On Wednesday, an Interior Department Joe Biden appointee became the first Jewish political appointee to resign over the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, levying sharp criticisms of the administration she says is instrumentalizing Jewish identity in order to continue funding Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians.
Former special assistant to the Interior Department’s chief of staff Lily Greenberg Call wrote in a letter that she can no longer “continue to represent this administration amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” Including Call, at least five mid- to senior-level administrative staffers have resigned so far in protest of the U.S.’s involvement in Gaza.
Call said her Jewish background is what compels her to take a stand against the administration.
“My whole life has been spent in Jewish community in the U.S. and Israel,” Call wrote. “People in my community lost loved ones during Hamas’s attack on October 7th; beloveds killed, displaced, and taken as hostages. I am terrified by rising antisemitism around the world. And yet I am certain that the answer to this is not to collectively punish millions of innocent Palestinians through displacement, famine, and ethnic cleansing.”
“Israel’s ongoing offensive against Palestinians does not keep Jewish people safe — in Israel nor in the United States,” Call continued. “What I have learned from my Jewish tradition is that every life is precious. That we are obligated to stand up for those facing violence and oppression, and to question authority in the face of injustice.”
Call chose May 15 to resign in recognition of Nakba Day, the anniversary of Zionist forces violently pushing 750,000 Palestinians out of historic Palestine 76 years ago in order for settlers to establish the state of Israel. Palestinians have long argued that the Nakba, translated roughly to “catastrophe,” started earlier than 1948 and is still very much ongoing.
Shortly after she posted her resignation letter on X, Call’s account was banned. It now appears to be up again, but in a restricted manner.
Call said that Israel has committed numerous violations of international law in Gaza that were only possible because of the U.S.’s ongoing military support of Israel. Biden could end the genocide now, she noted, but has used “nearly no leverage” against Israel, opting instead to legitimize the slaughter.
In interviews about her resignation, Call added that she has been particularly disturbed by Biden’s remarks that Israel is the only thing keeping Jewish people safe across the world and that Palestinian fighters have an “ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people,” a remark that many have noted is virulently anti-Palestinian.
“He is making Jews the face of the American war machine. And that is so deeply wrong,” Call told The Associated Press.
Call’s resignation is also notable due to her previous affiliation with the U.S.’s most prolific pro-Israel lobbying group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In 2019, Call graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was the president of AIPAC affiliate group Bears for Israel, and she says she attended many AIPAC-sponsored school events growing up.
But she has since chosen to separate herself from AIPAC, writing in an op-ed for Teen Vogue in 2022 that the group only “contributes to the cycle of violence by demanding or benefiting from unconditional support for the Israeli government no matter the cost.”
“We must understand that Palestinian and Jewish safety are not mutually exclusive, but are in fact intertwined,” she wrote.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy