She was appointed by Biden in February [Gaza casualties +30,000]. Today she resigns [Gaza casualties +193,000], thanks because Encampments across US
‘I credit the student movement [encampment] ... for helping me reach my decision’
February 9th, 2024, 5 months ago, Department of the Interior today announced the latest Biden - Harris administration appointees who will help advance the clean energy economy, steward America’s public lands and waters, pursue environmental justice, including Maryam Hassanein.
4 Years ago, 2020, Maryam Hassanein cast a ballot for Joe Biden in the first presidential election she was old enough to vote in because she felt he represented “hope” and a chance of “justice for Muslim Americans and for marginalized communities as a whole.” On Tuesday, Hassanein became the latest member of the Biden administration to publicly quit over the president’s policy in the Gaza war — and the youngest known resignee so far, at 24.
“I came to understand that even if the agency I’m working at is not producing foreign policy, serving in the administration in any capacity does essentially make you complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians,” Hassanein told HuffPost of her resignation from the Interior Department, which has not previously been publicly reported. She worked as a special assistant to the assistant secretary for land and minerals management.
She described quitting as a way “to leverage privilege” to make a statement against Biden’s support for Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which has killed close to 45,000 people but some analytical say 193,000, and displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s residents and plunged the region into a humanitarian crisis.
Hassanein joins a group of at least 12 resignees across the government who felt Biden’s approach made it impossible for them to continue serving under him.
List of resignation [apologize if wrong-forgot date]:
Anna Del Castillo [Deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget before her departure in April]
Alexander Smith
Stacy Gilbert
Hala Rharrit
Annelle Sheline
Tariq Habash
Army Maj. Harrison Mann
Lily Greenberg Call
Agnieszka Sykes
Riley Livermore [US Air Force engineer]
Sgt. Mohammed Abu Hashem, a Palestinian American.
But first ever, is Josh Paul Josh Paul
Many of them worked in national security positions. Frustration with the moral and strategic toll of Biden’s support for the Israeli offensive has been significant across government agencies, with some saying it has reached heights only comparable to outrage among U.S. officials over the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
Government officials have organized several protests and signed internal and public expressions of dissent.
Hassanein was one of hundreds of political appointees in the administration, which has put a major emphasis on diversity in its ranks. A Muslim American, she is the third known appointee to quit over Gaza following Lily Greenberg Call, a Jewish American appointee also formerly of the Interior Department, and Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American who worked at the Department of Education.
“Marginalized communities in our country have long been denied the justice they deserve. I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice,” Hassanein argued in a statement about her resignation. “Through their policy choices and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims, it has become clear to me that I do not have a place in this administration.”
Hassanein described experiencing a growing sense of disillusionment with Biden as he persisted with his policy of near-total support for Israel’s retaliatory war following the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
During the last election, she worked to build support for the then-Democratic presidential candidate among her family, “not one that votes every single election,” and her friends in Arizona — a state that was essential to Biden winning the presidency.
“I was very, very passionate,” Hassanein said, citing the experience of living through the openly anti-Muslim Donald Trump presidency.
She was working for Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) on Capitol Hill when the war began. As conditions in Gaza deteriorated, she believed the administration “would be moved to act” and put an end to the conflict. She joined Biden’s staff in January.
Yet she found “a huge culture of silence” among most of her fellow appointees and colleagues at the Interior Department about the war, in which she felt they were all implicated. She felt a “disconnect” between their work and the evidence of devastation in Gaza she was regularly seeing.
“Our very being here, especially as Biden-Harris appointees, makes us complicit as we allow things to continue running as normal when this genocide is anything but normal,” Hassanein said in her statement.
By the spring, she became involved in the student movement against the war, specifically the encampment at George Washington University in downtown Washington DC.
Being not much older than the students, Hassanein said she believed she “could understand them better.” She found motivation in watching them take risks with their safety and their education, amid a national backlash against the protests that in some instances included violent arrests of students and threats of denying them future employment.
“I saw these students, who have worked so hard for what they have had up until this point, willing to sacrifice their academic and personal careers for Palestinian liberation. And so, here I am, inspired by the students to also sacrifice what I have worked toward,” Hassanein said in her statement.
