Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp Perez runs away from her constituents as they demand she call for a ceasefire in Gaza
Video link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5oR24uREfx/?igsh=dzlyN3g5aWwyMHE1
On Friday evening, March 29th, at a “Happy Hour” event hosted by Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Democratic donors at the Hidden House Event Space in downtown Vancouver, a group of community members gathered outside to protest the congresswoman’s repeated votes to send military funding to Israel as the Israeli government continues to slaughter Palestinians in Gaza and her continued refusal to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, despite constituents calling her daily for the past 5 months to demand she change course.
At the end of the “Happy Hour” event, as the protesters were having discussions with the Democrats leaving, Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez tried to slip out the back door of the event space to avoid her constituents. Footage has been released from an encounter between the congresswoman and three of her constituents who approached her as she tried to leave the event without addressing their concerns. In the video, they ask her to answer the questions they have been asking for months when they call her congressional offices to leave constituent comments, questions like: “Why are you sending money to an army with such a terrible human rights record? How can you claim that you want them as a military ally while they’re killing [your constituents’ families]?” “How many children have to die before you call for a ceasefire? Is 13,300 children enough? Because that’s how many have died!” and “Why is it that you’re willing to vote across party lines [along] with Marjorie Taylor-Greene…to censure Democrats in office?”
Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez struggled to answer any of these direct questions, saying only that she “can’t imagine” the pain her constituents are facing, in large part due to her own actions in Congress. Instead, the congresswoman deflected from her own complicity in funding a genocide, stating only that “it’s important that you guys [the activists] are here” and she “can’t explain why somebody would support Trump.”
On October 7, 2023 Hamas attacked Israel, killing over 1000 people, and took hostages. This came after decades of Israel’s military occupation of Palestine where people are detained without cause, water is shut off without notice, and Palestinians cannot leave without Israel’s permission. Since October 7, at least 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, with over 13,300 of those being children. Since October 7, Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp Perez has voted to send billions of dollars to Israel (instead of using those tax dollars to fund desperately needed services in her congressional district), crossed party lines to censure the only Palestinian American congress member, and voted to cut funding to the UNRWA (the primary humanitarian aid vehicle to Palestinians) based on unfounded allegations.
One protestor, a member of the Jewish community who lives in the congresswoman’s district in Southwest Washington, told the congresswoman the story of one of Gluesenkamp-Perez’s constituents, Muhanned. Muhanned and his family fled Palestine to come to the United States for safety. He has lived in the Vancouver area for over 40 years, owning and operating a small business, paying taxes, and voting along with his employees for Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the 2022 election. His family, along with other families from his village “Falluja”, which was ethnically cleansed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in 1948, owns the lands on which the large corporation Intel has built its largest Kiryat Gat manufacturing “FAB 18” Plant, which was confiscated by the government of Israel from families from The Falluja Enclave, including Muhanned’s family.
Muhanned directed these words towards Rep. Glusenkamp Perez: “You had no problem watching my small local business employing tens of your constituents, while paying millions of dollars in taxes every year, but you won’t lift a finger to stop the killing of my own family! Thank you for the support and surely this will be remembered during the next election.”
One of the protesters who approached Marie and helped film the encounter, Rev. Liz Kearny (a Presbyterian Church U.S.A. clergy person from the congresswoman’s district), voted for the congresswoman in the 2022 election. “I have been calling the congresswoman basically every weekday since October to demand that she stop the genocide Israel is carrying out against Palestinians in Gaza. But her voting record tells me she’s not listening. As a Christian who follows a Palestinian Jew who was murdered by the state, I cannot stand by while Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez uses my congressional district 3 tax dollars to fund Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.”
The protesters have four demands. 1. Call for a full and permanent ceasefire. 2. Stop sending military aid to Israel. 3. Pledge to vote no on future GOP-led censure votes in the House, and 4. Reinstate funding to the UNRWA.
IG caption:
Activists in southwest Washington confront Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez (WA-03) on her pro-genocide stance (full transcript in comments). Gluesenkamp-Perez, a co-chair of the Blue Dog caucus and 2022 election upset winner, crossed party lines to censure the only Palestinian member of congress, and cosponsored a bill with 6 Republicans to send Israel $10 billion dollars in military aid and no humanitarian aid – just 4 days after Israeli airstrikes killed over 100 people in Rafah in one day, while over 2 million people in Gaza are at risk of starvation.
Gluesenkamp-Perez failed to answer a single question, while activists shared the experiences of Palestinians in her district and asked her why she’s abandoning her grieving constituents to work with Republicans and pay for bombs with their tax dollars.