Third Biden appointee resigns to protest support for Israel, after 5 months on job

A low-level Muslim-American staffer in the US Department of the Interior has become the third political appointee to resign in protest of the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas.

“I cannot continue working for an administration that ignores the voices of its diverse staff by continuing to fund and enable Israel’s genocide of Palestinians,” Maryam Hassanein writes in an open resignation letter.

Nearly one dozen government officials have resigned in protest of the administration’s policy, though Hassanein, 24, is the youngest. She joined the administration as special assistant to the assistant secretary for land and minerals management in February, well after others had already resigned their positions in protest of Biden’s well-known support for Israel.

The resignations have largely been of lower-level staffers with no influence on the administration’s policy toward Israel.

“I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice,” Hassanein writes in her resignation letter. “However, over the past nine months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, this administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians.”