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IN A FIRST, JEWISH BIDEN ADMINISTRATION STAFFER RESIGNS OVER WAR IN
GAZA  
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Ron Kampeas
May 15, 2024
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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_ “I can no longer in good conscience represent this administration
amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for
Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Greenberg Call, 27, wrote in her
resignation letter. She attended Jewish day school.... _

A group of federal employees congregated outside the White House on
Wednesday to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel,
saying they had a unique perspective and responsibility to push the
president to change course. , Feds United for Peace Nakba Remembrance
Day, May 15, 2024

 

At first glance, the chalkboard sign looked like any of the others
standing in front of Washington D.C.’s many restaurants and cafes.

But instead of advertising espresso or sandwiches, this one — across
the street from a federal government building — displayed only one
thing: the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s war with Hamas,
along with the words “Remember the people of Gaza.”

When it was taken down earlier this month after being vandalized, that
number had passed 34,000 — a statistic quoted often in
pro-Palestinian advocacy. But what made the blackboard different from
the campus protests and others across the country was that the people
keeping it current worked for the Biden administration, which has
largely supported Israel and armed it as it has fought Hamas in Gaza.

Nearly all of the federal employees behind such efforts have kept
their identities hidden — including the relatively few Jews in the
movement. But a landmark moment in internal Jewish dissent came on
Wednesday, when Lily Greenberg Call, special assistant to the chief of
staff at the Department of Interior, announced that she was resigning
in protest of President Joe Biden’s Israel policy — the first
Jewish staffer among the several who have publicly resigned since Oct.
7.

“I can no longer in good conscience represent this administration
amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for
Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Greenberg Call, 26, wrote in her
resignation letter, which she submitted to Secretary of the Interior
Deb Haaland and shared on social media.

Greenberg Call, 27, attended Jewish day school
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was a leader of a pro-Israel group in college, at the University of
California, Berkeley, that was affiliated with AIPAC, the Washington
lobby. She has previously written publicly about her move to the left
on Israel, saying in a 2022 Teen Vogue essay
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she had begun to question the idea of unconditional support for Israel
after getting to know Arabs and Palestinians, including through her
work on political campaigns. 

In her resignation letter, Greenberg Call said her family had come to
the United States after escaping persecution in Europe and that she
was concerned about rising antisemitism around the world now. But she
said she did not believe the war aided in Jewish security.

“Israel’s ongoing offensive against Palestinians does not keep
Jewish people safe — in Israel nor in the United States,” she
wrote. “What I have learned from my Jewish tradition is that every
life is precious. That we are obligated to stand up for those facing
violence and oppression, and to question authority in the face of
injustice.”

 
Lily Greenberg Call, as a teen leader in 2015: “Advocacy is not
just a Band-Aid to cover and temporarily fix problems in society.”
 (Photo courtesy of the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego  //
 Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
While Greenberg Call is the first Jewish Biden administration staffer
to resign publicly over the war, others in her movement say she
isn’t alone in her sentiments. In memos, in internal staff meetings,
and in occasional bursts of public protest, a cadre of mid-level D.C.
bureaucrats is dissenting from the Biden administration’s backing
for Israel in the war. They describe crushing disappointment in an
administration that they feel is committed to defending innocents from
carnage elsewhere — most notably in Ukraine — but not, they say,
in Gaza.

“There is nothing more American than the right to free speech and
free assembly,” said a May 3 statement from Biden-Harris
Administration Staffers for Ceasefire, an ad hoc group formed soon
after the war broke out. 

The staffers say they have moved the needle a bit on policy — citing
the increased flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza as an example —
though they wish they’d had more impact. But their critics in the
administration say their influence is negligible.

Those making the actual decisions say the dissent is background noise
and that factors stemming from the crisis — and not the protests —
are behind shifts in policy.

“These are people who are not involved in the policy discussions,”
said a federal official who has a seat at the policy making table,
“who are not in the room to hear senior-level policymakers make the
case for both humanitarian assistance and describe what our
expectations are when it comes to avoiding civilian harm and
preventing violations of laws.”

