Ex-Biden officials warn 'there's a dam breaking' over anger at White House's Gaza policy
Two ex-members of the Biden administration spoke about why they left over Biden's policy toward the war in Gaza, warning that there are many other people like themselves.
Two officials who resigned from the Biden administration over his support for Israel amid the war in Gaza said many others in government are upset with the president's foreign policy.
"It feels like there‘s a dam breaking," Tariq Habash, a former Biden political appointee, said on CNN. "There are so many people who had been working within the system, trying to speak through the proper channels about what they are witnessing."
"We are supplying these weapons, we're providing the financing for the ongoing violence against innocent Palestinian civilians," he added. "I think people are realizing that no matter what they do or say, that their voice isn’t being heard, and I think they‘re starting to reach the same conclusion, unfortunately, that I made, and that Lily made."
When Habash was asked what he he was hearing from others in the administration, he said, ""People are fed up."
"I think they‘re rightfully just at their ends of what they feel like they had been able to do," Habash added.
Habash appeared on CNN alongside Lily Greenberg Call, a Jewish activist who also resigned from the Biden administration over its policy in Gaza — the first Jewish political appointee to do so. There has been international outrage over the past week after an airstrike reportedly killed dozens of civilians in the Gaza Strip.
"I think, unfortunately, the culture within some of these agencies is — leans towards silence," Call said. "Folks are afraid to speak up, but we know that people across government have been letting their superiors know for months that they disagree with this, that they think it‘s disastrous policy in so many different ways, and I‘m sure what we saw over the weekend is only going to increase that."
"Tanks rolling into west Rafah, people burning alive in their tents, I don‘t see how that is not an invasion. I don‘t see how massacring 45 civilians — I think there was a strike recently that in the last 12 hours that that killed upwards of 20 — that is an invasion, that is violence perpetuated on civilians, and it‘s U.S. weapons that are used to massacre innocent Palestinian civilians," Call said.
"So Biden is breaking U.S. law right now by continuing to send weapons to a military that refuses to respect international human rights," she added.
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"Every single person that I know thinks the same way as us," Call said. "And whether or not they have felt empowered, as Tariq said, to make that public and to leave because of it. It is a different thing, but I think when the majority of the people on the inside feel that they are not being listened to and the majority of the American people are not being listened to, I think that‘s a huge problem for the administration."
Habash agreed and argued there are people much like themselves in multiple agencies.
"I know there are dozens of people who have already left," he said. "They‘re coming from all over. I don‘t want to list out every single agency, but there are people who have left from the White House, there are people who‘ve left from agencies that are working directly on this and not working on this at all."
