More than 500 alumni of the Biden-Harris presidential campaign sent a letter to the White House blaming Israel for its latest conflict with Hamas and demanding President Joe Biden investigate the Jewish state for human rights abuses.
"Israel's protracted refusal to consider a ceasefire also put Israelis in harm's way, prolonging the violence of Hamas's barrage of rockets and Israel's air strikes—a cycle that is bound to repeat itself as long as we allow the status quo to stand, where Palestinians have no freedom and Israel controls their lives in perpetuity," reads the letter, which the organizers posted online on Monday. "To ensure a lasting ceasefire and a future of peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, we ask that you work to end the underlying conditions of occupation, blockade, and settlement expansion that led to this exceptionally destructive period in a 73-year history of dispossession and ethnic cleansing."
The letter, which was signed by DNC and state campaign staffers, calls on the Biden administration to investigate Israel for potential war crimes and push for an end to so-called Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The Democratic staffers' letter echoes rhetoric employed by hardline anti-Israel members of Congress, who have also called on Biden to punish the Jewish state over its conflict with the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Until a last-minute reversal, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.) attempted to halt a $735 million weapons sale to Israel, which would upgrade the country’s defense abilities. "Squad" congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) have accused Israel of "apartheid" and "war crimes" in recent weeks.
The Biden administration has had mixed success in fending off pressure from the far left on Israel. During a Tuesday visit to the region, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for $75 million in aid for Palestinians, even though the State Department has repeatedly said it cannot verify how the Palestinian government, which funds terrorism, uses its money. Although Biden said Israel has a right to defend itself earlier this month, the White House has not yet ruled out investigating Israel for war crimes and called for a ceasefire while the country remained under siege from Hamas rocket fire.