Hassanein also described her Muslim identity as significant in her decision. She put the U.S. role in Gaza in the context of a problematic broader American approach to the Muslim-majority world and the human rights of groups within it, particularly Palestinians.
“Instead of using U.S. leverage to stop the killing, President Biden has continued funding this violence, while fueling hate crimes against Palestinian Americans by repeating racist tropes and outright lies,” Hassanein wrote, in reference to multiple alleged hate crimes since Oct. 7. “Anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiments are embedded into our foreign policy and are inextricably linked with the grotesque disregard for Palestinian lives.”
Some prominent Arab and Muslim American activists in the Democratic Party have led an “uncommitted” movement to deny Biden the support of the community unless he changes course on Gaza. Saying she is still “grappling” with whether Biden could win her backing, Hassanein argued “doubling down” on support for Israel “is not going to help” with Muslim voters.
For all that Hassanein’s identity factored into her decision, she hopes her move has a broader resonance with her former colleagues experiencing what she called a “moral dilemma.”
“I really hope that this doesn’t get taken as, ‘Oh, this person and their background — obviously this person leaving has nothing to do with me.’ I think it has everything to do with everyone. I am really hoping even if the issue doesn’t hit close to home for [colleagues], they understand and recognize they have a role to play, as well as a responsibility to speak out against brutal violence.”
Biden’s policy on Gaza is “a failure and a threat to U.S. national security” that “dehumanizes both Palestinians and Jews” and should be immediately overhauled, 12 former U.S. government officials who quit their posts over Biden’s controversial approach argued in their first joint public statement.
The statement outlines steps that the former officials — four from the State Department, three from the military, one from the U.S. Agency for International Development and four from Biden’s political staff — recommend for a change in course. It suggests they will keep challenging the administration on public platforms, increasing pressure on Biden’s team to demonstrate progress in winding down the U.S.-backed Israeli offensive and addressing the humanitarian crisis it has created.
And it underscores how dissatisfaction with the administration’s Gaza policy, already widespread within the government, may continue to grow. The statement urges officials who remain in government to challenge their leaders “to not be complicit,” and its signatories include a previously unknown resignee: Anna Del Castillo, the first known White House official to leave the administration over Gaza. Del Castillo was a deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget before her departure in April.
“Each of us has sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as our nation celebrates its Independence Day, each of us are reminded that we resigned from government not to terminate that oath but to continue to abide by it; not to end our commitment to service, but to extend it,” the statement reads. “This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives — it has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness, with all the implications of that cycle, for generations to come. As a group of dedicated Americans in service of our country, we insist that there is another way.”
“Each of us has sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as our nation celebrates its Independence Day, each of us are reminded that we resigned from government not to terminate that oath but to continue to abide by it; not to end our commitment to service, but to extend it,” the statement reads. “This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives — it has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness, with all the implications of that cycle, for generations to come. As a group of dedicated Americans in service of our country, we insist that there is another way.”
The resignees want the Biden administration to refocus on the overall question of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They envision steps like applying U.S. laws that bar military aid for foreign forces responsible for human rights abuses — which the U.S., Israel’s top military supplier, has never done in the case of Israeli forces — and doing more to show that the U.S. supports Palestinian self-determination and opposes Israeli settlements in regions that would be a key to a future Palestinian state, specifically the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Simultaneously, the signatories seek greater safeguards to prevent future U.S. presidents from allowing what they see as damaging impunity for a foreign partner and making the U.S. complicit in possible war crimes, such as “killings and forced starvation” in Gaza.
“There is an urgent need for change in the organizational cultures and structures that have enabled the current U.S. approach,” their statement reads. “This includes the strengthening of oversight and accountability mechanisms within the Executive Branch, greater transparency regarding arms transfers and legal deliberations, an end to the silencing and sidelining of critical voices, and statutory change via the legislative process.”
Pegged to July 4 and released as Democrats question Biden’s capacity to lead, the statement is nonpartisan but presents a dark picture of his presidency and an impetus for radical change.
“Both our individual and common experiences demonstrate an Administration that has prioritized politics over just and fair policymaking; profit over national security; falsehoods over facts; directives over debate; ideology over experience, and special interest over the equal enforcement of the law,” the resignees wrote. “May we all have the moral courage to speak and push for a better world, for a better America.”
