Letter to President Biden on extending the truce in Gaza

November 26, 2023

President Joe Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

RE: Extending the truce in Gaza

Dear Mr. President:

We strongly urge you to employ the maximum influence of the United States to convince Israel to extend its four-day truce in Gaza indefinitely—at least until all hostages and all thousands of Palestinians imprisoned without due process are released. The famed Christmas truce of World War I would have saved countless lives if extended.

You would not be favoring Hamas. You would be favoring life over the death of innocent civilians. Israel’s virtually impermeable blockade of Gaza would deny Hamas weapons or other instruments of war during any extension, to be followed by serious negotiations for a two-state solution.

The humanitarian urgency is obvious. At present, the death toll in Gaza exceeds at least 15,000. An additional 7,000 are missing. An estimated 3,000 children lie under the rubble. An unknown number of Palestinians have died prematurely because of Israel’s draconian siege: no water, no food, no medicine, no health care, no shelter, no fuel, no electricity, no anything.

In two months, 10,000 women and children in Gaza have been killed by Israel, a number exceeding the corresponding toll in Ukraine at the hands of Russia after nearly two years of war according to The New York Times (November 26, 2023).

Russian President Vladimir Putin is subject to an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for the war crime of unlawful transfer of population (children).

A failure to extend the truce would be an earmark of your weakness—a display of subservience to the Israeli government. It would also embolden Israel to continue its scorn for the laws of war.

Reflect upon Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Sincerely,

Bruce Fein Esq.

Ralph Nader Esq.