The day before a temporary truce in Gaza expired, 12 House Democrats called for a ceasefire in a letter to President Joe Biden. Within a few days, as Israel intensified its assault on Gaza, killing hundreds more Palestinians, the number of signatories dropped to 11.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, quietly removed her name from the December 1 letter. Her office did not respond to an inquiry about the stealth edit.
The letter, led by Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., thanks Biden for efforts to bring about the humanitarian pause and return of hostages, celebrating his administration for “the highest level of diplomacy and leadership in the pursuit of peace.”
The Democrats went on to ask the president to push for a lasting ceasefire. “We urge you to use your immense influence and the full power of your office to continue negotiations and extend the bilateral pause beyond tomorrow so that both sides can build towards a bilateral ceasefire and, ultimately, a two-state solution,” they wrote.
Amid public pressure for the U.S. government to negotiate an end to the war, 60 members of Congress are now calling for a ceasefire, a position with widespread public support, according to several polls. Most recently, on Tuesday, the left-leaning outfit Data for Progress released a poll showing 61 percent of voters in favor of a “permanent ceasefire,” including 76 percent of Democrats, 57 percent of independents, and a plurality of Republicans.
In a December 1 press release, Carter wrote that he led 11 members of Congress in sending the letter to Biden, according to an archived version of his website. The release listed 12 names, including Beatty, whose name also appears on a PDF version of the letter. Now, however, the statement on Carter’s website lists only 11 members. Beatty is not one of them.
Carter’s office confirmed to The Intercept that Beatty removed herself from the letter.
Beatty, a centrist Democrat, has remained mostly mum on the violence in Gaza over the last two months. On Twitter, her only statement came in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7, which she condemned while saying that the U.S. stands with Israel. In November, she joined a letter calling for humanitarian aid to Gaza, but has not independently released any statements on the war.
The ceasefire letter’s other signatories are Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.; Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss.; Nikema Williams, D-Ga.; Valerie P. Foushee, D-N.C.; Sanford D. Bishop, Jr., D-Ga.; Donald M. Payne, Jr., D-N.J.; André Carson, D-Ind.; Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas; Terri A. Sewell, D-Ala.; and Hank Johnson, Jr., D-Ga.
On Monday, an Alabama news site reported that Sewell’s communications director had “clarified” her position on the issue. Sewell supports a bilateral pause that would lead to a bilateral ceasefire — the position outlined in the letter — but “does not believe in a unilateral ceasefire on the part of Israel or calls for Israel to stop fighting Hamas without a bilateral deal,” according to the Alabama Political Reporter. Sewell’s spokesperson, Christopher Kosteva, reiterated to The Intercept that Sewell’s position is still in line with the letter to Biden.
As an increasing number of lawmakers have called for a ceasefire, some members of Congress have coupled the call with unmeetable conditions, as The Intercept previously reported. Others, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., refuse to call for a ceasefire, even while criticizing Israel’s unabated violence. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said during the weeklong truce that Israel should not resume bombing Gaza and called for the temporary ceasefire to be extended, but she has also left the door open to offensive Israeli operations other than bombing, leading advocacy groups to push her to clarify her position on a permanent ceasefire.
Since the end of the seven-day humanitarian pause, Israel has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, bringing the death toll since October 7 to 16,428. On Wednesday, Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres called for a ceasefire in a letter invoking Article 99 of the U.N. Charter — which allows the secretary general to bring an issue that threatens “international peace and security” to the U.N. Security Council for consideration. The article has historically rarely been used, and this is the first time Guterres invoked it since assuming his post in 2017. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza,” he wrote.
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