Jewish American Biden appointee resigns over administration’s Gaza policy

NEW YORK

A Jewish American employee appointed by President Joe Biden to the US Interior Department resigned Wednesday over the administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza.

Lily Greenberg Call, special assistant to the chief of staff at the Interior Department, criticized Biden's Gaza policy in her resignation letter.

Call said she joined the Biden administration "for a better America," but "I can no longer in good conscience continue to represent this administration amid President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza."

Call stressed that she is a child of a Jewish family who fled anti-Semitism in Europe, expressing pride in the position she was appointed to by Biden.

"And yet, I have asked myself many times over the last eight months: what is the point of having power if you will not use it to stop crimes against humanity?"

Call, who spent her life in Jewish communities in the US and Israel, criticized the collective punishment of Palestinians through displacement, starvation and ethnic cleansing since a cross-border attack on Israel last October by the Palestinian group Hamas.

She also wrote that Israel's ongoing assaults on Palestinians fail to increase the safety of Jews in both Israel and the US, noting that Israel's breaches of international law are only possible due to the "support and weapons" provided by the US.

She asserted that the US has long enabled "Israeli war crimes and the status quo of apartheid and occupation," highlighting that Biden has the power to call for lasting peace.

"The President has the power to call for a lasting cease-fire, to stop sending weapons to Israel, and to condition aid. The US has used nearly no leverage throughout the last eight months to hold Israel accountable," she said.

Call also noted that many of her colleagues in the Interior Department personally support her, saying that she urged everyone to stand up for Palestinians.

Earlier this week, US Army officer Harrison Mann also resigned from the military and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) due to the US's "unconditional" support for Israel's war on Gaza, which he said enabled "the killing and starvation of innocent Palestinians."

Mann, who served in the military for 13 years and came from a European Jewish family, expressed deep "shame and guilt" over his connection to these events.

Additionally, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old in the US Air Force, set himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Feb. 24, declaring he would "no longer participate in genocide."

State Department officials Josh Paul and Annelle Sheline also resigned in protest of the Biden administration's Gaza policy.

*Writing by Gizem Nisa Cebi