The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said a top Israeli official’s statement that land in the occupied West Bank will be annexed in the coming year is a direct result of the Biden administration’s complicity with the Gaza genocide, which empowered the far-right Netanyahu government to commit crimes against humanity with impunity.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements and has instructed his department to “prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty.” Smotrich, who has a supervisory role for illegal Israeli settlers, said he hoped the Trump administration would support the land grab.
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“This latest move to illegally seize Palestinian land and ethnically-cleanse the inhabitants is only being proposed because of the impunity the far-right Israel government believes it has based on the complicity of the Biden administration with its ongoing genocide in Gaza and the belief that similar complicity will continue with the next administration. Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs – and all other people of conscience – will long remember ‘genocide Joe’ as the leader who enabled Israel’s theft of their land, the destruction of their homes and the slaughter of their children.”
Yesterday, CAIR called on President Biden to “salvage what remains of his legacy” by upholding U.S. law, which requires the suspension of weapons transfers to the far-right Israeli government after Benjamin Netanyahu flouted Biden’s 30-day deadline to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza, where Palestinians in north Gaza have faced a total siege for weeks.
Israel has already killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.
The far-right Netanyahu government has systematically laid waste to residential areas and the civilian infrastructure in Gaza. Almost all Gaza civilians have been forcibly expelled from their homes and placed under a campaign of forced starvation.
Washington, D.C., based CAIR has repeatedly called on the Biden administration to stop Israel’s extermination campaign in northern Gaza.
END
CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com