In my Aug. 20 op-ed, I asked you to join me in calling Rep. Maggie Goodlander’s office about her top campaign donor, the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. You did. And in doing so, you achieved something I had failed to accomplish for nine weeks — you got a response. On Aug. 22, Goodlander issued her first press release addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Now, as a fragile ceasefire takes hold in the region, it’s critical to examine the record of our representatives during this crisis. And for Goodlander, the place to start is with her press release.
The timing was unmistakable. On Aug. 20, my op-ed had criticized Goodlander for not co-sponsoring a resolution that calls for urgent aid to Gaza. And on Aug. 22, her press release stated she would soon become a co-sponsor.
On Aug. 25, I received a phone call from Goodlander’s new Chief of Staff Mariana de Vreeze. She informed me that Goodlander had read my op-ed and would be in touch within the next couple of weeks to schedule a meeting.
I’m very appreciative that Goodlander reached out to me, and that a statement was made on the famine in Gaza. However, her press release also made a striking claim, stating that “Goodlander has been a consistent voice for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East and the urgent delivery of critical aid to Gaza.”
This claim stood in stark contrast with my own experience.
Over nine weeks, I had called Goodlander’s office 29 times with basic questions on Iran and Gaza. Those questions went completely unanswered. And when I searched Goodlander’s website and social media pages for information on Gaza, nothing ever came up.
The only evidence the press release highlighted for her prior advocacy on Gaza was a June 10 interaction with General Michael Kurilla. I later confirmed with her office that up until the Aug. 22 press release, this was the only time Goodlander had made a public statement on Gaza while in public office.
While Goodlander’s decision to co-sponsor the resolution that calls for urgent aid to Gaza (H.Res. 473) is a welcome development, it is important to understand what this resolution actually does. As a non-binding resolution, it only acts as a symbolic gesture of support — nothing more. Even if the resolution Goodlander co-sponsored was passed, it would still do nothing to deliver aid to Gaza.
A bill to do deliver aid was introduced in Congress in March 2025 (H.R. 2411). This is the bill that would restore funding to UNRWA, the United Nations humanitarian agency that was, by far, Gaza’s largest provider of food and medicine. While 69 of Goodlander’s colleagues have sponsored this vital legislation, she has not. And her decision has life-and-death consequences.
No other organization can match UNRWA’s capacity to deliver aid in Gaza. During the crisis, it provided shelter to one million people, clean water to 600,000, facilitated 63% of the population’s health care, and delivered two-thirds of all food aid. But now, UNRWA warns its “financial situation is disastrous,” putting all those essential services in danger.
UNRWA’s struggles are a direct result of AIPAC’s lobbying. In March 2024, Congress voted to defund UNRWA, giving Israel the green light to begin dismantling the UN agency altogether. One year later, Israel started blocking UNRWA’s food deliveries from entering Gaza, and the result was a man-made famine, with children starving to death.
This was the context in which Goodlander chose to support a symbolic, non-binding resolution, but not the bill to save Gaza’s largest provider of food and medicine. Her decision creates the appearance of taking action, while doing nothing to deviate from the agenda of her top donor, AIPAC.
This raises an alarming question: Are AIPAC-supported politicians deceptively using symbolic gestures, like resolutions, as substitutes for meaningful action? An analysis of the OpenSecrets donor data for both pieces of legislation reveals a disturbing trend.
The symbolic resolution was first introduced on June 4, and its sponsors fall into two distinct categories: the 102 members who signed on early, within the first month of the resolution’s introduction, and the 21 who signed later on.
Of the 102 “early” sponsors, AIPAC is the top donor for 15% of them. But for the 21 “late” sponsors — Goodlander’s group — that number skyrockets to a staggering 52%. And the contrast with the bill to save UNRWA is even more telling: Of its 69 sponsors, AIPAC is the top donor for just 6%.
Even as children starved to death, AIPAC-supported candidates still failed to support the bill that would save lives. Instead, they turned to the symbolic resolution for political cover from their own constituents.
It is of the utmost importance that we ensure New Hampshire takes no part in these deadly charades ever again.
It has now been seven weeks since Goodlander’s office promised to contact me within a couple of weeks to schedule a meeting. That has not happened. In the 118 days since I began asking questions, I have experienced only one moment of success: when you picked up your phones. It is now clear to me that your calls alone will determine if we get answers. So I am asking you to join me once again.
Please, call Goodlander’s Concord office at (603) 226-1002 and respectfully ask the exact same question that you asked in August: Will Goodlander continue to accept money from AIPAC?
John S. Hancock II lives in Concord. He can be reached at JHancock2@ProtonMail.com.