A US State Department official working on human rights issues in the Middle East resigned Wednesday in protest over Washington’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza, highlighting further discord within the Biden administration.
Annelle Sheline, 38, left her position as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor just a year into her role, with nearly half of that period overshadowed by Israel’s devastating assault on the Palestinian enclave.
During an interview with The Washington Post, Sheline shared that her work concentrated on advocating for human rights across the Middle East and North Africa, a task made challenging by the complexities of Israel's conflict and its numerous moral, legal, security, and diplomatic consequences for the United States.
She explained her efforts to voice concerns through dissent cables and in staff meetings, but ultimately determined it was futile “as long as the US persists in supplying Israel with an uninterrupted flow of arms”.
“For the past year, I worked for the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East. I believe strongly in the mission and in the important work of that office,” Sheline wrote in an op-ed for CNN.
“However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible.”
Particularly troubling for the Biden administration is Sheline’s assertion that the State Department has ample evidence of Israel violating international law in Gaza and that the US is therefore breaching its own domestic laws by continuing to fund Israel.
“My colleagues and I watched in horror as this administration delivered thousands of precision-guided munitions, bombs, small arms and other lethal aid to Israel,” Sheline writes.
“We are appalled by the administration’s flagrant disregard for American laws that prohibit the US from providing assistance to foreign militaries that engage in gross human rights violations or that restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.”
Sheline’s exit marks the most notable resignation from the State Department since Josh Paul, the former director responsible for US arms transfers, stepped down from his position shortly after the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Biden administration has come under increasing scrutiny on multiple different fronts due to its support for the Israeli war, with over 32,500 Palestinians killed so far, the vast majority of whom are civilians.
A Gallup poll released on Wednesday found that 55 percent of Americans now oppose Israel’s war, a 10 percent increase since the last survey was conducted by the pollsters in November.
