Common Dreams reports: “An American Army officer on Monday described months of being increasingly disturbed by the images and news of Israel’s U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza, which culminated in his public resignation from his position at the Defense Intelligence Agency to avoid further complicity in Israel’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians.
“Army Maj. Harrison Mann published his resignation letter on LinkedIn, saying he had distributed it internally on April 16 to announce his resignation from the agency.”
As an officer at the DIA, Mann said, he has been unable to escape the fact that his place of work “directly executes policy” for the Biden administration, including its “nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel, which has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians. As we were recently reminded, this unconditional support also encourages reckless escalation that risks wider war. …
“As the descendant of European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing — my grandfather refused to ever purchase products manufactured in Germany — where the paramount importance of ‘never again’ and the inadequacy of ‘just following orders’ were oft repeated.”
Available for interviews:
TARIQ HABASH, tariqhabash@proton.me, @tariqhabash_
Habash, who was a political appointee in the Department of Education, resigned early this year, writing: “I cannot represent an administration that does not value all human life equally. I cannot stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives, in what leading human rights experts have called a genocidal campaign by the Israeli government,” Habash continued. “I cannot be quietly complicit as this administration fails to leverage its influence as Israel’s strongest ally to halt the abusive and ongoing collective punishment tactics that have cut off Palestinians in Gaza from food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies, leading to widespread disease and starvation. …
“As a higher education expert, it is also impossible to ignore the impact of this conflict across American colleges and universities. Jewish, Muslim, and Arab students on college campuses have expressed feeling less safe, and we have seen alarming violence across the United States against Palestinian and Muslim Americans who have been shot, stabbed, and even hit by cars.”
There have been numerous other resignations, see interviews with State Department official Josh Paul who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel; “I Could Not Stay Silent: Annelle Sheline Resigns from State Dept. over U.S. Gaza Policy” and “‘This Militaristic Approach Has Been a Failure’: Meet Hala Rharrit, First U.S. Diplomat to Quit over Gaza.”
