By Biden’s Israel Gaza policy: We cannot stay silent as the administration turns a blind eye to atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives. Tariq
Biden’s Israel Gaza policy
WASHINGTON: In the midst of the battle, as the number of casualties in it continues to rise, a senior official in the US Education Department announced his resignation on Wednesday, blaming President Joe Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza as the reason.
Biden’s Israel Gaza policy: In a letter written in secret on Wednesday, 17 Biden campaign staffers warned that the issue could lose him support from voters.
In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Tariq Habash, special assistant in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development of the Education Department, stated:
"I cannot stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives in what leading human rights experts have called a genocidal campaign by the Israeli government."
As part of an effort to expand the Education Department’s knowledge of student loans, Habash, a Palestinian-American specialist on student debt, was recruited early in Biden’s administration.
In a letter that was posted on Medium, the 17 unidentified staff members of Biden’s re-election campaign pleaded with him to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
“Biden for President staff have seen volunteers quit in droves, and people who have voted blue for decades feel uncertain about doing so for the first time ever because of this conflict,” the staffers stated in their letter.
An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by Biden’s team.
Earlier on Wednesday, Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, stated that the US has not seen any crimes in Gaza that would be considered genocide. He made these comments in reaction to the International Court of Justice proceedings over Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which were started by South Africa.
Moreover, Israel has refuted allegations of genocide in Gaza.
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Former State Department official Josh Paul resigned from the Biden administration in October, citing the administration’s “blind support” for Israel as the reason for his protest.
A letter encouraging the Biden administration to demand an immediate ceasefire was signed in November by over a thousand representatives of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a division of the State Department.
Following the filing of three or more cables challenging the administration’s policies through the State Department’s own “dissent channel,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken recognized differences in a letter on November.
To call for a ceasefire in Gaza, several Biden administration employees staged a vigil in front of the White House in December.
Israeli estimates indicate that 1,200 people were murdered in the Oct. 7 onslaught on Israel by the Palestinian rebel group Hamas. Additionally, some 240 hostages were returned to Gaza. By Wednesday, the number of Palestinian deaths from Israel’s retaliatory offensive had reached 22,313 in total, or about 1% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, according to the ministry of health there.
