Biden faces protest over his support for Israel during White House meeting
Chicago-area doctor Thaer Ahmad, who has treated patients in Gaza, walked out of a meeting of Muslim leaders Tuesday in protest of the administration’s continued support of Israel.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators call for a cease-fire in Gaza during a protest as part of the “People’s White House Ceasefire Now Iftar” outside the White House on Tuesday evening.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has faced protests over the conflict in Gaza all over the country, but this week he confronted one inside the White House itself.
The occasion was a private meeting on Tuesday where Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and national security leaders could hear from Muslim Americans about their concerns involving the war between Israel and Hamas.
Shortly after the conversation began, a Palestinian American doctor from Chicago named Thaer Ahmad who has volunteered in Gaza announced that he was walking out.
Dr. Thaer Ahmad treats a patient on a January visit to Gaza. On Tuesday, Ahmad handed President Joe Biden a letter from an orphaned 8-year-old girl in Rafah. Ahmad later walked out of the meeting. “I’m not going to yell at anybody. I’m not going to throw anything. I’m just going to walk out calmly,” Ahmad told himself before the meeting.
Provided
Before leaving, Ahmad presented Biden with a letter from an orphaned 8-year-old girl in Rafah, a city that Israel plans to target next. He included a photo.
Ahmad said Biden’s response to his protest was muted.
Biden’s support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza, including the sale of U.S. weapons, has angered Muslim Americans. The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis in a surprise attack.
Since then, roughly 33,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel. Biden has expressed concern about civilian casualties but has not cut off military assistance for Israel.
“There’s a change in the rhetoric,” Ahmad said. “But concrete actions, we have not seen a significant change.”
This week’s meeting was arranged by the White House instead of the more traditional celebratory dinner to mark the end of Ramadan. Several Muslim community leaders had refused invitations to break their fasts with the president, saying it would have been inappropriate at a time of famine in Gaza.
“We understand how this community is feeling in a deeply painful moment,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
She was circumspect when asked about Tuesday’s meeting, saying the conversation was private. Pressed on Biden’s reaction to Ahmad’s decision to walk out, she said the president “respects their freedom to peacefully protest.”
When Ahmad received the invitation to attend the White House meeting, he was under the impression that the meeting would be Biden’s first opportunity to talk with someone who had been on the ground in Gaza in the six months after the war started.
Jean-Pierre would not confirm whether that was the case.
As the meeting approached, Ahmad said he was troubled by a string of news stories about U.S. weapons sales to Israel.
”I was starting to question, what’s the purpose of the meeting? What difference am I going to make by being there?” he said.
Before going to the White House, Ahmad decided that he would walk out once the meeting started.
“I’m not going to yell at anybody. I’m not going to throw anything. I’m just going to walk out calmly,” Ahmad said. “And that’s what I did.”
Ahmad is planning another trip to Gaza at the end of the month.
The encampment at the Lincoln Park campus had been been in place since April 30. The action came after school officials said they had reached an impasse with the protesters.
Students and faculty walked out of class to gather at the pro-Palestinian encampment and call for divestment from companies doing business with Israel.
The cancellation of the end-of-school-year music festival comes days after the university said it has reached a stalemate in negotiations with organizers of a pro-Palestinian encampment.
On Tuesday, Chicago’s Jewish community celebrated Israel declaring its independence 76 years ago, on May 14, 1948. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered across the plaza. There were a few altercations, but no arrests were made.
The flags, along with signs and banners, had been placed on Deering Meadow, where a pro-Palestine encampment stood for five days before organizers reached an agreement with university administration.
The Israel-Hamas war is heightening fears of unrest, but convention leaders say they’re confident in their partnerships with Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and the U.S. Secret Service.
In a press conference at the school Thursday morning, students criticized university president Paul Alivisatos and shared their experiences when police began emptying the encampment early Tuesday.
Rafah has become the most recent focus of Israel’s military, which describes it as Hamas’ last holdout. Chicago-based Dr. John Kahler has seen conditions deteriorate as Gazan refugees fled south to the city.
En la madrugada del martes, agentes del campus rodearon el patio principal de la universidad y les impidieron la entrada a los estudiantes, según informaron desde el lugar de los hechos.
One protester said they were hit by an officer and taken to Thorek Memorial Hospital for treatment, according to a complaint filed with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Reality on the ground is different from what policymakers understand in war rooms, far from the constant sound of bombs and drones, a Chicago-area doctor who has volunteered in Gaza writes. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian American, walked out of a meeting with President Joe Biden about a month ago and is calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
After Oct. 7, chairs with the photos of hostages seized in Israel by Hamas were placed outside Am Shalom synagogue in Glencoe, waiting for the hostages’ release. “Our 248 chairs will stay up as long as they have to,” Am Shalom’s senior rabbi writes.
The group the People’s Art Institute accused law enforcement of yanking people’s hair, strangling them, and hitting people with batons and metal fences at the Saturday protest.
Around daybreak Tuesday, campus officers surrounded the university’s main quadrangle and kept students from entering, according to reports from the scene.
Según los informes, en el campus de Lincoln Park de DePaul los contra manifestantes intentaron enfrentarse a los manifestantes, pero los pro palestinos utilizaron tácticas de desescalada para mantener la paz. En todo el país se ha detenido a más de 2,500 manifestantes desde el 18 de abril.
The University of Chicago Faculty for Justice in Palestine on Monday reaffirmed support for the “peaceful, welcoming and educational space” students had created and called on school leadership to return to “good-faith” negotiations.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking says Israeli officials are examining the cease-fire proposal approved by Hamas. But the official warns that the plan “is not the framework Israel proposed.”
Counterprotesters at DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus reportedly tried to clash with pro-Palestinian protesters. Nationwide, more than 2,500 protesters have been arrested since April 18.
Police said the museum asked them to clear the encampment on Saturday, hours after organizers set up tents in the Art Institute’s North Garden which they said were intended to pressure the school regarding the “occupation of Palestine.”
On a mostly peaceful day, tensions briefly bubbled over when counter-protesters confronted the demonstrators at the university’s Edward Levi Hall. An altercation prompted campus police to respond.
Las protestas contra la guerra han invadido los campus universitarios en las últimas semanas. Los estudiantes apoyan a los palestinos en los ataques de Israel contra Gaza, denuncian lo que llaman censura por parte de sus universidades y piden a las instituciones que dejen de invertir en fabricantes de armas y empresas que apoyan a Israel.
Tensions were higher Tuesday when hundreds of New York police officers raided Columbia University and City College of New York while a group of counterprotesters attacked a student encampment at UCLA.
“I remember coming out of my apartment one day and spotting Chicago cops dragging young protesters out of one section of Lincoln Park and shoving them into trucks, while nearby poet Allen Ginsberg was chanting in a circle of peaceful protesters not far away from the radical Abby Hoffman,” remembers Dan Webb, who later became a U.S. attorney.
Anti-war protests have swept college campuses in recent weeks as students support Palestinians in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, decry what they call censorship from their universities and call on institutions to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies supporting Israel.
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