Lawsuits, protests call on U.S. gov't to halt support for Israel

SACRAMENTO, the United States, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government has been facing increasing protests across the country calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and some groups are even seeking legal challenges to force the White House to withdraw support for Israel.

U.S. President Joe Biden has been criticized for "repeatedly" refusing to push for a ceasefire in Gaza and his administration's Gaza strategy accused of being "illogical."

"That approach is illogical on both the domestic and international fronts, not to mention the security risks that come with it," wrote Wa'el Alzayat, a former Middle East policy expert with the U.S. Department of State, in an article titled "Biden's Gaza Strategy Is an Illogical Disaster" published by Time magazine on Monday.

He said those risks were made apparent by Sunday's attack on U.S. troops near the border between Jordan and Syria, which left three U.S. servicemen dead and 34 others injured.

"Now, with Sunday's attack that was claimed by Islamic Resistance, a coalition of Iranian-backed groups that oppose Washington's support for Israel's war on Gaza, the risk of escalation has only grown," Alzayat wrote in the article.

More than 26,000 Palestinians, mostly women and minors, have been killed in the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Over the past few weeks, Biden, on a series of presidential election campaign rallies, has been increasingly interrupted by protesters, who said they were upset about the White House's support for Israel in its offensive in Gaza.

A campaign rally focused on abortion rights was interrupted 13 times on Jan. 23, with one protester shouting "Genocide Joe" and another calling for a "ceasefire now," the NBC News reported.

In November, an NBC News poll found that 34 percent of registered voters approved of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, with 56 percent disapproving. The numbers were worse among voters under age 35, with about 70 percent disapproving of Biden's handling of the war.

The latest protest took place on Friday in Oakland, California, where a crowd gathered around the federal courthouse to show support for a lawsuit against the U.S. administration, and urge action to stop the war.

The lawsuit was filed by Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in November 2023 against Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, charging them with complicity and failure to prevent the "unfolding genocide" in the occupied strip.

Friday's four-hour hearing for the case commenced hours after the International Court of Justice in The Hague found it plausible that Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa.

During the testimony, plaintiffs told the stories of their loved ones being killed in Gaza, expressing their grief and outrage to the federal judge.

The judge will determine whether the judicial branch can condemn or block the president from providing aid to Israel.

A Justice Department attorney argued that the plaintiffs' claims were "political questions" and that a judicial finding against U.S. foreign policy could cause "international embarrassment" and undermine the foreign policy stance.

Josh Paul, a former senior State Department official who resigned over the Biden administration's support for the war on Gaza, filed a declaration in support of the CCR case on Friday morning.

"Since October 7th, we've seen a sharp increase in the transfer of arms to Israel both through the speeding up of previously authorized transfers and through the ramming through Congress of so-called emergency sales of thousands of rounds of tanks, ammunition, and alternative shells," he wrote.

The lawsuit in California also garnered significant international attention, with 77 legal and civil society groups from around the world backing it in a late December briefing to the court.

These groups argued that the United States is violating its duties under international law to prevent and not be complicit in genocide, contributing to the erosion of "long and widely-held norms of international law," such as the Genocide Convention and Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The case is just one of a number of legal actions ongoing in the United States challenging the White House's support for the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

In another lawsuit, Palestinian Americans have accused the U.S. administration of failing to protect U.S. citizens in Gaza and denying them equal protection, a constitutional right.