Internal pressure mounted on Biden over Israel policy

BSS :
US President Joe Biden is exposed to rising pressures from his own administration to rein in Israel’s military campaign causing growing casualties and desperate humanitarian conditions in Gaza, according to reports of major US and British media outlets.

“I’m stunned by the intensity (of pressures from within US administration),” BBC today quoted former US State Department official Aaron David Miller as saying while more than 500 US officials signed a letter protesting Biden’s Israel Policy.

Miller, who worked as an adviser on Arab-Israeli relations during 25-year tenure at the US State Department, added “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

Analysing the situation BBC commented Biden’s nearly unconditional support to carryon Israeli actions “stirred an extraordinary level of criticism from within his own administration” apart from external and international rage particularly from the Arab world.

The BBC analysis came three days after the Washington Post carried a report headlined “(US secretary of state) “Blinken confronts State Dept.

dissent over Biden’s Gaza policy” as “in an all-department message circulated after Blinken returned over the weekend from a trip to the Mideast and Asia”.

“The top US diplomat (Antony Blinken) acknowledged that some diplomats have expressed reservations about the US backing for Israel as it presses an assault on Hamas that has had a heavy civilian death toll,” the Post reported.

The New York Times on the same day carried a report headlined “More Than 500 US Officials Sign Letter Protesting Biden’s Israel Policy” saying “the signers representing some 40 government agencies reflect growing internal dissent over the administration’s support of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza”.

BBC reported that several internal memos were sent to Blinken through a channel, established after the Vietnam War, which allows employees to register disapproval of policy.

An open letter is also said to be circulating at the Agency for International Development (USAID) while another was dispatched to the White House by political appointees and staff members representing dozens of government agencies.

Staffers on Capitol Hill sent another such letter to members of Congress.
“Much of this dissent is private, and the signatures are often anonymous out of concerns the protest might affect jobs, so the full scale of it is not clear.

But according to leaks cited by multiple reports, hundreds of people have signed on to the wave of opposition,” BBC said.

An administration official has told the BBC that “these concerns are very real and there are active discussions about them”.

According to the Washington Post “moving to address dissent within the ranks of the State Department over the Biden administration’s policy on Israel and the war in Gaza” Blinken told the department employees on Monday that “we’re listening” to those who “disagree with approaches we are taking.”

The Post said it obtained a copy of the USAID employees’ letter, where more than 1,000 staff endorsed an open letter saying they were “alarmed and disheartened at the numerous violations of international law; laws which aim to protect civilians, medical and media personnel, as well as schools, hospitals, and places of worship”.

They urged the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war.