More than 500 officials in Joe Biden’s administration joined the growing internal dissent in condemning Biden’s official policies and joined the global chorus for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Devastation after Israeli bombing of the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Photo: AP
The dispute over the US policy of unconditional support for Israel in the Gaza war erupted yesterday in Washington, where tens of thousands took part in a march for Israel to justify its war and at the same time hundreds of officials from Joe Biden’s administration joined the growing internal dissent condemning official policy and joining the global chorus for a ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian enclave.
In the capital’s central park, known as the National Mall, protesters carrying Israeli and American flags said prayers in Hebrew and chanted “no” to the ceasefire while listening to a parade of speakers that included rabbis, relatives of hostages kidnapped by Hamas and parliamentarians Leaders of both political parties and far-right Christian Zionists. “We stand with Israel,” proclaimed the banners carried by thousands at this rally, supporting Biden’s official policy.
But outside this march, disagreements are mounting over official policy and concerns that U.S. support for Israel is justified by disinformation and that Washington is actually supporting Israeli war crimes.
More than 500 officials from 40 agencies of the executive bureaucracy sent a letter to President Biden yesterday protesting his support for Israel’s war in Gaza, The New York Times reported. Previously, another letter of protest signed by a thousand employees of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was known, while three other separate messages expressing their opposition to the official policy were sent through the internal channel of the Dissidence circulated in the Foreign Ministry.
“We call on President Biden to urgently call for a ceasefire and demand a de-escalation of the current conflict by ensuring the immediate release of Israeli hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians, the restoration of water, fuel, electricity and other essential services, and the transit of sufficient humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” said the letter sent to the president yesterday. The signatures of the 500 federal employees, like those of USAID, were not publicly released because of signatories’ concerns about possible retaliation.
The overwhelming majority of Americans support a ceasefire, says the letter sent yesterday, which includes links to several polls that support that claim. Many of the anonymous signatories were appointed to their positions within the Biden administration after he worked on his campaign, according to the initiative’s organizers.
This extraordinary display of public dissent by officials, which these correspondents have not seen on this scale in the past three decades, reflects a growing concern about the failures of U.S. foreign policy.
The State Department’s latest internal dissent, first reported by the news site Axios on Monday, accuses Biden of encouraging the spread of disinformation and alleges that Israel’s actions to strip power, force the evacuation of civilians in the northern Gaza Strip and… Restricting humanitarian assistance constitutes war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law.
Despite these facts, argue the hundred State Department officials who signed this dissenting statement, the United States government has failed to reassess our stance toward Israel and is “instead redoubling its efforts to secure our military assistance… for the ( Israeli government) without clear borders.”….”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has acknowledged the existence of these protests within his bureaucracy, met with some dissidents and said that these comments were welcome. But both Blinken and his spokesmen have reiterated that it is the president who sets official policy.
Perhaps for this reason, yesterday’s letter from his own staff was addressed directly to Biden, who for now prefers to continue listening to the protesters in Washington this Tuesday rather than to the majority of public opinion or the dissidents within his administration.
(Taken from La Jornada)