Education Department official Tariq Habash resigned from his place Wednesday with a letter stating that President Joe Biden has turned “a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives” in Gaza.
In a two-page letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Habash, who’s Palestinian American, outlined his causes for leaving.
“[T]he actions of the Biden-Harris Administration have put millions of innocent lives in danger, most immediately for the 2.3 million Palestinian civilians living in Gaza who remain under continuous assault and ethnic cleansing by the Israeli government. Therefore, I must resign,” he mentioned.
In the letter, Habash described himself as a descendent of Palestinian Christians who lived by means of the violent 1948 mass relocation effort to create the Israeli state.
“My grandparents, aunts, and uncles walked over 35 miles, from Yaffa to Lydda to eventually Ramallah, just to survive. For 75 years, my relatives have never been allowed to return to their familial homes,” he mentioned.
The U.S. has continued to provide Israel with assets to help its offensive within the tiny Gaza Strip for the reason that Oct. 7 assault by Hamas militants. Last month, Biden mentioned his dedication to Israel is “unshakeable,” whereas warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel is dropping international assist.
“Millions of Palestinians have faced decades of occupation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid, and the Biden Administration’s passive acceptance of this status quo is wholly out of line with democratic values,” Habash mentioned, including that U.S. army assist has led to the deaths of youngsters, journalists and medical professionals, “violat[ing] our moral obligation as stewards of our country’s tax dollars.”
He additionally criticized the Israeli authorities’s declare that it goals solely to destroy Hamas quite than all of Gaza. According to the Hamas-run well being authority in Gaza, greater than 22,000 individuals have been killed for the reason that present battle started.
In the letter, Habash additionally inspired the Education Department to guard college students’ proper to protest the warfare, noting how “alarming” the violence towards Palestinian and Muslim Americans has been as a result of battle.
Habash was appointed within the Biden administration’s first two weeks to assist lead the division’s Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, specializing in pupil mortgage debtors. He beforehand campaigned for the president.
He is the second prime official to give up over the U.S. dealing with of Israel’s warfare in Gaza. Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official, resigned in protest in October after greater than a decade spent working in a part of the division that handles weapons offers.
