A top U.S. Department of Education official resigned Wednesday, citing President Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict in Gaza, the latest sign of dissent in the administration as deaths continue to rise in the war.
Also on Wednesday, 17 staffers from Biden’s re-election campaign issued a warning in an anonymous letter that Biden could lose voters over the issue.
Tariq Habash, special assistant to the Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, said: “I cannot remain silent while 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 student debt expert, was appointed at the start of Biden’s presidency as part of a development of the Department of Education’s student loan expertise.
The 17 anonymous staff members of Biden’s re-election campaign, in their letter, published on Medium, urged Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Tariq Habash, special assistant in the Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development due to Biden’s handling of the conflict in Gaza. Anonymous MSNBC 17 Biden re-election campaign staff also urged the president to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. AFP via Getty Images
“Biden for President’s staff has seen volunteers quit in droves, and people who have voted blue for decades feel unsafe doing so for the first time because of this conflict,” the staffers wrote in the letter.
Stay on top of news on the war between Israel and Hamas and the global rise in anti-Semitism with The Post’s Israel War Update, delivered directly to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said earlier Wednesday that the United States has not observed acts in Gaza that constitute genocide.
A plume of smoke rises over the town of Khan Younis in Gaza following an Israeli airstrike on January 3, 2024. ZUMAPRESS.com A Palestinian man helps another man cross a field of rubble following an Israeli airstrike on buildings in The city of Rafah, northern Gaza, on January 3, 2024. October 17, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
His comments were in response to proceedings launched by South Africa before the International Court of Justice over Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
Israel has also denied accusations of genocide in Gaza.
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn