By Anisur Rahman

   
DHAKA, Nov 18, 2023 (BSS) – US President Joe Biden is exposed to rising pressures from his own administration to rein in Israel's military campaign causing growing casualties and desperate humanitarian conditions in Gaza, according to reports of major US and British media outlets.
   
"I'm stunned by the intensity (of pressures from within US administration),” BBC today quoted former US State Department official Aaron David Miller as saying while more than 500 US officials signed a letter protesting Biden’s Israel Policy.

   
Miller, who worked as an adviser on Arab-Israeli relations during 25-year tenure at the US State Department, added “I've never seen anything quite like this.”

   
Analysing the situation BBC commented Biden’s nearly unconditional support to carryon Israeli actions “stirred an extraordinary level of criticism from within his own administration” apart from external and international rage particularly from the Arab world.
 
 
The BBC analysis came three days after the Washington Post carried a report headlined “(US secretary of state) “Blinken confronts State Dept. dissent over Biden’s Gaza policy” as “in an all-department message circulated after Blinken returned over the weekend from a trip to the Mideast and Asia”.

   
“The top US diplomat (Antony Blinken) acknowledged that some diplomats have expressed reservations about the US backing for Israel as it presses an assault on Hamas that has had a heavy civilian death toll,” the Post reported.

   
The New York Times on the same day carried a report headlined “More Than 500 US Officials Sign Letter Protesting Biden’s Israel Policy” saying “the signers representing some 40 government agencies reflect growing internal dissent over the administration’s support of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza”.

   
BBC reported that several internal memos were sent to Blinken through a channel, established after the Vietnam War, which allows employees to register disapproval of policy.
   
An open letter is also said to be circulating at the Agency for International Development (USAID) while another was dispatched to the White House by political appointees and staff members representing dozens of government agencies.

    
Staffers on Capitol Hill sent another such letter to members of Congress.

   
“Much of this dissent is private, and the signatures are often anonymous out of concerns the protest might affect jobs, so the full scale of it is not clear. But according to leaks cited by multiple reports, hundreds of people have signed on to the wave of opposition,” BBC said.

   
An administration official has told the BBC that “these concerns are very real and there are active discussions about them”.

   
According to the Washington Post “moving to address dissent within the ranks of the State Department over the Biden administration’s policy on Israel and the war in Gaza” Blinken told the department employees on Monday that “we’re listening” to those who “disagree with approaches we are taking.”

   
The Post said it obtained a copy of the USAID employees’ letter, where more than 1,000 staff endorsed an open letter saying they were “alarmed and disheartened at the numerous violations of international law; laws which aim to protect civilians, medical and media personnel, as well as schools, hospitals, and places of worship”.

   
They urged the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war.

    
But Biden himself, on the same day, appeared to have presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that Hamas represented a continuing threat to Israel and that Israeli forces were seeking to avoid civilian casualties.

    
The US President, however, on Wednesday said he had made it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a two-state solution was the only answer to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and that occupying Gaza would be "a big mistake."

   
The development within the US administration came while a New York civil liberties group said it was suing Biden for allegedly failing in his duty under international and US laws to prevent Israel committing genocide in Gaza.

   
The Center for Constitutional Rights’ (CCR) complaint on behalf of several Palestinian groups and individuals alleges that Israel’s actions, including “mass killings”, the targeting of civilian infrastructure and forced expulsions, amount to genocide.

 
According to the Guardian the CCR said that the 1948 international convention against genocide required the US and other countries to use their power and influence to stop the killing.
   
According to western media outlets the letters of dissent which are softer in terms of language, are asking Biden to demand an immediate ceasefire, and push Israel much harder to allow for more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

   
“In some cases, the language is stronger, echoing the rhetoric of young political activists and apparently reflecting to some degree a generational divide that is more critical of Israel and sympathetic to Palestinians,” BBC wrote.

   
The letters, however, condemn as well the atrocities carried out by Hamas during its surprise 7 October attack that killed around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians.

   
Propelled by the destruction in Gaza and growing anger in the Arab world, the US administration's rhetoric on protecting civilians has become more insistent.

   
According to BBC Blinken and other senior officials were now treating humanitarian assistance as not only a moral imperative, but a strategic one too as US employees were frustrated in “listening sessions”.

   
The Washington Post wrote Blinken’s approach to the rising civilian toll evolved over the course of his most recent trip, as he urged Israel in increasingly stark terms to reduce the suffering of the people of Gaza.

   
“Far too many Palestinians have been killed. Far too many have suffered these past weeks, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them,” the US secretary of state told reporters in New Delhi, the final stop of his trip.

   
Former US diplomat Gina Kay Abercrombie-Winstanley said she believed the chorus of dismay has contributed to significant shifts in US language as well as the emphasis of its messaging, since the days immediately after the Hamas attack when Biden pledged unwavering support for Israel in an emotional address.

   
But it has not changed core policy approaches, nor appeared to have had significant influence on Israel's military campaign while Biden signaled this week that the US had not given Israel a deadline for its military campaign to end.

   
It will end when Hamas "no longer maintains the capacity to murder, abuse and just do horrific things" to Israel, the president said.

   
“The bottom line is that the US and Israel have the same goal, according to Aaron David Miller, the former adviser at the State Department.

   
Both want to destroy Hamas's capacity as a military organisation so it can never mount a 7 October-style attack again.

   
But the Washington Post said at least one of the dissent cables was filed early in the conflict, when the Biden administration was being forceful in its efforts with Israeli leaders to minimize civilian deaths.
   
   
“And at least one State Department official, Josh Paul, who worked in the bureau that arranges military aid to foreign governments, resigned because of disagreements over the administration’s policy,” the newspaper wrote.