personally, I find your justification radically incongruent with your evidence-based approach to every other issue you advocate for. On the issue of genocide, the governing document is the Genocide Convention, which Israel and the United States are signatories. Under the Genocide Convention, the International Court of Justice (hereinafter ICJ) has jurisdiction to make determinations on issues relating to genocide. The ICJ has made multiple initial determinations based on evidence provided by South Africa under a context where Israel has vigorously presented a defense. Beyond the finding that the evidence provided establishes Israel is plausibly committing genocide, the ICJ issued extraordinary measures based on the likelihood the Palestinian people in Gaza would suffer irreparable damage by the time the case was fully adjudicated. The emergency provisions, which are legally binding to all signatories, required Israel to stop harming the Palestinians as prescribed in the Genocide Convention, and by a 16-1 ruling (which included the Israeli judge) ordered Israel to stop publicly inciting genocide, punish anyone publicly inciting genocide, and to stop blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the Palestinians in Gaza. Since the 1/26/2024 emergency provisions, Israel has materially reduced the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and have engaged in a relentless slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Your stated position is Israel has a right to defend itself from the terrorist attack on 10/7/2023. You state Israel is taking extraordinary measures to limit civilian casualties. Your comments are completely detached from the confirmed impacts on the Palestinians in Gaza and from the stated intentions of Israeli leadership. As for Israel’s right to defense, the ICJ did not rule that Israel cannot defend itself. The emergency provisions indicate that Israel must greatly limit the deadly harm it is inflicting on the civilian population.

You must address this issue honestly. You must stop conflating self-defense with the unprecedented slaughter of civilian men, women, children, aid workers, press personnel, medical staff, and UN staff. You must acknowledge the legitimacy of the ICJ or explain your abdication from the Genocide Convention.

As the deaths from famine begin dwarfing the merciless slaughter via military means, this issue will dog your campaign by bleeding support to Dr. Jill Stein and Dr. Cornell West. The tragedy is they can’t win, but you can. If anyone can thread the needle of supporting Israel’s right to exist while simultaneously condemning them for the live-streamed war crimes they are proudly committing, you can. And if you do, you can win in a landslide.

Please either reconsider your position or develop an honest defense for what we can all see with our own eyes.