US Muslim group declares Biden a ‘war criminal’ for continuing to send weapons to Israel

WASHINGTON

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the US, declared President Joe Biden a "war criminal" Wednesday over his decision to continue supplying arms to Israel despite its failure to meet a US-mandated deadline for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.

In a strongly worded statement, CAIR emphasized its view that Biden's actions equate to complicity in war crimes, saying "knowingly funding war crimes in violation of US and international law makes you a war criminal."

“We strongly condemn President Biden’s decision to continue illegally supplying the Israeli government with deadly weapons even after (Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu violated the 30-day deadline that the administration set for Israel to stop starving Gaza," it said.

In an Oct. 13 letter sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to their Israeli counterparts, the US urged Israel to improve Gaza's humanitarian conditions within 30 days or face consequences.

The letter outlined specific demands, including a requirement for a minimum of 350 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily and a directive to refrain from adopting a controversial law that would ban all activities of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Israel and the occupied territories.

Despite Israel’s failure to implement measures to ease Gaza's humanitarian crisis, the US State Department said Tuesday that it does not have a policy change to announce.

"We, at this time, have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law," it said.

Eight humanitarian aid organizations, including Anera and Oxfam, released a report Tuesday saying that Israel "not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza."