November 11, 2024
President Joe Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
The November 13, 2024, deadline set by Secretary of State Antony Blinken
and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in an October 13, 2024, letter to
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to comply with international
and United States humanitarian law, including the Foreign Assistance Act
of 1961 and NCM-20, is at hand. The letter implied that restrictions on
arms transfers would follow if Mr. Netanyahu declined to relent from
his genocidal siege and destruction of Gaza—no food, no water, no
medicine, no power, no place to hide.
The Prime Minister has sneered at the letter. Mass starvation and death
stalk Gaza. Humanitarian aid has receded to a trickle. North Gaza is
off-limits to Palestinians. More than 90 percent of Palestinians in Gaza
have been displaced multiple times. Donald Trump’s presidential victory
on November 5 will embolden Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop at
nothing, including annexation of the West Bank and part of southern
Lebanon, reoccupying Gaza, and attacking Syria, Iran, and Yemen with
more than $18 billion in weapons supplied by your administration.
1. Are you going to hand your lame-duck administration over to Trump and
Netanyahu and wash your hands to become the Pontius Pilate of the
United States aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity,
and genocide? It is astonishing that you have not taken umbrage at
Netanyahu’s repeated, brazen lies. It is astonishing that you have
flouted six United States laws in unconditionally supporting Israel
without remorse: the Arms Export Control Act, the Foreign Assistance Act
of 1961, the Glenn Amendment, the War Crimes Act, the Defense
Department Leahy Amendment, and NCM-20. The United States has become the
IG Farben of World War II in supplying weapons to Israel knowing they
would be used to commit violent crimes under international law.
You have a choice to leave the White House like President James
Buchanan, as the Civil War impended, under a cloud of humiliating
submission to Netanyahu or leave with a semblance of moral dignity by
fearlessly sanctioning his genocidal killings of Palestinian civilians
and annihilation of Gaza, i.e., terminating military assistance to
Israel on November 13, 2024. You should further insist that Netanyahu
end his ban on U.S. journalists independently reporting from Gaza,
echoing a full-page ad in
The Washington Post in July by 75
media organizations and members of the media. The American people
deserve to know how Israel is using their tax dollars and weapons.
2. Also, support a resolution in the United Nations Security Council
ordering an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon to stop the shocking
slaughter of babies, children, women, and entire families with United
States weapons supplied to Israel.
3. Direct Netanyahu to authorize the airlifting of seriously burned,
limbless Palestinian children for specialized treatment in U.S.
hospitals.
4. Publicly condemn the killings of American citizens in Gaza, the West
Bank, and Lebanon by the IDF. Over 80,000 American citizens reside in
Lebanon.
5. Demand an immediate hostage exchange of Palestinians imprisoned
without charges for Israelis in Gaza taken hostage on October 7.
The United States holds additional levers to end the hecatombs in the
Middle East that a growing majority of Americans support using. Invoke
them now. Require President Trump to pay a stiff political price if he
repudiates them.
You have a fateful choice. Slink out of the White House on January 20,
2025, having participated in the extermination of Palestinians that
exceed all the combined World War II fatalities in Dresden, Tokyo,
Hiroshima, and Nagasaki and be execrated by history. Or redeem yourself
in part by using your last days in the White House to stop the
escalating horrors in the Middle East including a possible invasion of
Iran with a risk of nuclear weapons.
Sincerely,
![]()
Bruce Fein, Esq.
![]()
Ralph Nader, Esq.