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# Declaration of Independence, Our Social Contract and Israel
- URL: https://www.palestinearchive.net/declaration-of-independence-our-social-contract-and-israel/
- Published: 2026-08-07T16:41:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-07T16:41:39.000Z
- Author: Raymond

The Declaration stands for the proposition that there is a living social contract between the governors and the governed. That social contract is broken today over Palestine and Israel as we continue to follow the wishes of lobbyists by sending more weapons to a country that has engaged in human rights abuses and violations of international law even though the majority of Americans now oppose that support. Our tax dollars have enabled the massacre of more than 73,000 Gazans, including more than 1,000 since the so-called ceasefire and the destruction of hospitals and schools in Gaza, the use of starvation as a weapon. Meanwhile Congress has kept its purse open for Israel.

The Biden administration refused to take any action as a genocide unfolded before our eyes, and Trump has allowed atrocities to continue and has even joined Israel in an illegal assault on Iran without a Congressional declaration of war. This has caused a rupture in the Democratic party that will continue until an open discussion on the topic is permitted. The DNC wouldn’t even allow a Palestinian-American delegate to speak at the 2024 convention. How are we to respect the rule of law at home when we do not respect the rule of international law that we helped promote in the aftermath of World War II when we created the United Nations and when we won’t even honor the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant by the International Criminal Court?  
  
The majority of Americans no longer want the U.S. to support Israel. February’s Gallup poll concluded that “currently, 65% of Democrats say their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, while 17% say tey sympathize more with the Israelis.” A Pew Research poll on international opinion in the Spring of 2025 showed a 53% dis- favorability rating toward Israel among Americans as a whole. Yet support for Israel in Congress and the White House does not waiver. What does that say about our democracy?  
  
Our relationship with Israel is unique, but it is also lopsided. We have given Israel hundreds of billions of dollars in aid and weaponry. Israel has a vibrant economy and universal healthcare. Israel has stolen our nuclear secrets and developed a covert nuclear weapons program. Israel has denied statehood for Palestinians since 1948, run an apartheid regime, and engaged in a genocide in Gaza. Israel brutally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967, killing 37 American crew members and wounding 171, and the U.S. made it illegal to discuss it by classifying all reports about it. Israel has urged us toward war after war, including the attack on Iran. The DOD just listed Israel at the highest counter-terrorism threat level for spying on the U.S., and both houses of Congress just voted to advance versions of defense appropriations bills that would enmesh our military and intelligence with Israel’s for the first time.

  
Israel significantly factored in the catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003, with Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu urging us to invade. That catastrophe cost us 4,431 American soldiers dead and 31,994 American soldiers wounded in action and between $1.4 and $4.2 trillion. It also resulted in between 500,000 and a million Iraqi deaths, the formation of the Islamic state and the Syrian civil war.  
  
Israel has assassinated 224 journalists, including Americans, and 1064 medical personnel in Gaza, and its soldiers have raped Palestinian prisoners. American news media has not given such abuses their due attention. Interviews of Israelis reflect an attitude of dehumanization and hatred toward Palestinians, but those are not shown in American media. Israeli leaders speak openly about a Nakba and using nuclear weapons and building Israeli settlements in Gaza, and the U.S. media won’t cover it. Not only is Gaza not being allowed to rebuild, but the IDF continues to kill Gazans, and Israel still won’t allow reporters into Gaza. How can the country that claims to support freedom of the press vote to fund Israel when Israel does not allow freedom of the press in the occupied territories? How can voters turn a blind eye to Israel’s systematic abuse of Palestinian rights?

Increased democratic participation on the issue of Palestine is needed urgently. Incongruity between what voters want and what our principles are on the one hand and what our political leaders do on the other hand has to end.  

Copyright July 4, 2026 Raymond Jacoub