Joe Biden has had another top official in the administration resign over the administration's support for Israel during its war with Hamas.
This time, it was Tariq Habash, a policy advisor in the Education Department's Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development.
Not only are Biden officials resigning, but they are also landing haymakers on the way out the door. Habash wrote:
"I cannot represent an administration that does not value all human life equally. 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.
"I cannot be quietly complicit as this administration fails to leverage its influence as Israel's strongest ally to halt the abusive and ongoing collective punishment tactics that have cut off Palestinians in Gaza from food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies, leading to widespread disease and starvation."
This resignation comes after a large group of Biden campaign staffers penned a letter protesting the support of Israel, as well as a letter by administration officials and a vigil held by masked administration officials. In the most recent letter, the campaign staffers wrote:
"As your staff, we believe it is both a moral and electoral imperative for you to publicly call for a cessation of violence.
"We joined this campaign because the values that you — and we — share are ones worth fighting for. Justice, empathy, and our belief in the dignity of human life is the backbone of not only the Democratic Party, but of the country. However, your administration's response to Israel's indiscriminate bombing in Gaza has been fundamentally antithetical to those values — and we believe it could cost you the 2024 election."
For the most part, Biden has avoided media attention to this, but that is starting to change. In an effort to boost morale, a report surfaced on Thursday that Biden's Chief of Staff Jeff Zients was going to throw an "off campus" party for staffers.
The theme is to show them appreciation for all the work they have done over the last three years, but the real purpose is to try to quell this dissent that is growing amid staffers over the Israel-Hamas War.
Zients is also keeping this to staffers only, not allowing anyone from the outside to attend. To me, this means there will more than likely be some type of plea to the staff to stop going outside with their complaints and to keep everything internal. And Zients clearly does not want any outsiders to hear this if that is the case. In his invitation, he wrote:
"To ensure we are able to include as many staff as possible, this invitation is non-transferrable and does not include a guest."
This is far from the first time we have seen administration staffers coddle up to the wrong side of this war or U.S. policy. Let's not forget Joe Biden's Special Envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, was suspended in October, and his security clearance was suspended for the mishandling of classified information as well as being suspected of pushing Iranian policy over American policy.
Sadly, several people who worked for Malley have also been in the news for all the wrong reasons, raising questions about whether Biden has allowed the enemy to penetrate our government in his quest to have a more diversified staff.
