A career State Department official resigned from her post on Tuesday, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza.
Stacy Gilbert, who served as a senior civilian-military advisor to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), sent an email to staff saying she was resigning because she felt the State Department had made the wrong assessment, The Washington Post reported, citing officials who read the note.
The report was filed in response to President Joe Biden issuing a national security memorandum (NSM-20) in early February on whether the administration finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons do not violate either American or international law.
The report said there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel on several occasions had used American-supplied weapons “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law, but said it could not make a definitive assessment - enough to prevent the suspension of arms transfers.
Completely Pulling support is one thing, but “conditioning support” has broad bipartisan public appeal. Bernie Sanders can articulate this well; support for Israeli defense programs like Iron Dome, and cutting support for offensive artillery that’s being used to storm Gaza. Why can’t Biden say the same, instead he’s trying to split hairs on whether tanks into Rafah doesn’t count as a ground invasion (and making himself look stupid in front of voters).