A Jewish-American political appointee who worked as a United States Interior Department staffer, has publicly resigned from her post, in protest against the Joe Biden administration’s funding and fuelling of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Lily Greenberg Call, the special assistant to the chief of staff at the interior ministry, submitted a four-page resignation letter to Secretary of Interior Debra Haaland on Wednesday afternoon.
In her letter, Call said she could not ‘in good conscience continue to represent’ the administration amidst ‘President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza’, accusing Biden of using Jewish people to justify US policy in the conflict.
‘He is making Jews the face of the American war machine. And that is so deeply wrong,’ she said, adding that Israel’s offensive against Palestinians does not ensure the safety of Jewish people in either the Israeli-occupied territories or the United States.
‘Today, I became the first Jewish-American political appointee to resign from the Biden-Harris administration over its policies in Gaza. Here is my resignation letter: pic.twitter.com/oqzit7leVD,’ Lily Greenberg Call posted on her X account.
Call argued that the United States had enabled and legitimised ‘Israeli war crimes’ and ‘apartheid and occupation’, adding: ‘It’s time for us to stand up against what is happening to Palestinians in our name.’
‘The president has the power to call for a lasting cease-fire, to stop sending weapons to Israel, and to condition aid. The United States has used nearly no leverage throughout the last eight months to hold Israel accountable. Quite the opposite, we have enabled and legitimised Israel’s actions with vetoes of United Nations resolutions designed to hold Israel accountable. President Biden has the blood of innocent people on his hands,’ she continued.
She expressed concerns about the war and US support, stating that there are individuals within the US administration who believe it could have disastrous consequences for the Americans and the president’s re-election chances.
The first to resign in the Biden administration in protest against blind US support of Israel was Josh Paul, former director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and after that a string of resignations began.
Call’s resignation is noteworthy due to her active participation in both President Biden and Vice President Camille Harris’ campaigns, along with her emphasis on her Jewish heritage upon stepping down.
Back in January, a top adviser at the US Education Department resigned over Gaza war, becoming the second official to do so amid divisions in the administration over US support for Israel’s bombardment in Gaza.
Tariq Habash, who was the department’s only Palestinian-American political appointee, announced that he could no longer serve an administration that had ‘put millions of innocent lives in danger’.
Earlier this week, Major Harrison Mann, a US military intelligence official, also announced his resignation due to the ‘nearly unqualified support’ that Washington has provided for Israel’s war in Gaza and the harm inflicted on Palestinians there.
Israel has killed more than 35,170 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza since October, when it waged a brutal war against the Gaza Strip.
The US, as Israel’s main ally, has been backing the regime, providing it with munitions and even political support in defiance of calls for an end to the military aggression.
Call’s resignation coincided with the 76th anniversary of the ‘Nakba’ or Catastrophe.
The Nakba refers to the displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948 during the illegal establishment of the present-day Israel.
Palestinians are still enduring the repercussions of this catastrophe to this day.
- Meanwhile, a court in Germany has overturned a Europe-wide travel ban imposed by German authorities on Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, the British-Palestinian surgeon who spent weeks saving lives in Gaza at the beginning of Israel’s ongoing genocide.
In recent weeks, Abu Sitta has been barred from entering France and the Netherlands in order to speak about the Israeli war crimes he witnessed during his 43 days working as a doctor under Israel’s savage and indiscriminate bombardment.
Both countries are part of a common visa regime with Germany known as the Schengen area.
Encompassing most European Union states, the Schengen area also includes several non-EU countries such as supposedly neutral Switzerland. There are no border controls within the Schengen area.
The draconian German ban constituted ‘a serious breach of freedom of movement and expression in Europe and now a judge has ruled that the travel ban should be overturned,’ said the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) and European Legal Support Centre (ELSC), which assisted in the case.
‘This is a significant victory for freedom of speech and a significant turning point in challenging the chilling environment that many Palestinian human rights advocates have to operate in,’ the two civil rights groups added.
The ban on Abu Sitta had also drawn criticism from Human Rights Watch, which asserted that the ‘attempts to prevent him from sharing his experience treating patients in Gaza risks undermining Germany’s commitment to protect and facilitate freedom of expression and assembly and to non-discrimination.’
The ban initially came to light when Abu Sitta attempted to enter Germany from the UK in April for a conference on Palestine in Berlin.
The conference got underway on the morning of 12 April, but was violently raided and shut down by German police within about an hour of its opening.
A day earlier, Abu Sitta was inaugurated as rector of the University of Glasgow, a position to which he was elected by students with 80 per cent of the vote and a record turnout.
According to German media, several other Palestinian participants faced actual or potential bans by Germany.
On the day of the conference, Stern revealed that: ‘the authorities issued entry bans against several of the planned speakers, according to information from Stern. Accordingly, the bans affect Salman Abu Sitta and Ghassan Abu Sitta.’
The report added that ‘Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian American journalist, is currently being considered for an entry ban. Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian news site and a supporter of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign.’
However since neither Salman Abu Sitta, a noted Palestinian historian and Nakba survivor, nor this writer attempted to travel to Germany, it is unclear whether an entry ban was or is in force.
Germany also imposed an entry ban on Yanis Varoufakis, the left-wing politician and former finance minister of Greece who had also been due to address the Palestine conference in Berlin.
Even more shocking, Berlin banned Varoufakis, an EU citizen, from conducting any political activity in the country, potentially blocking him from campaigning for his Europe-wide MERA25 party in European Parliament elections set for next month.
According to Varoufakis, German authorities have cited ‘national security’ as a reason for refusing to provide his lawyers with an explanation of the scope or legal authority for the ban.
Varoufakis is suing the German government to overturn the ban.
Germany has in recent months escalated its repression against Palestinians and their supporters as it continues to back Israel’s genocide in Gaza, even criminalising the use of the phrase ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ – a call to end Israel’s German-backed and German-armed system of occupation, settler-colonialism, apartheid and genocide that affects Palestinians in every part of their historic homeland.
For its support of the ongoing genocide, Germany is also the subject of an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice brought by Nicaragua.