As the world confronts the horror of Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza, Rep. Maggie Goodlander has remained silent and done nothing. Her inaction paints a stark contrast between herself and over a hundred of her colleagues in Congress, who have publicly shared photographs of dying children and signed onto resolutions seeking to feed them. As a result of their advocacy, many of them have been attacked by the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, which is Goodlander’s top campaign donor. Her relationship with the lobbying group now raises unavoidable ethical questions.
AIPAC has been trying to cover up Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza for over a year. Documents obtained by The American Prospect in March 2024 reveal AIPAC’s instructions to its members: tell Congress that “reports that people are starving in Gaza are false.” The documents also show that AIPAC pushed for dismantling UNRWA, which is the United Nations humanitarian agency that delivered 67% of all food assistance to Gaza.
In late March 2024, the U.S. obliged by officially prohibiting funding to UNRWA. The flimsy justification for doing so involved Israel’s unproven allegation that 12 of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees had aided Hamas — a claim the UN’s highest investigative body found no conclusive evidence for.
Regardless, as of March 2025, Israel has blocked UNRWA from bringing additional humanitarian aid into Gaza. While the UN agency does its best to continue operating, its ability to provide food and medical supplies to civilians has been devastated. In response, hundreds of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations signed a joint statement calling for UNRWA to be restored. But those calls have gone completely unanswered.
AIPAC succeeded in its efforts to cripple UNRWA. And now, Gaza is on the brink of full-scale famine.
The IPC, which is the global initiative that measures food security, reported that 500,000 people are going multiple days without food, and that 320,000 children under the age of five are at risk of acute malnutrition. Of these children, 24 died of starvation in July alone.
Despite the irrefutable evidence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to say, “There is no starvation in Gaza.” But he’s the only one still making that claim. Even President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama have acknowledged the starvation crisis in Gaza. And 40 U.S. Senators signed a letter that urgently calls for additional aid.
Goodlander had an opportunity to provide that aid in March 2025, when 56 of her colleagues introduced a bill to urgently restore funding to UNRWA (H.R. 2411). Advocates from UNRWA flew to Washington D.C. to personally meet with lawmakers and urge them to support this bill. But Goodlander still failed to sign on.
She had another opportunity to address the famine in June 2025, when Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced a resolution that called for the “urgent delivery and disbursement of humanitarian aid” to Gaza (H. Res. 473), which112 Democrats signed onto. But Goodlander, yet again, decided not to.
When I searched Goodlander’s congressional website and social media pages for any mention of the crisis, nothing came up. I asked her staff about this on July 30, and the most recent public statements they found occurred well before she had taken public office.
Goodlander’s silence is clearly no accident. Over nine weeks, I’ve personally called her office 29 times to politely ask for her position on the ongoing crisis. Her staff has been very helpful in recording my various questions and contact information, but I have yet to receive a single response to any of my questions — a fact that surprised even her own staff members.
One of them kindly offered to pass my information to a “higher-up” on Aug. 4, and later confirmed they had done so when I called back on Aug. 13. The result? Continued silence.
Goodlander’s refusal to engage with her constituents on an issue of this magnitude is a profound betrayal of the public trust. That is why I am asking you to join me in breaking through her wall of evasion.
Please, call Goodlander’s Concord office at (603) 226-1002 and let’s respectfully ask the one question that cuts to the heart of her silence: Will Goodlander continue to accept money from AIPAC?
When you call, you will likely be told her office cannot discuss “campaign matters.” Do not be deterred. This is a bad-faith excuse designed to shut down a legitimate question about public ethics and a clear conflict of interest. Remind them of this politely, but firmly.
When I asked the offices of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Thomas Massie if they accepted money from AIPAC, neither had difficulty answering my question. Both promptly answered “no.”
Whatever response you receive from Goodlander’s office, I want to hear about it. The fight for accountability is a collective one.
John S. Hancock II lives in Concord. He can be reached at JHancock2@ProtonMail.com.