by MAHA HILAL
The depths of American state violence not only inflict harm on Muslims but also create a symbolic role to make it more palatable to its victims
On 8 July, Mazen Basrawi, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, announced the end of his tenure as the White House Liaison to American Muslim Communities.
Replacing him is Elvir Klempic, who most recently served as the White House Liaison for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The news of Basrawi’s departure came a little more than a year after he was appointed in April 2023, which was part of Biden’s fulfilled campaign promise to restore the position that former President Donald Trump had terminated.
At the time, Muslim organisations celebrated the announcement, calling it a step towards the government “building stronger relationships with the American Muslim community”.
However, rather than facilitate engagement with Muslims or make any substantive policy changes on issues that affect them, the liaison has thus far seemed only to parrot the positions of the administration. This is unsurprising, as the role itself was designed to undermine the Muslim community.
Like many US spokespersons and officials legitimising Israel’s genocide of Palestinians over the last nine months, Basrawi has regurgitated the official pro-Israel narrative while promoting superficial efforts to convince communities that Biden cares about them.
If there were any doubt that the new liaison would do anything more
than faithfully serve the current administration, the first email sent
from Klempic on 11 July was an announcement regarding the sanctioning of additional Israeli individuals and entities.
This is not the first time that the State Department has imposed sanctions on extremist settlers
over the past nine months of the genocide. Far from being a cause for
celebration, such measures do nothing to stop the ongoing violence
experienced by Palestinians, whether in the West Bank or Gaza.
Hollow statements
Last month, as millions of Muslims across the globe – many of whom live under oppressive state violence – marked Eid al-Adha, Biden issued a statement to mark the occasion.
The president acknowledged
that the holiday came “at a difficult time” for Muslims, but he failed
to mention Israel’s wanton slaughter of Palestinians or the direct role
his administration is playing in providing weapons, funding and diplomatic cover for it.
For several months, thousands of protesters have marched on cities and university campuses across the country, demanding an end to US complicity in genocide, only to face violent suppression and targeting by federal agents and police.
The current administration has remained defiant against these continued calls, including the growing campaign to “Abandon Biden” in the upcoming presidential election due to his hard-line support for Israel.
In his Eid statement, Biden employed the characteristic passive voice that has come to define western coverage of Israel’s war crimes – so much so that it has become its own genre on X. Palestinians just happened to be “suffering the horrors of war”, he lamented.
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