At least 12-13 days Jennifer Koonings, PMHNP, MS, MS, NYSAFE , one brilliant CODEPINK Alert CODEPINK’s Newsletter under Medea Benjamin, hunger strike outside White House in the wake US complicit Genocidal Gaza. This is [click link] her writing as member of CODEPINK Alert CODEPINK’s Newsletter. Jennifer is Certified Forensic Examiner for Adults and Children, really full knowledge about sexual assault, such as sexual assault by Israel to every Palestinian, like NYT reporting [photo uploaded].
We as Muslim prohibited to fasting at least 6 days for entire year [365, or 366 in leap year]. 2 Days Eid Fitr / Eid el-Fitr [1 Shawwal and 2 Shawwal / Syawal Syawwal], Day of Eid Adha / Eid el-Adha [10 Dzulhijjah / Dhul-Hijjah - today], and days of Tashriq [11th, 12th and 13th Dhul-Hijjah / Dzulhijjah, or in Gregorian Calendar 2024, the days of Tashriq means 17-19 June]. But doesn’t mean prohibited for ‘less eating or hunger strike.’ As sacrifice in DC at least 13 days by Jennifer Koonings just because her protest about Gaza, I keep ‘eating less’ not only for her but also for Palestine, at least until 19 June. And for June 20th, back again for nonmandatory fasting, normally 17-18 hours, as even Jennifer, with her gut, sacrifice herself for Gaza. Wisdom quote I hear since war [Israel - Gaza] nonstop ‘’...You can't make people care about a genocide happening right in front of their eyes. They either do immediately, or a chip is missing up there, and they never will.’
For solidarity, since she started to hunger strike, I put myself eat 1 very tiny plate/day for break the fasting and for entire day after, extreme fasting 16.5 hours [based on my location]. I’m still continued for hunger strike, because its very easy. In last 17 years, I already [minimum] 340 days / year to fasting [29 - 30 days for mandatory fasting for muslim, ramadan session, the rest is voluntary fasting / sunnah]. Photo Jennifer with ann Wright, retired retired US Army [like Leo M. Stolfi ] and also [Ann] retired State Department. Sometimes I’m fasting up to 22 hours / day because forgot to break my fasting.
Medea Benjamin Medea Benjamin Medea’s Substack and Jennifer Koonings
Medea Benjamin Medea Benjamin and Mary Ann Wright ann Wright
footage by CODEPINK Alert CODEPINK’s Newsletter, multiple nurses in DC, after humanitarian duty in Gaza.
Dem Operatives: [Best Hope] 'JOEVER' Biden Died Naturally, Immediately, Better, to 'Change the Horse'
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JUN 28
Please keep donating to [1] PCRF / Palestine Children’s Relief Fund or [2] Freedom Flotilla.
As PCRF pictures by Dr Rajha in Gaza, Ariana Grande - Butera, and CODEPINK Alert
Jennifer Koonings PMHNP, MS, MS, NYSAFE part of CODEPINK AlertJen
Unlike Israeli and pro zionist student [very easy] get a money [thanks for multiple billionaire], contrary, Palestinian very hard to get a money [like encampments across the world]. Link attached by CODEPINK Alert Jen Jennifer Koonings PMHNP, MS, MS, NYSAFE is Nagham, same healthcare worker like Jennifer but in Palestine. 4 Weeks ago is Nagham’s birthday. Link to donate. Nagham is still alive after Rafah bombing 3 weeks ago.
Link to help journalist Abdelrahman Alkahout, Reshare by CODEPINK Alert
Jen Jennifer Koonings, PMHNP, MS, MS, NYSAFE. Abdelrahman is still alive after Rafah bombing 3 weeks ago
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Yellow Flower, Jennifer Koonings in Betlehem [around 3pm local time West Bank, 5 weeks ago], nearly same exact result voting UNGA [11.17am NYC - Rockefeller Building of United Nations], 143 votes in favor, nine against, and 25 abstentions for Palestinian membership.
Footage by mine. Minutes before Jennifer
Jennifer Koonings literally singing also for foundation - charity movement Sing for Hope. How golden heart.
Love you, Jennifer Koonings PMHNP, MS, MS, NYSAFE. Dont know how deteriorated of you after Hunger Strike