US education official resigns over Biden's Israel-Gaza policy
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[January 04, 2024]
By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior official in the U.S. Education
Department stepped down on Wednesday, citing President Joe Biden's
handling of the conflict in Gaza, the latest sign of dissent in the
administration as deaths continue to grow in the war.
Also on Wednesday, 17 Biden re-election campaign staffers issued a
warning in an anonymous letter that Biden could lose voters over the
issue.
Tariq Habash, special assistant in the Education Department's Office of
Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, in a letter to Education
Secretary Miguel Cardona, said: "I cannot stay silent as this
administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against
innocent Palestinian lives, in what leading human rights experts have
called a genocidal campaign by the Israeli government."
Habash, a Palestinian-American and an expert on student debt, was
appointed early in Biden's presidency as part of a build-out of the
Education Department's student loan expertise.
The 17 anonymous Biden re-election campaign staffers, in their letter,
published on Medium, urged Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
"Biden for President staff have seen volunteers quit in droves, and
people who have voted blue for decades feel uncertain about doing so for
the first time ever, because of this conflict," the staffers wrote in
the letter.
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Biden's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller earlier on Wednesday said that
the U.S. has not observed acts in Gaza that constitute genocide. His
remarks were in response to proceedings launched by South Africa at the
International Court of Justice over Israel's military operations in
Gaza.
Israel also has denied claims of genocide in Gaza.
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U.S. President Joe Biden departs a Biden Victory Fund campaign
fundraising event in the Kalorama neighborhood, in Washington, U.S.,
October 27, 2023. REUTERS/Anna Rose Layden/File Photo
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Josh Paul, a former State Department official, resigned from the
Biden administration in October in protest over what he called the
administration's "blind support" for Israel.
In November, more than 1,000 officials in the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), part of the State Department,
signed an open letter urging the Biden administration to call for an
immediate ceasefire.
After at least three cables criticizing the administration's policy
were filed with the State Department's internal "dissent channel,"
Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged disagreements in a
November letter.
In December, some staff in the Biden administration held a vigil
near the White House to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed
1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Some 240 hostages were
also taken back to Gaza. The total recorded Palestinian death toll
from Israel's retaliatory offensive had reached 22,313 by Wednesday,
almost 1% of Gaza's 2.3 million population, the Gaza health ministry
said.
Israeli bombardments have flattened much of the densely populated
enclave, leaving most Gazans homeless, with food shortages
threatening famine.
The United States has publicly slammed the rhetoric of some Israeli
ministers and pushed Israel to curb civilian deaths in Gaza. Critics
argue that Washington is not using its leverage as a major supplier
of arms and aid to influence Israeli policy.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Heather
Timmons and Leslie Adler)
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