Four hundred government personnel from President Biden’s administration signed a statement condemning the president’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict and demanding a cease-fire.
Officials from the State Department, White House, National Security Council, and Justice Department are included in the Tuesday letter, which was first made public by the New York Times. In order to prevent professional reprisals, the letter’s signatories chose to remain anonymous.
“We call on President Biden to urgently demand a cease-fire; and to call for de-escalation of the current conflict by securing the immediate release of the Israeli hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians; the restoration of water, fuel, electricity and other basic services; and the passage of adequate humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip,” the letter reads, in part.
The split inside Biden’s administration mirrored divisions within the Democratic Party on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Within Biden’s party, a number of progressives have denounced Israel as an “apartheid state” and claimed that the Gaza War is a “genocide” against the Palestinian people. The House of Representatives publicly chastised Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., for her remarks on Israel last week.
Opponents of a ceasefire in Gaza, including Biden and other Western politicians, contend that doing so will only help the terrorist organization, Hamas. Instead, Israel has consented to the humanitarian pauses in hostilities that the Biden administration has sought.
