More than 500 of President Joe Biden's campaign and Democratic Party staffers in 2021 signed a letter calling on the president to do more to protect Palestinian human rights.
The memo, published on the platform Medium in May 2021, followed an Israeli police raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which set off an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas that killed more than 200 Palestinians and more than 10 Israelis.
"The very same values that motivated us to work countless hours to elect you demand that we speak out in the aftermath of the recent explosive violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, which is inextricable from the ongoing history of occupation, blockade, and settlement expansion," the group wrote.
"We remain horrified by the images of Palestinian civilians in Gaza killed or made homeless by Israeli airstrikes. We are outraged by Israel's efforts to forcibly and illegally expel Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah. We are shocked by Israel's destruction of a building housing international news organizations. We remain horrified by reports of Hamas rockets killing Israeli civilians.
"While Israelis had to spend nights hiding in bomb shelters, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had nowhere to hide," the group added.
"It is critical to acknowledge this power imbalance — that Israel's highly-advanced military occupies the West Bank and East Jerusalem and blockades the Gaza Strip, creating an uninhabitable open-air prison. While we should never reduce the loss of human life to numbers, Palestinians have suffered hundreds of casualties, demonstrative of Israel's power over Palestinians and its penchant for disproportionate responses. Israel's protracted refusal to consider a ceasefire also put Israelis in harm's way, prolonging the violence of Hamas's barrage of rockets and Israel's air strikes — a cycle that is bound to repeat itself as long as we allow the status quo to stand, where Palestinians have no freedom and Israel controls their lives in perpetuity."
Biden on Thursday announced that the U.S. was providing $100 million in humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.
"This funding will help support over a million displaced and conflict-affected people with clean water, food, hygiene support, medical care, and other essential need," the White House said in a memo.
"The United States provides humanitarian assistance through trusted partners including UN agencies and international NGOs."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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