Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) doesn’t care what one calls it. She just wants the war in Gaza to end right away.
“Whether you feel more comfortable with calling it a ‘humanitarian pause,’ ‘humanitarian ceasefire,’ ‘negotiated stop,’ or ‘ceasefire,’ the truth remains—it’s time to turn to diplomacy,” the congresswoman said. “End the war, return the hostages and arrive at a long overdue station of permanent peace.”
Fresh off her second trip to Israel since Oct. 7, the House Foreign Affairs Committee member was one of 25 members of Congress who wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday accusing Israel of being reckless with the safety of journalists in Gaza.
In her Wednesday statement, she allowed that her visits to Israel confirmed her “concerns and fears.”
“Israel has the right and responsibility to defend itself, its sovereignty, and its citizens,” she stated. “But what is happening is beyond self-defense and is unacceptable to me.”
She blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is part of an Israeli war council that is making decisions about the war, squarely for civilian deaths.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s dishonesty—his broken promises to use precision strikes to protect civilians and his false claims that safe zones have been created and enforced—is unacceptable,” she stated. “My heart breaks for Gazans, the suffering of innocent civilians—so many of them children—the devastation and loss of life is unacceptable.”
Washington has given Netanyahu “time and discretion, in the hopes that Israel could do that which would benefit us all—rid Gaza of a cruel terrorist organization and bring hostages home,” the congresswoman said.
“Instead, Mr. Netanyahu has used that time, that discretion, to wage a war against civilians,” she claimed. “No war against civilians is just.”
