Roving Periscope: Only Muslim WH staffers attend US President Biden’s iftar party!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With most American Muslim and Arab leaders, protesting the US’s continued support to Israel over the six-month-long ongoing war in Gaza, rejecting President Joe Biden’s Tuesday iftar party in the White House, the incumbent scaled down the event which only his Muslim staff members attended!
Following the boycott by Muslim leaders and Arab diplomats, the White House held a scaled-down version of the annual dinner for a select group of Muslim staff members, the media reported.
The boycott came soon after reports that the US was preparing a fresh USD 18 billion aid package for Israel.
Muslims worldwide fast from dawn to dusk during the month of Ramzan, and break their fast in the evening with iftar, a special meal.
This time, the Muslim leaders expressed shame over attending the iftar event at the White House, citing the ongoing hunger crisis hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are facing because of the Israeli army’s actions.
“It’s inappropriate to do such a celebration while there’s a famine going on in Gaza”, Wa’el Alzayat, who leads Emgage, a Muslim advocacy organization, was quoted as saying.
Smarting under a boycott by Muslim leaders and Arab diplomats, the White House was forced to scale down the event. The Muslim leaders said they “would not accept breaking bread with the very same White House that is enabling the Israeli government to starve and slaughter the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Deputy Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was quoted as saying.
Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who had volunteered at Al-Nasser Hospital in Gaza earlier this year, walked out of a meeting before it ended. Before leaving, he gave President Biden a letter from an eight-year-old orphaned girl, Hadeel, living in Rafah, begging him to stop Israel from invading Rafah, where most of the 2.3 million Gazans are currently packed in cramped relief camps.
Activists from Arab and American backgrounds gathered in front of the White House to support the Palestinian cause during President Biden’s Ramzan iftar party and raised slogans demanding the siege on Gaza be lifted.
The first Iftar in the White House was hosted by then-President Thomas Jefferson, a founding father of the United States, on December 9, 1805.
However, the iftar ceremony was not regularly held annually until the Clinton era, and Trump did not organize one in his first term (2015-19).
The US is the biggest supporter of Israel in its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, supplying it with numerous weapons and ammunition through an air and sea bridge. Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed 32,975 Palestinians, while 1.8 million people are starving due to the blockade of Gaza.
