WASHINGTON — President discreetly hosted a meeting on Thursday with a small group of Muslim leaders, as confirmed by four sources familiar with the gathering. This meeting comes in response to pressure from the Arab American community, who believe that Biden has not shown enough concern for the Palestinian civilian deaths and domestic threats arising from the Israel-Hamas war.
The White House did not announce or confirm the meeting in advance, in stark contrast to Biden’s meeting with Jewish leaders four days after the start of the war. During that event, Biden made televised remarks reaffirming his unwavering bond with Israel and the Jewish community.
One attendee of Thursday’s meeting expressed their desire for the White House to acknowledge and publicize the meeting, stating, “The optics don’t look good. We hope the White House moves forward with providing equal measures of transparency, inclusion, and respect.”
Despite the secrecy surrounding the meeting, some participants were willing to discuss it. Rami Nashashibi of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, a second attendee, held a news conference in Chicago on Friday to reveal details.
The meeting lasted about an hour, during which Biden privately engaged with the Muslim leaders. He welcomed their concerns and sought their opinions on policy and messaging matters, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
The guests urged Biden to call for a cease-fire in the war and expressed their reservations about his apparent lack of sympathy for civilian casualties and the discrimination faced by Muslim Americans. “It was a frank, candid, emotional discussion to drive home the point that we need to see better humanization of Palestinians and recognition of their loss,” said one attendee. “We raised concerns about intimidation and hate against our communities. The president really took that to heart and left the participants hopeful that he would address this.”
In addition to Nashashibi, the guests included Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress and now the attorney general of Minnesota; Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage, a group dedicated to educating and mobilizing Muslim voters; Suzanne Barakat, board chair of Our Three Winners, an organization working to combat prejudice against Muslims; and Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society.
This meeting takes place at a time when the White House is intensifying its outreach to Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim Americans nationwide and within the federal government.
While Biden initially expressed solidarity with Israel at the beginning of the war, he has adjusted his language over the past two weeks to show greater concern for the civilian casualties caused by Israel’s counterattack. He has advised Israeli leaders not to let their understandable anger over Hamas’ attacks affect the proportionality of their response.
In the meeting, Biden made it clear that his administration is working diligently to prevent further escalation, according to a participant.
However, many Arab-American leaders remain dissatisfied with Biden’s rhetoric, despite his increased emphasis on Israeli restraint. During a press conference, Biden was asked about the growing number of civilian deaths resulting from Israeli airstrikes. He responded, “I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging war.”
The Muslim leaders raised this comment as an example of hurtful language during their conversation with Biden, telling him that it was “very harmful and dehumanizing” and emphasizing the need for improvement. Biden clarified that he intended to question Hamas’ credibility in reporting civilian casualties.
A year before the presidential election, Muslim leaders are warning that Biden may face a backlash from voters regarding his handling of the war. The White House’s extensive outreach campaign could help alleviate the concerns of this crucial constituency, particularly in Michigan, a battleground state that Biden won in 2020.
“I’m not surprised the meeting happened,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “It’s the result of growing pressure on him [Biden] and anger that is growing nationwide against him because of his one-sided, unfair policy.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
