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WASHINGTON – American Muslims outraged by President Joe Biden’s help of Israel say they won’t participate in White Home Ramadan and Eid celebrations this yr as they proceed to demand that the administration push for a direct cease-fire in Gaza.
Ought to an invite come, it is ‘extensively understood’ that American Muslim group leaders and organizations will decline, stated Robert McCaw, director of the Authorities Affairs Division on the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR.
‘This resolution is as a result of administration’s failure to deal with Muslim group calls for for a direct and everlasting cease-fire,’ McCaw instructed VOA. ‘And its refusal to cease supplying manufactured weapons to Israel, that are being utilized in a genocide towards our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza.’
Amid media stories that the administration is contemplating scaling again Ramadan occasions on the White Home, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated no celebration associated to the holy month has been introduced.
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‘We perceive that it’s a painful time for plenty of communities,’ she instructed VOA throughout her press briefing Monday. Senior White Home officers have met with members of the Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities ‘to speak about their views, to voice their issues, and we welcome that,’ she added.
The struggling of the Palestinian folks ‘can be entrance of thoughts for a lot of’ Muslims this Ramadan, President Joe Biden stated in an announcement marking the start of the month. ‘It’s entrance of thoughts for me.’
Since taking workplace, Biden has continued the decadeslong White Home custom of internet hosting Muslim group leaders that started with President Invoice Clinton in 1996. Each Republican and Democratic presidents have hosted iftar dinner throughout Ramadan or an Eid al Fitr reception to mark the top of fasting after the month.
However this yr, along with probably going through the embarrassment of an enormous boycott, the White Home would seemingly wish to keep away from scenes the place Biden is shouted at and heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters. A number of of them have disrupted his marketing campaign occasions across the nation.
Outrage over Gaza can also be affecting Nowruz, the Persian New Yr celebrated by diaspora teams of various ethnicity and non secular affiliation from nations past Iran, together with Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Nowruz this yr overlaps with Ramadan. And as an alternative of inviting a whole lot of individuals to a reception because the administration has executed previously, this weekend the White Home can be internet hosting a ‘Nowruz Open Home tour.’
‘I am unsure if the president himself would take part,’ stated Jawaid Kotwal, board member of the Afghan American Basis. ‘So it is method completely different. A watered-down, downgraded model of the everyday Nowruz celebrations that we had within the White Home.’
Kotwal instructed VOA that he personally declined the invitation however his group will ‘search for any avenue to proceed to have engagement with any occupant of the White Home.’
The White Home has not responded to requests for additional particulars on its Nowruz or Ramadan plans.
In his assertion marking Nowruz, Biden stated the conflict has ‘inflicted horrible struggling on the Palestinian folks,’ and vowed to ‘proceed to steer worldwide efforts to get extra humanitarian help to them.’
Clouded by controversy
This yr just isn’t the primary time Ramadan on the White Home is clouded with controversy. In his first yr in workplace, President Donald Trump, who campaigned on banning Muslims from getting into america and signed a number of government orders proscribing immigration from Muslim-majority nations, didn’t host a Ramadan occasion.
In 2018 and 2019, Trump welcomed diplomats from Muslim-majority nations to the White Home for iftar, however American Muslim organizations and lawmakers weren’t on the visitor listing. On the time, American Muslim teams stated they’d have declined had they been invited.
Some American Muslims boycotted Biden’s digital Eid celebrations in Might 2021 as hostilities escalated between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Greater than 260 Palestinians had been killed in that spherical of violence, in accordance with the United Nations.
That dying toll is a fraction of the greater than 31,000 Palestinians killed since Israel launched its navy marketing campaign in response to the Hamas October 7 assaults that took no less than 1,200 lives in Israel and greater than 240 folks hostage. The extent of anger felt now by American Muslims, Arabs and large swaths of Biden’s Democratic base can also be exponentially greater.
The group, together with those that work within the administration, would really feel ‘gaslit’ by a White Home Ramadan occasion this yr, stated Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American and former coverage adviser on the Division of Schooling who resigned in protest in January.
‘You may’t in a single hand attempt to present solidarity and understanding after which within the different hand provide an unrestricted quantity of weapons and navy funding to an extremist authorities that’s intent on the indiscriminate bombing and killing of civilians,’ Habash instructed VOA.
The White Home stated it has actively engaged with Arab and Muslim People for the reason that October 7 Hamas assault. Some locally have refused to satisfy with administration officers.
Begum Ersoz, Farhad Pouladi, Anita Powell and Sayed Aziz Rahman contributed to this report.
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