Five-hundred Democratic Party staffers and alumni of Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign have written an open letter to the President, released May 24, urging him to do more to protect Palestinians and hold Israel accountable for its actions in and over the Gaza Strip during the recent conflict, The Washington Post reported the same day. The letter was released at a time of growing discontent among the party’s “progressive” wing with the administration’s unqualified support for Israel. While the statement praises Biden for brokering a Israeli-Hamas ceasefire, it points to “the horrific violence that unfolded in recent weeks in Israel/Palestine, and we implore you to continue using the power of your office to hold Israel accountable for its actions and lay the groundwork for justice and lasting peace…. We remain horrified by the images of Palestinian civilians in Gaza killed or made homeless by Israeli airstrikes,” as well as by Hamas’s launching of rockets that killed Israeli citizens.
The letter points to the huge military imbalance between the two sides, charging that Israel’s “highly-advanced military occupies the West Bank and East Jerusalem and blockades the Gaza Strip, creating an uninhabitable open-air prison.” 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.”
