Close to 300 ex-Obama-Biden staffers call to suspend military assistance to Israel
Philip Martin, a former Obama-Biden administration staffer, says he feels betrayed by President Joe Biden’s “unconditional support” for Israel as it continues its attack in Gaza, almost seven months after the terrorist group Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 hostages.
Martin, a former director in the U.S. Department of Education, told USA TODAY he’d joined the Obama campaign in 2008 because he was furious that the Bush administration had “hijacked" the country's pain to justify killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But now, he says Biden is having a similar effect with his Israel foreign policy.
“Seeing the Biden administration provide unconditional support to the Israeli war machine that is killing, displacing, starving, and otherwise terrorizing Palestinian civilians makes me just as furious and feels like a betrayal,” he said.
He is one of close to 300 former Obama-Biden administration and campaign alumni who sent a letter on Tuesday asking Biden to suspend military aid to Israel. The letter is addressed to Biden and former President Barack Obama.
The 290 signatories (201 signed the letter with their names, the rest only had their titles) are asking Biden to call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, and withdrawal of troops from Gaza and the West Bank. This is the second group letter ex-Obama-Biden staffers have sent Biden since November.
“We are writing to you together because we see you both as our leaders with tremendous influence over the fate of Palestinians and our democratic society here in America,” the letter says. “We implore you both to lead now before our democracy and the world backslide further into war and authoritarianism.”
More than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Beyond the death toll, a March 18 U.N. report said a famine is "imminent" and humanitarian groups estimate more than 2 million people are threatened with famine.
A Gallup survey released March 27, a day before the Biden campaign’s fundraiser, showed 55% of all Americans disapprove of Israel’s military action. That includes 75% of Democrats, which is up from the 63% who said the same last November.
Several donors, some who served on Biden’s 2020 election campaign have stopped supporting Biden’s reelection bid. Slipping support for Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza threatens to unravel the Democratic coalition at a time when the president wants to unite the party.
Sara Eckhouse, a granddaughter of a Holocaust refugee, who worked as a field organized for the Obama campaign in 2008 and later as a senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told USA TODAY she felt compelled to speak out after seeing “atrocities and war crimes” committed in the name of “protecting Jews.”
“This is not about politics. It is about humanity and the value of human life,” she said. “The President likes to say that he ran for office to redeem the soul of America. I hope this letter reminds him that we are holding him accountable to that promise when it comes to ending the suffering of millions of Palestinians.”
The letter cautions Biden that it is “not uncommitted voters or third-party candidates that are risking a Trump presidency and our democracy by defending the war crimes and agenda of a foreign far-right government.”
Rumana Ahmed, a former senior adviser at National Security Council during the Obama administration told USA TODAY that the policy actions the group is calling for are “morally right” and strategically important for everyone’s collective security.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @SwapnaVenugopal
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ex-Obama-Biden staffers ask Biden to suspend aid to Israel