A dozen former Biden administration officials who resigned their posts to protest U.S. policy toward Gaza, Palestine and Israel have written an open letter calling on their former colleagues to amplify calls for peace. The 12 former U.S. government officials write, “This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives — it has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness.”
This week, Maryam Hassanein, special assistant at the U.S. Interior Department, became the 12th person to quit over Biden’s support for the Gaza assault. At 24 years old, she’s the youngest such resignee. In 2020, Hassanein cast her first-ever vote for president of the United States — for Joe Biden. She spoke to Democracy Now! on Tuesday.
Maryam Hassanein: “I resigned, ultimately, because I felt it necessary to advocate for Palestinians, who are, at the hands of Israel, undergoing a genocide. And with the U.S.'s kind of funding and backing and support of Israel, I felt that being in the executive branch, especially being a Biden-Harris appointee, made me complicit, made me associated with something that I most definitely don't want to be associated with.”
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