The clandestine pro-Palestinian organizing began shortly after
Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, which killed approximately 1,200
people and launched the war. As Israel began counterstrikes,  heads
of various departments convened meetings to air concerns about Biden
administration policy. Soon, S, a Jewish staffer who is part of the
activist movement, was spearheading one of a number of letters to top
Biden administration officials that called for a ceasefire. 

An Oct. 20 letter from Jewish and Muslim congressional staff calling
for a ceasefire
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an early public action. A letter sent to Biden in November
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garnered a thousand signatures, and a White House vigil took place in
December
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Discussion of others has not abated.

“Word of mouth and WhatsApp are pretty active,” S said. 

Another convening point has been the Instagram account Dear White
Staffers. Established in 2020 by an anonymous congressional staffer to
post examples of how colleagues of color face discrimination, the
account turned after Oct. 7 to decrying Biden’s war policies. The
account has posted anonymous comments from administration staffers
alongside news articles and calls to action such as alerts about
D.C.-area pro-Palestinian protests. On Wednesday, it directed
followers to Greenberg Call’s resignation letter.

P, a staffer for a congressional Democrat, joined one of
the Jewish-led vigils in the Capitol that led to arrests
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Contacts he forged through helping to set up the first union for
congressional staffers helped lead to the letter from Hill staffers a
few weeks later.

“We have continued to show up and speak at large rallies and
marches,” he said.

S and P asked to be identified only by first initials in order to
avoid professional repercussions. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has
verified their identities and their staff positions. Jewish groups
that have organized ceasefire protests, including the anti-Zionist
group Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, confirmed that they are
among the groups’ active participants within the government.

IfNotNow distributed Greenberg Call’s resignation letter on
Wednesday.

The Jewish activists who spoke to JTA believe they are among the few
Jewish voices in the movement because of the pressures pro-Palestinian
Jews feel from their communities at home. Others in the executive
branch support Biden’s position. 

“I definitely feel like I’m one of the only Jewish voices in the
group chats,” said S.

The dissenters point to Biden’s increased pressure on Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow in humanitarian aid to the Gaza
Strip, and measures to hold accountable alleged Israeli perpetrators
of abuses, as evidence they made a difference.

But Julie Fishman Rayman, the American Jewish Committee managing
director, said the dissenters have had more of an impact on the media
than on actual policy in the government or in Congress. 

She noted that one of their key demands — a unilateral Israeli
ceasefire — has not found support in the executive branch, or in
Congress, where the majority of lawmakers calling for a ceasefire have
insisted that it must be mutual and include a release of hostages.

“There are people who from the get-go were starting these calls for
a one-sided ceasefire,” she said. “If they were reading the fine
print here, they would see that argument has not gained any
currency.”

A congressional staffer told JTA that the flood of calls from
constituents opposing the war had been more influential than the
internal dissenters. “They are way less impactful than a bunch of
angry constituents who are calling day in and day out and are better
organized,” the staffer said.

Asked for comment, a State Department official referred JTA to remarks
recently by spokesman Vedant Patel, when he was asked about the
resignation of Hala Rharrit, the spokeswoman for Arab media.
[[link removed]] Rharrit
quit over Gaza policy, saying State Department staff were afraid to
speak out in dissent. (At least one other staffer has publicly
resigned from the department, while a Palestinian American staffer at
the Department of Education resigned publicly in January.)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken “reads every single one of those
dissent channel cables and dissenting viewpoints from across the
administration,” Patel said. “We continue to welcome them and we
think that it helps lead to stronger, more robust policy making.” 

Whether or not the internal protests are making a difference,
pro-Palestinian activists say they are meaningful.

“Congressional and administration staffers have joined Palestinian
solidarity marches, written dissent cables, signed open letters of
disapproval, and in some cases publicly resigned,” Beth Miller, the
political director of JVP Action, the political advocacy affiliate of
Jewish Voice for Peace, told JTA. “Such public expressions of
protest from people who are usually unwilling to do so should be a
dire warning to the Biden administration to change course.”

* Biden Administration
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* American Jewish community
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* Jewish community
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* Jewish security
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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* Gaza
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* Hostages
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* Hamas
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* anti-Semitism
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* Genocide
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* Rafah
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* war crimes
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* IDF
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* Occupied Territories
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* Palestinians
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* AIPAC
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* Israel-Palestine
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