Over 250 ex-staff send letter to Biden, Obama demanding ceasefire

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: HuffPost
1 May 2024 15:36
3 Shares

Obama is being urged to use his influence to back a cease-fire and simultaneously advise Biden to suspend military aid to "Israel" while recognizing Palestine as a member state of the United Nations.

President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, followed by first lady Jill Biden and former first lady Michelle Obama, in the White House in Washington, on September 7, 2022. (AP)

Over 250 former staffers in the Obama-Biden administration penned a letter to former bosses Barack Obama and Joe Biden on Tuesday, demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and calling for the end of the US' unconditional support for "Israel".

Around 170 former staffers, alumni, interns, and campaign directors signed their names in the letter but 80 others remained anonymous out of fear of retaliation.

“We are writing to you together because we see you both as our leaders with tremendous influence over the fate of Palestinians and our democratic society here in America. We implore you both to lead now before our democracy and the world backslide further into war and authoritarianism,” the letter says.

“The US is a lone pariah standing on the wrong side of history,” it added.

In the letter, Obama was urged to use his influence to back a cease-fire and simultaneously advise Biden to suspend military aid to "Israel" and amp up sanctions, while recognizing Palestine as a member state of the United Nations.

Rumana Ahmed, a former White House staffer who worked for six years during Obama's presidency as senior adviser to the deputy national security adviser, told HuffPost that some of the signatories feel betrayed by the duo.

“So many of us have given our careers and spent so many years working for them,” said Ahmed, who also worked on the Biden-Harris (Kamala Harris) team in the 2020 elections.

“For all of us who have been super hopeful, and we’re still waiting and we’re still being hopeful for the administration to shift the policy, .... instead we’re being dismissed,” she continued.

Watching in silence

Valentina Pereda, the 2015 deputy director of Hispanic media at the White House and one of the letter's authors expressed: “Speaking out against institutions of power, especially if you come from those institutions, takes a lot of courage”.

“A lot of people are putting a lot of our personal lives or financial lives on the line to speak out on this, but what I want people to understand is that, no matter what, you have to have the courage to speak up, no matter how uncomfortable,” she added.

Meanwhile, Sarah Eckhouse, a former Ohio campaign field organizer and a staffer in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, stated that she felt compelled to voice her concern due to years of service and for her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who arrived in the US in 1939.

“When Jews say ‘Never again,’ it cannot be only for Jews that it is never again, it must be for all people,” she said. “How could we watch this being inflicted on another population and not say something?”

“It’s very hard for me to understand how we can continue, as a government policy, to allow this when we have the ability to do something,” she said.

In January, numerous former White House interns wrote an open letter to Biden, urging his administration to support a quick ceasefire in Gaza.

According to The Guardian, the signatories, who include interns who worked in the White House and executive office of the president between 2022 and the summer of 2023, accused the President of "betraying" his vow to achieve equality and justice by backing "Israel's" war on Gaza.

The letter reads that Biden is calling on the young to “lead through the world’s most pressing challenges," detailing how “our voices are ignored as our generation speaks in solidarity with the majority of Americans and the world, underscoring the contrast between the values we embraced together and the actions we now witness.”