U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, foreground next to bannister, with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv on Nov. 30, 2023. (State Department, Chuck Kennedy)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, foreground next to bannister, with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv on Nov. 30, 2023. (State Department, Chuck Kennedy)
"The administration’s policy in Gaza is a failure and a threat to U.S. national security," said 12 ex-officials who resigned from the Biden administration over its support for Israel's war on Gaza.
Former Biden administration officials on Tuesday sharply criticized its Gaza policy, arguing that the continued supply of weapons to Israel is not only "morally reprehensible" but also a violation of U.S. and international law.
In a joint statement, 12 officials who've resigned in protest in the last nine months set forth a list of recommendations and urged their former colleagues in the administration to use American leverage to help bring an end to the assault on Gaza.
"The administration's policy in Gaza is a failure and a threat to U.S. national security," the statement says. "America's diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to, Israel has ensured our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza."
The other resignees & I issued a statement calling for a new policy
— Dr. Annelle Sheline (@AnnelleSheline) July 2, 2024
"This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives—it has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists.. while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people"
1https://t.co/PHShChrn1u pic.twitter.com/PI8L5pjcYj
The 12 signatories included former officials from a wide range of posts and backgrounds.
One was the the administration's latest defector: 24-year-old Interior Department special assistant Maryam Hassanein, who resigned on Tuesday, telling HuffPost that "serving in the administration in any capacity does essentially make you complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians."
Hassanein was the first Muslim American administration appointee to resign, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which applauded the resignation on social media. She said the administration was engaging in the "dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims."
Biden administration appointee, Maryam Hassanein, has resigned from her position in the Department of Interior, in protest of the US government's complicity in the Israeli genocide.
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) July 3, 2024
Hassanein is the third and youngest political appointee to resign from Biden's administration… pic.twitter.com/pdrBzwrMfr
Another signatory was Harrison Mann, the most senior military official to have left in protest of the Gaza war. Mann had been a major at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He made the news this week when he told The Guardian that Israel was seeking out a war with Lebanon for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political gain.
After a 13-year career in the military, Harrison Mann left his role at the Defense Intelligence Agency over the U.S.'s "nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel."
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) June 11, 2024
He advises others to also rethink and resist their potential contributions to violence in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Kb9yO1aPMt
Stacy Gilbert, a 20-year-old State Department veteran who resigned in May over a key report, dealing in part with whether Israel was blocking humanitarian aid to Gazans, that she says contained "patently false" findings, was also among the statement's signatories, as was Lily Greenberg Call, a former Interior Department official who was the first Jewish American appointee to resign in protest of the administration's war policy.
.@StateDept "subject matter experts are absolutely in agreement that Israel is blocking humanitarian assistance. There's no doubt," Stacy Gilbert tells @AymanM. She resigned from State after its report with "patently false conclusions" said the contrary. pic.twitter.com/8d1pslRTE4
— DAWN MENA (@DAWNmenaorg) June 4, 2024
The joint statement, timed to come on the week of Independence Day, warns that the U.S. government is risking its international credibility and the safety of its own citizens by putting a "target on America's back."
The authors argued that the administration was "willfully violating multiple U.S. laws and attempting to deny or distort facts, use loopholes, or manipulate processes to ensure a continuous flow of lethal weapons to Israel." They cited the Leahy Laws that forbid providing military support to forces engaged in human rights violations.
The U.S. provides Israel with billions of dollars per year in military aid and has significantly increased its support during the war. In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill providing at least $15 billion in military funds for Israel.
The former officials called for an end not just to the U.S. supply of weapons for the war but also the "diplomatic cover" the U.S. provides for Israeli military occupation and settlements in Palestinian territory. The administration should announce that U.S. policy is "to support self-determination for the Palestinian people," they wrote.
The 12 ex-officials also called for an "immediate expansion" of humanitarian aid to Gaza and funding to help rebuild the territory.
Their statement comes as Israel continues to pummel Gaza with strikes that kill Palestinian civilians. Nearly 38,000 Gazans have been killed in the last nine months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Several strikes that killed Palestinian civilians, including a massacre in Rafah in late May that killed at least 45, have been undertaken with U.S.-made weapons, forensic analyses have showed.
The conditions for those that have survived the Israeli bombardment are dire, with Gazans forced to live amid sewage and debris.
"Civilians in Gaza are clinging to their dignity under the most inhumane conditions," Sigrid Kaag, United Nations senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The war has not merely created a humanitarian crisis, it has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery," she said.