NO to the largest military budget in history. NO to merging U.S. and Israeli military technology.

Add your voice here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/no-to-the-largest-military-budget-in-history-no-to-merging-us-and-israeli-military-technology?source=direct_link&

The Senate has not voted on the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act. It may not this year. That makes now the time to tell them where we stand.

Two things are wrong with this bill.

First, the money. S. 4784 would authorize the largest defense budget in American history, roughly $250 billion more than last year. Senator Tim Kaine, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, called it a staggering increase. Counting all national defense spending, the rise is over 40 percent. Our communities are suffering from food insecurity, lack of healthcare, and even the ability to afford gasoline. Our communities are short on money, and this is where it is going.

Second, Section 1217. Buried in the bill is the Israel FUTURES Act, which would direct the Pentagon to build a permanent initiative integrating Israeli military technology into U.S. defense systems: artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, cyber and electronic warfare, missile defense, quantum computing, drones, and joint arms production.

This is not aid. Aid can be reviewed, reduced, or ended. Section 1217 moves the relationship into the Pentagon's procurement structure, where it stops being something Congress votes on each year and becomes infrastructure. That is the purpose. As public support for unconditional military aid falls, this makes the relationship permanent by making it structural.

Senators Sanders, Van Hollen, Warren, Markey, Merkley, and Welch have all objected. More than fifty human rights organizations have urged both chambers to reject it. Senator Van Hollen has filed amendments to strike it.

The Senate stalled this bill once. Tell your senators to stop it for good.

Nine Americans killed. No accountability. The Senate voted NO.

UPDATE

Thank you to the 470 people who wrote to the Senate in support of S.Res. 852, the Van Hollen-Kaine-Sanders resolution requesting a State Department report on Israel's human rights practices in the West Bank.

On September 29, the Senate voted 47 to 51 against discharging the resolution, with two senators not voting. The resolution would have required a report within 30 days on the killings of nine American citizens by Israeli settlers and security forces, and on broader human rights conditions, including Israel's detention of Palestinian children.

Although the resolution did not pass, the vote marks real progress. When a similar resolution came up in January 2024, only 11 senators supported it. This time, 47 did: 46 Democrats and independents, plus Republican Rand Paul. Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote no.

Your letters helped build that support. Please check how your senators voted (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1192/vote_119_2_00252.htm), and thank them or hold them accountable.

We will keep pressing for accountability and for U.S. policy grounded in human rights and the law. Thank you for standing with us.

In solidarity,

Community Alliance for Peace and Justice

BACKGROUND

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD HERE: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/nine-americans-killed-no-accountability-tell-the-senate-to-vote-yes?source=direct_link&

We call on the United States Senate to adopt the Van Hollen-Kaine-Sanders resolution requiring the State Department to report on Israel's human rights practices in the West Bank. We thank Senators Warren and Markey for cosponsoring it, and we ask them to press their colleagues to vote YES.

Since January 2022, at least nine American citizens have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli settlers or Israeli security forces: Omar Assad, Shireen Abu Akleh, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Amer Rabee, Saifullah Musallet, Khamis Ayyada, and Nasrallah Abu Siyam (Draft S.Res., 119th Cong., 2d Sess., introduced Aug. 27, 2026). Among them were a 78-year-old man dragged from his car at a checkpoint and left bound and blindfolded on the ground, where he died; a journalist shot in the head while wearing a vest marking her as press; and three boys aged 14, 16, and 17 (S.Res. 2026). Not one of these killings has produced accountability from the Israeli government or from our own (S.Res. 2026).

Even the Trump administration's own ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called the killing of 20-year-old Saifullah Musallet a criminal and terrorist act and said there must be accountability (Amb. Huckabee, July 15, 2025, quoted in S.Res. 2026). There has been none.

Americans are also being detained. Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old from Florida, was held nine months in pretrial detention and denied contact with his family; U.S. embassy officials and lawyers who saw him reported that he had lost close to a quarter of his body weight, contracted scabies, and been beaten (S.Res. 2026). Sama Safi, a 20-year-old student swept up in raids on Birzeit University in June 2026, and Adam Karakrah, a 16-year-old arrested in July 2026 and held on an entirely new case moments before his family's bail was to free him, both remain in Israeli military prisons (S.Res. 2026).

This is the system Palestinians live under every day. Palestinian children in the West Bank are prosecuted in Israeli military courts while Israeli children living beside them fall under civil law (S.Res. 2026). Israel held 351 children as of December 2025 (Israel Prison Service, cited in S.Res. 2026) and has detained roughly 13,000 Palestinian children since 2000 (S.Res. 2026). Since October 2023, Israeli authorities have barred the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting any Palestinian detainee (S.Res. 2026). Between October 2023 and October 2025, more than 1,000 Palestinians, including 210 children, were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (UN OCHA, cited in S.Res. 2026).

Almost no one is held responsible. Of the police investigations into settler violence that Yesh Din has monitored since 2005, 93.6 percent closed without an indictment, and only 3 percent ended in a conviction (Yesh Din, Data Sheet 2005–2025, Feb. 2026). In 64 percent of files, police confirmed a crime had occurred but closed the case because they could not identify the offender (Yesh Din 2026). No one has been convicted for the death of any Palestinian civilian killed by settlers in the West Bank since 2020 (S.Res. 2026).

Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders, joined by eight colleagues including Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, have introduced a resolution under Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act (Sen. Van Hollen, press release, Aug. 27, 2026). It requires the State Department to give Congress an unclassified accounting of these killings and of the investigations into them, and a full assessment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention: how many are held, on what charges, whether they have lawyers, whether they are mistreated or tortured, and how their treatment compares to U.S. juvenile detention standards (S.Res. 2026, Sec. 1(b)). If the resolution passes and the administration fails to deliver within 30 days, most U.S. security assistance to Israel is prohibited by law (Sen. Van Hollen, Aug. 27, 2026).

Congress has held this power since 1976 and has almost never used it. When a similar resolution reached the floor in January 2024, only eleven senators voted for it (U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote 118-2-8, Jan. 16, 2024).

Sign to tell the Senate: vote yes, and stop funding impunity.

Sources

Draft Senate resolution requesting information on Israel's human rights practices pursuant to Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act, 119th Congress, 2d Session, introduced August 27, 2026. Full text as circulated by the Office of Senator Chris Van Hollen: https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/502b_resolution.pdf

Office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, press release, August 27, 2026: https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/news/press-releases/van-hollen-kaine-sanders-announce-privileged-resolution-seeking-answers-on-west-bank-violence

Office of Sen. Peter Welch, press release, August 27, 2026, full cosponsor list: https://www.welch.senate.gov/welch-van-hollen-kaine-sanders-announce-new-resolution-demand-senate-vote-and-answers-on-west-bank-violence/

Yesh Din, Data Sheet: Law Enforcement on Israeli Civilians in the West Bank (Settler Violence), 2005–2025, February 2026: https://www.yesh-din.org/en/data-sheet-law-enforcement-on-israeli-civilians-in-the-west-bank-settler-violence-2005-2025/

U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote on S.Res. 504, January 16, 2024: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1182/vote_118_2_00008.htm