(WASHINGTON, D.C., July 29, 2024) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today criticized the White House National Security Council’s weekend statement on the killing of 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights for failing to equally condemn the Saturday Israeli missile attack that killed at least 30 Palestinians, including 15 children and eight women, at a girls’ school in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, where 4,000 injured and displaced Palestinians were seeking refuge.
Additionally, CAIR condemned the National Security Council’s statement for referring to Israel’s illegally occupied Syrian territory in the Golan Heights as “northern Israel.”
In a statement, CAIR Director of Government Affairs Department Robert S. McCaw said:
“By only condemning the killing of children on a playground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, while completely ignoring the latest killing of Palestinian children at a refugee school in Gaza, the White House National Security Council once again highlighted its longstanding selective valuation of human life. Killing children is unacceptable, regardless of their identity and where they are killed.
“Furthermore, we condemn the NSC’s use of the term ‘northern Israel’ to describe the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, a designation that perpetuates the illegal policy of recognition established by the Trump administration. The Trump administration’s illegal position should not be affirmed but rather reversed.”
The Golan Heights is a Syrian territory that the Israeli military invaded and occupied during the Six-Day War in 1967, and subsequently illegally annexed in 1981. Under international law and UN Security Council resolutions, this land remains unlawfully occupied by Israel. Syria continues to assert its claim to the Golan Heights and demands its return.
In March 2019, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel – contradicting decades of U.S. foreign policy and peacemaking efforts. In June 2021, the Biden administration adopted this controversial stance, endorsing as U.S. policy President Trump’s illegal recognition of Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights. Despite this, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has indicated a possible openness to reassessing this policy in the future.
Israel has already slaughtered almost 40,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and displaced the vast majority of its population in a campaign of systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure.
Last week, CAIR demanded that the Biden administration address reports that American doctors who volunteered in Gaza experienced treating “incinerated” and “shredded” children, including children deliberately shot in the chest and head by Israeli snipers.
CAIR also called on the Biden administration to address reports that Israel is applying a racist policy to block American physicians with Palestinian heritage from entering Gaza.
On Thursday, CAIR condemned lawmakers who applauded Netanyahu’s “racist, delusional, genocidal” address to Congress.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@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