A former Biden administration employee who recently resigned said he believes the White House is supporting "excessive violence" by Israel in Gaza and that staff members are being ignored.
Tariq Habash resigned from the Department of Education this week after making his feelings clear to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona last month.
Habash, who identifies as a Palestinian American, told CNN that the "refusal to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza is at odds with his views and ones shared by a significant number of employees within the administration.
"It is a really difficult thing to sacrifice your career, your job security, your income, maybe your personal safety in these time of circumstances..." Habash said.
"I know that there are people throughout the government throughout this administration who have repeatedly tried to use every avenue available to them to raise concerns because they care about this country, they care about this president and they care about our democracy."
Since the attack on U.S.-backed Israel on October 7, when about 1,200 people were killed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Israel has launched thousands of airstrikes and a ground military operation.
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says 22,185 have been killed and more than 57,000 injured, but Biden has argued that a ceasefire would be the wrong option. The figures have not been independently verified.
The goal "should be to end the war forever, break the cycle of unceasing violence, and build something stronger in Gaza and across the Middle East so that history does not keep repeating itself," Biden wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post in December.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House for comment.
On MSNBC on December 3, Habash said Biden's stance on the conflict was "heartbreaking."
"It is a dehumanizing thing to hear from the president of the United States, someone you worked so hard to campaign for and elect and support his policies that your life is not valuable, your identity means less than other people's identities and it's OK that tens of thousands of people who look like you, and who have similar backgrounds and heritage, are dying and being massacred," Habash said.
Biden has suggested that Israeli tactics are strong but something it might want to evaluate.
"They're starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place," he said during a fundraiser in December.
Biden faces a possible problems at the ballot box because of the war, particularly among younger voters more likely to vote for Democrats in federal elections.
A New York Times/Siena College poll of Americans age 18 to 29 found that close to 75 percent do not approve of Biden's handling of the situation.
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Benjamin Lynch is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is U.S. politics and national affairs and he ... Read more
