The Backlash Against Biden on Gaza Is Growing

Internal dissent in the administration and opposition from within the president’s party are sure to increase while U.S. policy remains unchanged.

There is a walkout of federal government employees planned for tomorrow to protest the administration’s response to the war in Gaza:

US federal employees across nearly two dozen agencies plan to walk off the job Tuesday to protest the Biden administration’s handling of the Gaza war, according to organizers of the dissent effort who spoke to Al-Monitor. 

The group — calling itself Feds United for Peace — consists of dozens of government employees who will be observing a “Day of Mourning” to mark 100 days of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

This is the latest sign of the growing dissatisfaction and disgust inside the Biden administration with the president’s policy of unconditional backing for the war. There have been other cases where there was considerable internal opposition to a president’s policy from within the executive branch, but the opposition to Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza stands out for being among the most widespread and public that I can recall. I applaud the protesters for challenging the administration’s policy, but I fear that their objections will fall on deaf ears in the White House.

The president released a statement yesterday on the 100th day of the war that focused only on the remaining hostages in captivity. The statement had nothing to say about the tens of thousands of Palestinians, including over 16,000 civilians, that have been killed in that time or the millions that have been displaced and are now living in famine or near-famine conditions. It is not news that Biden’s sympathies in the conflict are extremely one-sided, but it is still striking that the president didn’t even mention the Palestinian victims of the military campaign and siege. There weren’t even the usual pro forma lines that have sometimes made it into Biden’s op-eds. The president has nothing to say about any of this.

This goes beyond typical tone-deafness and political ineptitude. Khaled Elgindy, author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, also commented on the statement:

Biden’s total inability to empathize with Palestinians or acknowledge their humanity permeates every aspect of his current policy.

As Yousef Munayyer observed, “There has never been a more viscerally anti-Palestinian president in American history.” A few years ago, it might have seemed hard to believe that there would be a president even more anti-Palestinian than Trump, but now there is no question that Biden has managed to be even worse than his predecessor.

Akbar Shahid Ahmed of the Huffington Post spoke to a current State Department official, who said in response to the statement, “It's harder day by day to justify working for this cruel & almost bloodthirsty administration.” Internal dissent in the administration and opposition from within the president’s party are sure to increase while U.S. policy remains unchanged. The president seems determined not to change it no matter how terrible the conditions in Gaza become.

It is worth adding that the president’s policy is a disaster for the remaining hostages as well. A ceasefire could lead to their release. The president’s knee-jerk rejection of a ceasefire ensures that they will remain captives for as long as the fighting continues. The only thing that has led to the safe return of hostages is a pause in the fighting. We have to wonder if all the hostages might have been freed long before what the president calls a “devastating and tragic milestone” if the U.S. had not been backing this war to the hilt.

The backlash against Biden on Gaza is growing, and it will continue to grow until the president relents and shuts off support for the war.