“Unacceptable”: White House Cancels Event as Biden Struggles on Gaza

The White House has canceled its yearly iftar banquet, a tradition where the president hosts Muslims in government, community leaders from across the country, and members of the diplomatic corps to break their daily Ramadan fast with an evening meal. And President Biden’s Gaza war policy appears to be why.

The White House decided Tuesday to cancel the meal, Al Jazeera English reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The move came after many Muslim community members declined invitations and warned leaders not to attend in protest of Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

“The American Muslim community said very early on that it would be completely unacceptable for us to break bread with the very same White House that is enabling the Israeli government to starve and slaughter the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told Al Jazeera.

On Monday, CNN reported that the White House would be hosting a scaled-back iftar dinner the next day, but hours later, the White House announced that there would only be a smaller meal for Muslim government staffers, with a separate meeting for Muslim community leaders.

Even that meeting with the president didn’t go as planned, when a Palestinian American doctor walked out in protest.

“I said it was disappointing I’m the only Palestinian here, and out of respect for my community, I’m going to leave,” Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an emergency physician from Chicago who traveled to Gaza earlier this year, told CNN. That meeting also included national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as other administration officials.

The cancellation comes on the heels of better than expected results for a protest vote in Wisconsin’s Democratic presidential primary elections Tuesday. Voters who selected an “uninstructed” option on their ballot instead of voting for Biden or Representative Dean Phillips (who has suspended his campaign) currently make up 8 percent of the results, or just over 48,000 votes, exceeding organizers’ goal of at least 20,000 votes, which was Biden’s margin of victory over Donald Trump in 2020.

Wisconsin’s results follow similar efforts in states across the country, which began with Michigan’s “uncommitted” movement, spearheaded by the state’s Arab and Muslim American communities. The results on Super Tuesday in March shattered expectations in the swing state, also exceeding Biden’s 2020 margin of victory.

Biden’s support from the Muslim community has sharply declined since the start of the Israeli offensive against Palestinians in Gaza in October. Since then, his disaffected Muslim supporters have demanded he call for a cease-fire in the war before they agree to support his 2024 campaign.

But recent news of Israel’s bombing of an aid convoy in the territory, as well as fresh U.S. shipments of fighter jets and bombs to Israel are not likely to help matters. As Michael Tomasky wrote for The New Republic in February, the president needs to change his Israel policy, and fast.