WASHINGTON D.C. — The White House canceled an iftar dinner after Muslim American leaders declined the invite due to President Biden’s support for Israeli war on Gaza.
Due to the invitees’ rejection, the White House held a smaller dinner with a meeting on administration policy.
Wa’el Alzayat, leader of a Muslim Advocacy Organization Emgage, shared his thoughts in an Associated Press report.
“We’re just in a different world,” Alzayat said in the report. “It’s completely surreal. And it’s sad.”
While Alzayat attended the iftar dinner last Ramadan, he declined his invitation this year stating, “It’s inappropriate to do such a celebration while there’s a famine going on in Gaza.”
Alzayat was not the only one that declined the invite; several others also rejected it, so the White House changed its plans. Alzayat said that the White House instead wanted to host a meeting on administration policy. His rejection extended to this invite as well and he said he felt it would not be a meeting that yields a serious conversation regarding policy.
It’s inappropriate to do such a celebration while there’s a famine going on in Gaza.
— Wa’el Alzayat, on the White House Iftar.
“I don’t think the format will lend itself to a serious policy discussion,” he said.
There have been reports that due to the decline of Muslim support for Biden, Democrats worry this opens the door for his Republican predecessor to win the presidential election this year.
“There are real differences between the two,” Alzayat said. “But emotionally, there may be no differences for some folks. And that’s the danger.”
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “community leaders expressed the preference” of doing a “working group meeting”, which she said was a chance to “get feedback from them,” according to AP News.
“The president is going to continue his tradition of honoring the Muslim community during Ramadan,” Jean-Pierre said regarding the Iftar.
Various Muslim leaders, whom the White House did not name, did attend the Tuesday meeting that included Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, national security leaders and Muslim government officials.
A portion of a statement given to CBS News reads:
Biden and Harris “know this is a deeply painful moment for many in the Muslim and Arab communities. President Biden made clear that he mourns the loss of every innocent life in this conflict. The president also expressed his commitment to continue working to secure an immediate ceasefire as part of a deal to free the hostages and significantly increase humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
A Palestinian-American ER physician, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who works in Chicago and recently went to Gaza, also attended the meeting.
Ahmad spoke at the meeting and delivered a letter to Biden before walking out, according to CBS News. The letter was written by an 8-year-old girl, Hadeel, who lost both of her parents and is now sheltering in Rafah, a southern city in Gaza.
He also shared his disappointment with CNN, saying that he was the only Palestinian who received an invitation to the White House.
CBS News also reported that Democratic sources said “that a number of Arab Americans who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 were disappointed that they weren’t invited to the meeting and suspect they were excluded because of their recent social media posts about the president’s Israel-Hamas war policies.”
Dearborn Mayor Adullah Hammoud, who has attended the event previously, was also not offered an invite. Journalists were not allowed to cover the Iftar or the meeting, which has changed from previous events, according to reports.
While the White House Iftar was cancelled, an Iftar did occur on Tuesday night, just outside of the executive mansion. Activists assembled in Lafayette Park to break fast together while organizers distributed dates and customary Ramadan food, according to AP News.
A similar boycotting aim occurred during the primary election this year when Michigan, a swing state, saw more than 100,000 “uncommitted” votes by democratic voters displaying their collective dissent over Biden’s handling of the genocide in Gaza.
Since October 7, Israel has killed around 33,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The AP News reported “the Biden administration has continued to approve weapon sales to Israel even as the president urges Israeli leaders to be more careful about civilian deaths and encourages them to allow more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American–Islamic Relations, said he believed Muslim leaders should deny invitations to the White House, encouraging them to do so if they received one.
“Unless he calls for a cease-fire, there will be no meeting with him or his representatives,” he said in an AP report.
“I believe that the president is the only person in the world who can stop this,” Awad said. “He can pick up the phone and literally tell Benjamin Netanyahu, no more weapons, just stop it, and Benjamin Netanyahu will have no choice but to do so.”
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