The national “Uncommitted” campaign said that President Biden’s halt of some U.S. weapons to Israel is a “step forward.”
The coalition, which grew out of the campaign in Michigan to push Biden toward a cease-fire in Gaza, said the president’s announcement presents progress.
“Biden’s announcement to halt American arms for Israel’s Rafah invasion marks a step forward, propelled by our growing anti-war movement,” Layla Elabed, spokesperson of the Uncommitted National Movement, said in a statement Thursday.
“But, as the Democratic Party has fractured over Israel’s atrocities in Gaza over the past several months, Biden’s actions will always speak louder than his words.”
The “Uncommitted National Movement” has been critical of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and has urged voters to cast “uncommitted” ballots in other state primaries.
The statement comes shortly after Biden said that he would halt some offensive weapons to Israel if it launched an invasion of Rafah.
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities — that deal with that problem,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an interview.
The U.S. reportedly paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week due to concerns about launching a full-scale assault on Rafah, a city in the south of Gaza where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering. The White House has signaled to Israel it is against the invasion of Rafah without a plan to safely evacuate civilians sheltering in the area.
Biden’s remarks Wednesday were met with rebuke from Republicans, including former President Trump, his presumptive rival in November.
The “Uncommitted National Movement” has also, again, called on the president to cut off weapons supplies to Israel.
“The war in Gaza has killed more Palestinian civilians at any point in history since Israel’s founding in 1948,” Elabed said in a Thursday statement. “As Biden has acknowledged that American weapons have killed many Palestinian civilians and as Israel has already begun its assault on Rafah, the President must end weapons aid for Netanyahu’s war now.”