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Exclusive: Concern over Biden's stance on Israel-Hamas war rattles high-profile campaign donors

WASHINGTON − President Joe Biden's reelection team touted the success of their celebrity-filled fundraiser in New York City last week to the tune of $26 million. But some former donors who served on his finance committee told USA TODAY they are withholding their dollars.

Two prominent donors said they skipped the March 28 fundraiser held at Radio City Music Hall − which was headlined by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton− in protest of Israel's war in the Gaza Strip.

One donor, who was also a high-level former official in the Obama administration and has helped raise north of $5 million for the party, described it as 'morally wrong' to join the campaign staff, donate or volunteer until the Biden administration changes course on its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The president and vice president feign sadness while continuing to supply Israel with weapons and money to carry out the indiscriminate murder of Palestinians," the donor, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely, told USA TODAY.

The influential Democrat, said there is enough time for those disturbed by the staggering humanitarian crisis in the Gaza to further pressure the president to shift course, including putting strict conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel when there are human rights violations.

Biden and Harris have "damaged American credibility" said the donor, who added that the killing of civilians in Gaza funded by "our tax dollars and weapons can't be normalized as merely the price of good things like universal health care, climate resilience or a strong economy."

Another donor, political activist and philanthropist, Amed Khan, quit Biden's Victory Fund National Finance Committee last fall over the president's handling of the Gaza war.

Khan, who has spoken out publicly before, told USA TODAY he knew the U.S. would overwhelmingly back Israel forcing his hand on the issue.

"I very quickly understood sometime in October that the United States would give Israel carte blanche, to conduct a war," Khan said in a phone interview Friday with USA TODAY from Egypt. "And so I don't want any part of that."

The reluctance shared by these Democratic givers and other ex-Obama staffers who served on Biden's 2020 election campaign, underscores how the grassroots Gaza cease-fire now movement, led largely by college-aged activists, has persuaded many within the party's ideological orbit. And while the Biden campaign continues to build its war chest at historic levels, what these donors expressed is part of a larger trend in the country. Slipping support for Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza threatens to unravel the Democratic coalition at a time when the president wants to coalesce the party.

Tory Gavito, co-founder of Way to Win, a national network of progressive-minded givers that has raked in more than $300 million since 2018, said she expects many donors who have Gaza at the forefront of their minds will continue to hold back support for the president's campaign.

"The war in Gaza is a humanitarian crisis and the continued capture of the hostages from Oct. 7, is an ongoing humanitarian crisis," she said.

"And leading up to the State of the Union address there were a number of activists and donors doing what they could to insist upon the Biden-Harris administration making some move to work towards peace in the region."