Democratic Congressmen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib (center) call for a ceasefire in Gaza this Monday at the Capitol. MICHAEL REYNOLDS (EFE)
Despite recent calls from President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to protect hospitals, unrest is growing within the Democratic administration over the White House’s unconditional support for the Israeli offensive in Gaza. More than 400 officials from 40 government agencies sent a letter of protest to Biden over his stance on the war. The manifesto calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and to put pressure on Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter. The letter sent this Tuesday to the White House is the latest in an already long list of complaints, including three internal memos addressed to Blinken by dozens of State Department employees, as well as an open letter written by more than 1,000 employees of the Agency for International Development (USAID, in English acronym) was signed.
More information
Biden said Monday that he hoped for “less intrusive measures regarding hospitals” in response to a question from reporters in the Oval Office about whether he had expressed concern to Israel about the high number of civilian casualties. Hospitals in the Gaza Strip “must be protected,” Biden said. “My hope and expectation is that less intrusive measures will be taken with regard to hospitals,” the president added. For his part, Blinken said Friday that “much more” needed to be done to protect civilians in Gaza and that “too many Palestinians” had died in the conflict.
The letter’s signatories include mostly political officials, but also career civil servants, representatives of various religious communities and employees of numerous government agencies, including the FBI, the National Security Council and the Justice Department. The manifesto first condemns Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in southern and eastern Israel that sparked the war on Gaza, then calls on Biden to help stop the bloodshed. “We call on President Biden to urgently call for a ceasefire and de-escalation of the current conflict by guaranteeing the immediate release of Israeli hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians; restoring supplies of water, fuel, electricity and other basic services; and the provision of adequate humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip,” the text said.
The disagreement between the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza and public opinion is a gap that appears to be widening at times. Some of the letter’s signatories were mobilized in the 2020 campaign that brought Biden to the White House, and today, in the face of negative polls on voting intentions – Republican Donald Trump leads him in five of the six key states – they remind the president that the critical mass of Democrats, too like the majority of voters, sees the conflict differently. “The overwhelming majority of Americans support a ceasefire,” the letter says, pointing to an October poll in which 66% of Americans, including 80% of Democrats, said the U.S. should put pressure on Israel to reach a ceasefire.
Parallel to the noise in the streets and on campuses where pro-Palestinian demonstrations are taking place, there is also discontent at the first level of the democratic government. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only congresswoman of Palestinian descent, went even further in her criticism, recently accusing Biden of contributing to “genocide” in Gaza with his support for Israel. The comment earned him a vote of no confidence in Congress, but above all it also showed the growing division in the electorate. Support for Israel, which was the majority at the start of the crisis, has declined in American public opinion, particularly among young Democrats and in the party’s most progressive or left-wing faction. Representing this group, Congressmen Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez (New York) and Tlaib himself (Michigan) took part in a press conference on Monday evening at the Capitol to discuss a legislative measure in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza,
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_