Taking a stand

Israel’s prolonged Gaza war has inspired Arab and Muslim US citizens to boycott members of the Biden administration which they hold accountable for nearly 30,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the ravaging of the Strip’s homes, schools, universities, refugee camps, infrastructure, and farmland. They have good reasons for taking a stand.

The administration has provided Israel with more than $17 billion in weapons since October 7th, a large proportion supplied from old stocks at US warehouses for use of the US armed forces in case of regional war. Aircraft and weapons have been flown in. The Palestinian civilian casualty rate is high because nearly half of the devices transferred are “dumb bombs” with no guidance systems. Supplies include 900 kg “bunker buster” and white phosphorus shells. The use of the latter is banned in populated urban areas.

The administration has promised Israel another $14 billion in military materiel, enabling Israel to keep the war going. The administration has also blocked UN Security Council demands for a permanent ceasefire, stalled a temporary truce, and failed to compel Israel to allow life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza. A week ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration plans to send To Israel more bombs, guidance devices and fuses worth “tens of millions of dollars” although a fresh injection of weapons could be used for the planned Israeli offensive against Rafah where 1.4 million Palestinians have sought shelter. The Arab world and the international community are demanding a ceasefire now.

Several Palestinian-US citizens rejected a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Feb.1 after issuing a statement saying, “We do not know what more Secretary Blinken or President [Joe] Biden need to hear or see to compel them to end their complicity in this genocide.” The statement was distributed to the press by the non-profit Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU).

They argued that the administration shows “every day whose lives they value and whose lives they consider disposable.” They considered the offered hour and a half encounter with Blinken an “insulting” public relations gesture and observed, “Our community and all Palestinians deserve better.”

They continued, “There is one thing that we, our community and countless others around the US and the world, including American unions representing nearly 8 million workers and at least 47 US cities, have been asking of this administration: to demand a permanent ceasefire to save Palestinians lives and stop the destruction of Gaza.” Six invitees did attend although they had doubts that meeting Blinken would have any impact on administration policy.

One of the those who boycotted, Virginia cardiologist Tareq M. Haddad, who grew up in Gaza, sent a letter to Blinken in which he wrote, “I could not emotionally bring myself to look you in the eyes, Secretary Blinken, knowing you and President Biden have knowingly contributed to the suffering and murder of so many of my family, the homelessness and dispossession of 2 million Gazans, and the famine that has befallen my remaining family members.” In the letter, he named, identified the victims, included their photos, and described how they died. He called for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the transfer of US weapons to Israel, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

At the time Dr. Haddad wrote the letter, 85 of his family members had been killed, when he appeared on CNN’s Christian Amanpour interview programme last week, the number had grown to 100 members.

On Feb.8, senior Biden administration officials, including head of the US Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, held four separate meetings with Arab and Muslim members of the Dearborn, Michigan, community. The invitees who attended insisted on an immediate, permanent ceasefire. The community’s aim at the acrimonious encounters – attended by Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan – was to put forward the demand for a ceasefire and insist that the administration take action. Demonstrators protested US policy outside the venue.

Although Michigan is home to large Arab and Muslim communities, Biden did not meet with their leaders when he campaigned in the state earlier in the month. Community activists have gone over to the offensive and called for voters not to cast ballots in the Michigan Democratic primary contest on Feb.27 as well as in the national poll in November. In 2020, Michigan backed Biden with 150,000 votes but without Arab and Muslim votes he could lose this “swing state” this year.

Dearborn activist Abbas Alawieh told USA Today, “The president’s refusal to change course or even publicly acknowledge his mistakes is a grave insult to people here in Michigan – to Michigan Democrats in particular. The hypocrisy of telling us privately that the administration has made mistakes while continuing to fail to hold Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu accountable publicly [is] a blatant display of moral bankruptcy that will have political consequences here in Michigan.”

At the end of January elected officials of Arab origin rejected a meeting with Julie Chavez nRodreguez until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. In an interview with Al-Jazeera Detroit Mayor Hammoud made the point that the US and Israel are bombing Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine, the homelands of the Detroit area Arab communities who feel “betrayed” by Biden. Hammoud said, “I have residents who have had to dig their grandmothers up from the rubble after Israeli fighter jets bombed their homes.”

Subsequently, a dozen community leaders had a virtual exchange with Vice President Kamala Harris’ staff but postponed a listening session with Harris herself while she was in the White House. Her campaign events have been disrupted by pro-Palestinian activists calling for an end to the administration’s complicity on the carnage in Gaza where the UN reported 100,000 people have been killed, been buried beneath the rubble, and wounded since Israel launched its war on the Gaza on October 7th following the raid on southern Israel by Hamas which killed 1,139 and abducted 240. In response to this brutal cross-border assault, Biden has said Israel “has the right to defend itself” and refused to mention the word “ceasefire.”

Hammoud’s message to Biden was, “We will make sure his campaign fails in Michigan.”

Photo: TNS