Letter to Chairman Hoops and Members of the OH House Development Committee — HB 188 (Oct. 26, 2025)

Summary

Letter dated October 26, 2025 to Chairman Hoops and members of the OH House Development Committee, with a name block reading Heather Cantino, Jewish Voice for Peace SE Ohio Athens. The letter opposes HB 188 and states that the bill would invest $10 million in a political partnership with a foreign nation. It states concerns about the bill's lack of transparency, oversight, and return on investment, and about its reliance on JobsOhio. It urges the Committee to vote down the legislation.

Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used

Full text

Oct. 26, 2025

Dear Chairman Hoops and members of the OH House Development Committee:

I write to strongly oppose HB 188, which does not serve Ohioans or comply with international
law.

As a Jewish citizen and longtime resident of Ohio, I am appalled by the misplaced priorities
that will invest $10 million in a political partnership with a foreign nation that has been
conducting genocide and ethnic cleansing for over two years. This money could and should
instead be supporting the millions of people, including children, pregnant, and breast-feeding
mothers, who are being cut o of federal SNAP, health, and housing programs due to the deep
and criminal corruption in our federal government.

This is a purely political project to bolster a rogue nation that has been committing unchecked
war crimes against the Palestinian people and their descendants who were evicted from their
homes and land by settler-colonialist refugees eeing the Holocaust who had been turned
away by the U.S. and other countries. Ohio’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide by
funneling taxpayer dollars to Israel makes the Ohio government guilty of the crime of genocide,
since complicity in genocide is a crime in its own right. And this genocide continues in spite of
a so-called peace deal. Thousands currently face death due to continuing bombardments,
obstruction of food and aid deliveries by Israel, and lack of evacuations for victims of Israeli
bombings and starvation.

I also have serious concerns about this bill’s lack of transparency, oversight, and return on
investment for Ohio taxpayers. The legislation includes no clear benchmarks, performance
reporting requirements, or community input mechanisms. The bill creates a board stacked with
political appointees tied to pro-Israel organizations, explicitly excluding Palestinian, Arab-
American, Muslim, and neutral voices. It contains no independent oversight, no competitive
process, and no clear safeguards to ensure accountability or public bene t. The bill’s reliance
on JobsOhio, a private nonpro t criticized for lack of transparency, further reduces public
accountability. Jobs Ohio was created by the legislature to protect against taxation and
transparency. Donations are tax exempt and can hide investment activity with Israel, facilitating
money laundering.

I urge the Committee to vote down this dangerous, unethical, and illegal legislation.

Heather Cantino
Jewish Voice for Peace SE Ohio
Athens




                                                           fi
                                fl
                     fi
                ff


File and source

File

2025-10-29_development_testimony_testimony-12188.pdf

Size

28,836 bytes

SHA-256

3b9a9e34cd928bd59852c0e9016bec40fc6349a166c92e8516365c1bdfc27468

Our copy

2025-10-29_development_testimony_testimony-12188.pdf

Original

No public link identified.