Former Biden Officials Who Quit Over Gaza Urge 2028 Candidates Not to Hire Israel Enablers

A group of 12 people who resigned from Joe Biden's administration over its Gaza policy have released an open letter urging every 2028 presidential candidate not to hire former officials who, in their view, enabled what the United Nations and Holocaust scholars have concluded is a genocide in Gaza.

The signatories come from several parts of government, though most worked in the State Department, intelligence agencies and the military. The group includes both Arab Americans and Jewish Americans.

"The most basic level of accountability, the most minimal level of consequences, is to ensure that those who have wreaked so much harm from within the highest levels of our Government cannot return to it," the letter said. It argued that senior officials who ignored the facts, misled the public, suppressed internal dissent and backed material support for Israel should hold no influential post in a future administration, nor be welcomed at institutions that shape foreign policy or train future leaders.

The letter also asks contenders, who are expected to emerge in the coming months, to acknowledge US complicity in Israel's actions in Gaza and in wider abuses against Palestinians. It names arms, funding and diplomatic support, as well as the repression of debate at home and abroad. It does not single out Democrats, as criticism of the US-Israel relationship has spread into right-wing circles over the past year and a half, and polls show Israel's favourability in the United States at an all-time low.

The appeal comes as several prominent figures from the Biden era have conceded mistakes. Former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said last year that Israel had "without a doubt" committed war crimes, though he does not believe it is a genocide. Former national security advisor Jake Sullivan later said a vote in Congress to withhold weapons from Israel was "a totally credible position," after Israel abandoned the March 2025 ceasefire. Sullivan had earlier lobbied Democratic lawmakers against blocking arms transfers.

Earlier this month, former Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking in South Korea, acknowledged "horrific conduct" by Israel and said the administration had fallen short of its moral obligation to human rights and international law. "We should have acted sooner and more forcefully," she said.

The war began after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. More than 250,000 Palestinians have since been killed or injured, and Gaza lies in ruins. Biden pledged unconditional support for Israel and committed almost $30bn in separate bills approved by Congress, a figure no other backer of Israel approaches. His administration declined to use that leverage to secure a ceasefire, and the letter says one could have been enforced as early as May 2024.

In the end, according to Biden's own team, it was President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy who pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a deal that Qatari mediators say had been on the table for more than a year. Israel broke that ceasefire less than two months later. The Trump administration secured a formal agreement in October 2025 after backchannel contacts with Hamas, but Israel has since killed more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, including 19 children this month.

Bishara Bahbah, a former Democrat who became a Trump supporter and helped relay messages between envoy Steve Witkoff and Hamas officials in Qatar, told Middle East Eye this week that his efforts to keep the ceasefire a White House priority have been "rebuffed" in recent weeks.