US activists are launching a 10-day, 5,000km trip from Los Angeles, California, to Washington, DC, on Saturday to encourage American voters to ask questions about the state of the US-Israeli relationship.
The move comes just three weeks before the 3 November midterms, when most members of Congress are up for re-election. Midterm votes are often a litmus test for how well the president's party is faring.
Dubbed the "Freedom Convoy USA", the journey is expected to include activists from across religious groups, as well as former government employees and military veterans ready to engage in discussions about Israel in the "Bible Belt" southern states, where Evangelical churches, in particular, have intertwined Israel with Christian beliefs.
"When people ask me why we're doing this... I keep reflecting on the fact that I'm in Washington. I'm in one of the highest-income, wealthiest zip codes in the country, and the highest-educated... and even here, the lack of information, the lack of knowledge about Israel's reality is unknown to people," Hazami Barmada, a longtime activist best known for her 2024 Gaza encampment outside the home of former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said in an Instagram video.
"And notice I'm not saying Palestine, because as much as it's important for people to understand and know about Palestine, the more important thing, in my perspective, is for them to actually understand what Zionism is, what the racist, ethno-state, settler-colonial project of Israel is, [and] how the whole concept of Zionism is antisemitic in and of itself," she added.
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The 42-person convoy will stop in 17 states, including Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, and will officially launch at a gathering outside the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles at noon local time on Saturday.
"We don't think we're going to go across the country and people are going to randomly change their opinion over [Israel]," Barmada said.
"Absolutely not. Israel has, for decades, pushed propaganda to these communities. But what we do hope is to plant seeds of doubt. What we do hope is to inspire someone to question what they've been taught."
International human rights organisations have warned over the decades that Israel is committing grave crimes with impunity in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
Last year the United Nations’ top investigative body on Palestine and Israel concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
Human rights groups have regularly condemned Israel's land grabs, including its illegal expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank, as well as the surge in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.
'A paradigmatic shift'
Successive polls this year have shown that three years on from the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel's subsequent genocide in Gaza, Americans now have the poorest perception of Israel since favourability was first measured.
Last week, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs said its polling showed for the very first time that a majority of Americans, 56 percent, want US military aid to Israel to either be decreased or stopped altogether. Israel was also given a 44-degree result on a 0-100 thermometer scale, with 100 being the warmest.
The findings reflect a trend revealed by Gallup and the Pew Research Center earlier this year - two of the leading polling agencies in the country.
“What we’re witnessing is a paradigmatic shift that’s likely to last that sees Israel as a villain and perhaps even a genocidal villain,” Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor who has been polling Americans on attitudes to Israel and Palestine since 1989, said at a speaking engagement at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research this week.
“We have something that I think is more than just a short-term shift in public opinion, and that is much deeper than people may assume.”
On 26 October, the convoy is expected to arrive at the US Capitol to deliver a "We The People" petition to congressional offices.
Lawmakers are currently away from Washington, DC, campaigning in their own districts, as the top issues of affordability and aid for Israel loom large over the ballot box.
"American families are struggling with the cost of healthcare, childcare, and housing," the Freedom Convoy USA press release said.
"The Convoy calls for government priorities that put American families and communities first and an end to taxpayer funding that contributes to Palestinian suffering."
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