The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said that former Biden administration officials who reportedly violated U.S. and international law when they “enabled and covered up” the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza should face criminal charges and an investigation by the International Criminal Court.
CAIR’s statement comes in response to revelations by two former U.S. officials that the Biden administration reportedly knew that Israeli forces were violating U.S. and international law, including by sending Palestinian human shields into Gaza tunnels potentially lined with explosives. The information was shared with the White House and analyzed by the intelligence community in the final weeks of former President Joe Biden’s administration, the officials said.
International law prohibits the use of civilians as shields during military activity.
Earlier this month, HuffPost also reported that President Biden “personally considered new American intelligence about Israel’s devastating offensive in Gaza that prompted concerns that American and Israeli officials were violating U.S. and international law – then rejected suggestions from advisers to reduce American involvement in the war.”
SEE: US intel revealed Israeli officials discussing use of human shields in Gaza, sources say
In a statement, CAIR Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said:
“These revelations show that the Biden administration privately knew what it publicly denied: the Israeli government was flouting U.S. and international law by committing war crimes with American weapons. Whether through the Justice Department or the International Criminal Court, President Biden, Jake Sullivan, Brett McGurk, Tony Blinken and other who enabled and covered up the Israeli government’s genocidal crimes should be held accountable for violating federal law, flouting international law and lying to the American people.”
CAIR previously called for the application of the Leahy Law on Israel after a report by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General that found “many hundreds” of possible human rights violations by Israeli military units in Gaza.
CAIR also welcomed a New York Times exposé of the Biden administration’s cover-up of the 2022 murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
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