Leaders from the Palestinian American, Arab American, and Muslim communities rejected an invitation to meet with several top-ranking White House officials in Chicago on Thursday.
The community leaders expressed their stand in a letter with nearly 50 signatories published on the Council on American-Islamic Relations website. “There is no point in more meetings. The White House already knows the position of the aforementioned groups and our allies across the nation,” the leaders wrote.
“They know because we have made it abundantly clear, including in prior meetings with the White House, but also in press statements, letters to our elected leaders, media interviews, and enormous street action within earshot of the Oval Office,” the letter said.
The refusal follows a series of meeting rejections by Arab and Muslim groups across the country. Citing frustration over the Gaza war, which has resulted in over 30,000 Palestinian deaths since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, these groups declined participation in several key meetings, including a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and another with President Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
The Biden government’s support for Israel is seeing Arab and Muslim Americans and progressives abandon their support for Biden in droves. The Democratic primary in Michigan saw the anti-Biden “uncommitted” protest vote take 13 percent overall and beat the incumbent president in Wayne County, home to America’s largest Arab population.
“With a genocide that has flattened Gaza, forcibly displacing 85 percent of its residents, and claiming the lives of 31,000 people, 13,000 of whom are children, the White House has not only refused to call for a ceasefire, but also enabled this blatant campaign of ethnic cleansing to take place by providing financial and military means, as well as diplomatic support at the United Nations,” the letter reads. “A meeting of the minds is nowhere in sight.”
