“The group left without one thing that it had come for: a promise from Biden to call for a permanent ceasefire” – New York Times
An invited group of prominent Muslim Americans to the White House have expressed their concerns to US President Joe Biden about the dehumanization of their community.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that, just weeks after Israel’s war on Gaza began, Biden met with the group to discuss Islamophobia in America.
According to the report, “they told him that his embrace of Israel after the events of October 7 was seen as permission for Israel’s bombing in Gaza”.
The group raised concerns about the president’s statement casting doubt on the death toll among Palestinians as well as the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Muslim child in the Chicago-area, reportedly saying it was just “one devastating result of the dehumanization” they are facing.
“He recognized there may have been missteps on the rhetoric,” Wa’el Alzayat, the chief executive of Emgage, a group that mobilizes Muslim voters, who attended the meeting on October 26, is quoted as saying.
The report further mentions Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, who was also at the meeting, as saying that the war had increased risks for Americans, as well.
Muslim community leaders told President Biden that the suffering of innocent Gazans trying to survive in extremely difficult circumstances has actually increased the likelihood of Islamophobic attacks in the United States,” Ellison reportedly said.
The report adds that “the group left without one thing that it had come for: a promise from Biden to call for a permanent cease-fire.”
The NY Times report further states that for many in the Arab community, Biden’s words and actions after October 7 made them “feel like an afterthought in the war.”
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did not rule out the possibility of President Joe Biden sending aid to Israel with conditions during an interview with NBC.
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— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) November 26, 2023
“There’s this sense that the trauma of one people counts more than the trauma of another,” said James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, which has been polling the community for 27 years.
“It’s like there are two intolerables, and they’ve decided which one they’re going to accept,” he reportedly said.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the death toll of Israel’s war has risen to over 15,000 Palestinians, including over 6,150 children and more than 4,000 women.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
Biden is embracing Herzog who says: “there is no innocent Gazan.” What about the babies who did see the day light?