CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was wowed by a Palestinian American doctor’s planned walkout on President Biden during a meeting with Muslim leaders to commemorate the holy month of Ramadan.
The behind-closed-doors meeting took place as Biden faces growing criticism from the left for his support of Israel’s right to defend itself against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The meeting was followed by a scaled-down iftar dinner with Muslim administration staffers only to mark the end of the daily fast during Ramadan, according to ABC News.
“He will be joined by Vice President Harris, senior Muslim administration officials and senior members of his national security team,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the meeting.
“And to continue the White House tradition of honoring Ramadan, as he did just last month, after the meeting, we will host a small breaking of the fast, prayer and iftar with a number of senior Muslim administration officials,” KJP added.
Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an emergency room physician who spent three weeks volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, gave Biden a letter from an eight-year-old orphan pleading with the president to end hostilities and told Collins of his planned walkout.
A Palestinian-American doctor, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, walked out of the meeting with President Biden before it was over because “I wanted to let them know what it feels like for somebody to say something and then walk away from them and not hear them out, not hear their response.” pic.twitter.com/apqOTSxA4e
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 3, 2024
“We had shown up to this meeting really concerned about what was taking place in the Gaza Strip, and I’m glad that you mentioned that we were insisting that there not be any food there,” he said. “It made no sense for us to sort of break bread while talking about a famine taking place. We had shown up and the president and the vice president [and] the national security adviser are in the room, and there was very brief comments by the president saying he wants to hear from us and he wants to listen to us.”
“And so, I spoke first and I let him know that I am from a community that’s reeling. We are grieving, and our heart is broken for what’s been taking place over the last six months, and that the rhetoric that has been coming out of the Biden administration, that’s been coming out of the White House, it’s frustrated a lot of people, especially people who are Palestinian Americans, Muslim Americans, Arab Americans.
Ahmad then addressed his departure from the meeting.
“I was able to share that with the president and let him know that out of respect for my community, out of respect for all of the people who have suffered and who have been killed in the process, I need to walk out of the meeting, and I want to walk out with decision-makers and let them know what it feels like for somebody to say something and then walk away from them and not hear them out and not hear their response,” he said.
“Wow, I mean, what did– how did President Biden respond to that?” an impressed Collins asked.
“You know, there wasn’t a lot of response. He actually said that he understood, and I walked away,” the physician replied.
Ahmad said he was “the only Palestinian American in that room” and while acknowledging that other Palestinian-American leaders had declined invitations, he claimed there were others “who for whatever reason” were not invited.
“I’m a humanitarian physician. I go to the Gaza Strip, I’m a Palestinian American, but I am not an organizer,” he told Collins. “I’m not a leader of any local community. I’m not a part of any organization that I’m the president of. And so even me being selected to be invited to this place, it’s not really representative of the diverse community that makes up the Palestinian diaspora. It’s not representative of them.”
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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