Riots are mounting in the Biden administration over support for Israel and opposition to the ceasefire in Gaza, while the US finds itself increasingly polarized over the conflict. The president’s warnings, criticisms and pressure on Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu are not enough to calm the growing dissent among the ranks of the executive, from the State Department to the Justice Department, from the FBI to the National Security Council.
At stake is also a mass of votes from the progressive left and the Arab-Muslim community – traditionally pro-Dem – who may fail the commander in chief in the next elections. The latest blast comes from a letter of protest signed by more than 400 political appointees and staff members from around 40 government agencies. “We urge President Biden to urgently call for a ceasefire and 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 basic services; and the passage of adequate humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip”, reads the letter, also signed by leaders who helped the dem leader to be elected in 2020.
“The vast majority of Americans support a ceasefire,” the letter continues, citing an October poll that found 66 percent of Americans, including 80 percent of Democrats, believe the United States should pressure Israel for a truce. «Furthermore, Americans do not want the American military to be involved in another costly and senseless war in the Middle East.”
The letter follows a stormy meeting on October 23 at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where 70 Muslim and Arab political appointees complained to senior White House officials, including Chief of Staff Jeffrey D. Zients and Doug Emhoff, her husband ( Jew) of Vice President Kamala Harris, reporting the pressure she faced from family and friends to resign. Dissent on Gaza also reflects a generation gap and comes mainly from employees in their 20s and 30s, although there is no shortage of senior leaders among those who signed the dissent documents.
The letter is the latest in a series of protest initiatives within the administration. Like the resignation of a State Department director who was against “blind partisan support” and the sending of weapons to Israel. Or the open letter signed by over 1,000 employees of the American Agency for International Development (USAID). Or, again, the three internal memos signed by dozens of Foggy Bottom employees and sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken via the ‘Dissent channel’, the channel opened during the Vietnam War to allow diplomats to express disagreements on US policies without the risk of retaliation. We need a ceasefire and criticizing Israel even publicly is their warning. “I know that for many of you the suffering caused by this crisis is taking a personal toll, we hear you, what you share is defining our politics and our messages,” Blinken responded. In the meantime, however, a New York association, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has sued Biden in California, accusing him of failing to fulfill his duty, according to international and American laws, to prevent Israel from committing genocide. in Gaza. The request is to ban the US from providing weapons, money and diplomatic support to its Middle Eastern ally.
Hamas posts images of Noa alive, then shows her body
A moment of hesitation as he pronounces his parents’ name in front of the camera, then continues to read the text: «I am in Gaza, all of Gaza is bombed, I have already been here for four days and there are other hostages. We could die from the missiles, please stop. The explosions are close to us.” October 11th probably Noa Marcianoa 19-year-old Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas thirty-nine days ago, was aware of her own death sentence. And in fact in the video the bewildered face with the flag of the al-Qassam brigades behind him is followed by the images of his corpse lying on a bloody cloth.
Hamas claimed that the young soldier was killed in an airstrike last Thursday but the Israeli army, which confirmed his death, opened an investigation into the causes, defining videos like this as “inhuman forms of psychological terrorism”. This time too, however, the video was not broadcast by the country’s media. Noa Marciano, an army lookout at a base near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, was filmed by terrorists during captivity four days after being taken away on October 7: a video shot a few hours before her birthday, the 12th of that same month.
He was from Modin, a city 35 kilometers south of Tel Aviv, and served in the combat intelligence collection corps of the 414th Regiment. For over a month her face, which many remembered without even knowing her, had been present everywhere on the streets of Israel, on posters, together with those of the other hostages: a girl with round glasses, revealing her dental braces in a big smile. In the video, however, there are the last images of her with her hair tied back and a green dress, probably what she was wearing on the day of her kidnapping.
It is not the first footage shot by terrorists in this new war. A few days ago, Islamic Jihad released the video of two other hostages asking the Israeli government to stop the bombing of Gaza, with a message read by the captives in which they placed the responsibility for what is happening on Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. The clips featured Hanna Katzir, seventy-seven years old, in a wheelchair, and Yagil Yaacov, thirteen, both kidnapped from the Nir Oz kibbutz during the same attack and dragged to Gaza. For Yaacov, who suffers from a potentially lethal peanut allergy, several appeals had been made for him to be urgently visited by representatives of the Red Cross for the administration of injectable epinephrine. But at the moment, despite the militiamen’s announcements, the release for “humanitarian and medical reasons” has not yet taken place.
In these hours, however, the message from the young soldier Noa has arrived which leaves no hope: the army has verified her death “on the basis of intelligence information”. Her mother, Adi, had spoken to her for the last time shortly before she was kidnapped: «she had told me that she was in a protected place and that there had been an infiltration. Then she had to hang up. I hadn’t heard any shots or screams. Half an hour later I sent her a message, but she never responded,” she said in an interview. In one of her latest appeals launched at the beginning of November she said: «she could be without glasses. I’m afraid they might hurt her. She’s only nineteen, what happened? As a mother, I feel that she is alive but she is asking for help.” Today the IDF agents, who reached Noa’s family, officially announced her death.