Politico reports:

A group of aides hired to reelect President Joe Biden is breaking with him on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

In a letter first shared with West Wing Playbook, 17 current Biden campaign staffers called directly on the president to push for a permanent ceasefire in the monthslong conflict.

“As your staff, we believe it is both a moral and electoral imperative for you to publicly call for a cessation of violence,” the staffers wrote in the letter, which was anonymously signed and posted on Medium. “Complicity in the death of over 20,000 Palestinians, 8,200 of whom are children, simply cannot be justified.”

The staffers also urged the president to end unconditional military aid to Israel and advocated for a deescalation in the region, including the release of hostages.

The letter is the latest example of internal rifts not just within the Democratic Party but within the Biden operation over how to approach the conflict. Since the fall, a flurry of protest letters — often written without names attached — have urged the president to support a ceasefire. In November, 500 political appointees and staff members from 40 government agencies anonymously signed one letter, while another letter included the names of over 500 alumni of Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. White House interns also sent a letter to the president and staffers on Capitol Hill have also sent similar letters to their bosses. Biden supporters have raised questions about the veracity of those numbers, noting that the anonymity makes it impossible to confirm. [Continue reading…]

A Biden administration official, who is a first generation Palestinian American, has just resigned in protest over the Gaza strategy of the Biden-Harris administration. Tariq Habash, now a former Department of Education special assistant, joins Joy Reid for his first interview since resigning late on Wednesday: