Following Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen’s announcement Thursday that he will embark on a trade mission to Israel next week, local advocates have condemned the move.
Nebraskans for Palestine, a local advocacy group opposed to the genocide in Gaza, issued a statement Friday, calling the Governor’s decision to pursue trade and diplomatic relations with Israel a choice to “normalize and reward a genocidal state that stands in open violation of international law.”
Governor Jim Pillen (Courtesy Photo)
“For over two years, Israel has carried out a campaign of extermination and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, as documented by leading genocide scholars, Israeli human rights organizations, and international bodies. Additionally, the International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and constitutes apartheid,” the group said in a statement to KLIN News.
While the Governor says the trade mission is expressly focused on promoting Nebraska-made kosher beef, agricultural technology, and manufacturing partnerships — it comes during a contentious time for Israeli foreign relations.
Accusations
The International Criminal Court (ICC), an independent tribunal based in the Netherlands, issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering, murder, and persecution.
Israel denies these allegations and rejects the ICC’s jurisdiction. The ICC does have jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but has more limited jurisdiction over states not party to the Rome Statute — the founding 1998 treaty of the ICC which established its oversight over the most serious international crimes. As of 2024, there are 125 states party to the Rome Statute, while a number of countries — including Israel and the United States — are not.
A growing number of countries have recognized Palestine as a sovereign state, while the U.S. has not. In September 2025, France led several nations in recognizing a Palestinian state, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and several other Western nations — bringing the total to more than 145 nations now joining the call for international recognition.
Death Toll
While Palestinian statehood has been a multi-decade effort, calls for recognition have reached fever pitch since the conflict escalated to new levels of violence, beginning on October 7, 2023 — the date when Hamas militants breached the Israel-Gaza barrier, killing 736 Israeli civilians, 79 foreign nationals, and 379 members of the security forces. The subsequent Israeli counteroffensive has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.
As of this week, the Israeli death toll is nearly 2,000, and the Palestinian death toll has topped 69,000—according to the most conservative estimates.
Nearly 170,000 have been wounded in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Eight out of every ten buildings that once stood in Gaza are now damaged or flattened. The death toll does not include the thousands of people believed buried under the rubble.
UNL Students and Pro-Palestinian advocates circle a speaker during a listening session outside the city campus student union in May 2024 avoiding spotty rainfall. (Chase Porter, KLIN News)
The world breathed a cautious sigh of relief when President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire agreement was reached between Hamas—Gaza’s active governing body—and Israel in early October. However, according to reporting from Al Jazeera, Israel’s military committed 80 violations since the truce took effect on October 10, killing 97 people and wounding another 230.
Divestment
“State dollars and public resources should not be used to support a genocidal government or to strengthen trade ties with an apartheid state,” the statement from Nebraskans for Palestine continued. “The involvement of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development and other state representatives in this mission makes every Nebraskan complicit in Israel’s ongoing atrocities. Taxpayer money must never be used to promote partnerships that profit from oppression or violate basic human rights.”
As detailed by the Governor’s Office in the trade mission announcement, 99% of all U.S beef exports to Israel come from Nebraska. In 2024, Nebraska exported $13.5 million of beef products to Israel. From January through July of 2025, Nebraska beef exports to Israel are 27% higher than they were during the same period last year. Israeli agricultural technology companies also maintain ties with Nebraska firms, including Lindsay Corporation and Reinke Manufacturing Co.
“We call on Nebraskans and all people of conscience to end the normalization of relations with the apartheid state of Israel and to support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions to put strategic pressure to end Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and occupation,” the statement said.
Nebraska has a storied history of divesting from regimes accused of apartheid. Initiated by then-State Senator Ernie Chambers in 1980, Nebraska was the first U.S. state to divest from South Africa in protest against the country’s system of apartheid.
“Today, that same principle demands that we refuse complicity in another system of segregation and oppression,” the statement concluded.
Numerous Palestinian flags are raised near UNL’s Broyhill Fountain. (Chase Porter, KLIN News | May 1, 2024)