Officials, academics who resigned in protest of Israel’s massacres of Palestinians

The Israeli military has been carpet bombing Gaza since Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7, and has recently expanded air and ground attacks in the besieged enclave. As of November 1, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll from Israeli assault has climbed to 8,796.

Many in prominent roles across the globe have resigned in protest of ongoing Israel's war on Gaza, from top officials to academics. Here’s a look at a few.

1. Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

The OHCHR’s director in New York has resigned from his position over the UN’s “failure in Palestine”, and that Western governments such as the US, UK, and much of Europe are “wholly complicit” in the “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza.

In his resignation letter, which has been shared by journalists and academics on social media, Craig Mokhiber wrote to Volker Turk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights: “Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it.”

Mokhiber is a lawyer and specialist in international human rights law, policy and methodology, and has served the UN since 1992, having acted as a senior human rights lawyer in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Sudan.

He went on to say that the UN had also failed to stop past genocides involving the Tutsis in Rwanda, Muslims in Bosnia, the Yazidis in Iraq, and the Rohingya Muslim in Myanmar, adding that the organisation is “failing again” when it comes to Palestinians.

“This is a text-book case of genocide, “ Mokhiber said, adding, “The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault.”

He added that these governments are “actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities.”

Mokhiber included a plan with 10 essential points to end the violence against Palestinians in his letter, saying the UN’s offices must have a principled approach that is based on international human rights and international law. It also called for "a single, democratic, secular state… with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews" as well as the disarmament of Israel's stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

2. Professor Kamel Hawwash, UK Labour Party

On October 23, British-Palestinian academic Kamel Hawwash resigned from the UK’s main opposition party over its stance on Israel. Calling for the Labour Party’s Keir Starmer to “stand on the right side of history,” Hawwash, who is a civil engineering professor at the University of Birmingham, shared an open letter to the party leader on X.

The academic said: "I have followed the party’s position on Palestine and Israel with dismay. You yourself have aligned yourself with blind support for Israel whatever it does and literally thrown the Palestinians under the bus or as in Gaza now, the bombs.”

According to Hawwash, the Labour Party has been suspending and expelling members, “especially Jewish members, essentially for voicing support for Palestinians.”

He also criticised Starmer for policies and statements regarding Palestine and Israel, calling out the party leader’s refusal to meet with the Palestinian community in the UK, but meeting “pro-Israel organisations on a regular basis.”

3. Josh Paul, US State Department Director

Citing his objection to US military policy regarding continued assistance to Israel, US department official Josh Paul resigned from the bureau in charge of arms transfers to foreign nations.

Paul, who has been the director of congressional and public affairs at the bureau for 11 years, was protesting the Biden administration’s call to continue sending weapons and ammunition to Israel, and aiding in its bombardment of Gaza.

In a two-page letter posted on LinkedIn, he said: “I knew it was not without its moral complexity and moral compromises, and I made myself a promise that I would stay for as long as I felt the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do.”

Paul added that he had “made more moral compromises than I can recall,” in the years serving as director, “but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact.”

He said: “I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued - indeed, expanded and expedited - provision of lethal arms to Israel - I have reached the end of that bargain.

His resignation on October 18 came on the same day US President Biden was in Israel to publicly show his support. According to Paul, the American support for Israel’s assault in Gaza “will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.”

He added: ”The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides. I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer.”

4. Several editors at Artforum following the firing of editor-in-chief David Velasco

After six years as the editor-in-chief of Artforum, an international monthly magazine that specialises in contemporary art, David Velasco was fired for an open letter published in the magazine in support of Palestine.

The open letter calls for Palestinian liberation and a ceasefire. Published on October 19, part of the letter read: “We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes.”

Velasco’s firing led to several editors resigning, as well as artists and writers who said they would no longer work with the publication. An editor at Artforum since 2018, Kate Sutton said on X that she officially resigned from her position with the magazine. Sutton posted: “I am absolutely gutted, but also proud of all that we were able to pull off these past five years and extremely grateful [to] our colleagues and contributors.”

Senior editors Zack Hatfield and Chloe Wyma also took to X to announce their resignation. Wyma said: “The firing of David Velasco violates everything I had cherished about the magazine and makes my work there untenable. I’m devastated by this outcome and will deeply miss my talented colleagues and contributors.”

Hatfield echoed the same sentiment, saying: “David Velasco’s firing is unacceptable and bodes ominously for the future of the magazine. I’m sad it’s come to this but deeply grateful for the extraordinary writers, artists and colleagues I’ve worked with over the past six years.”

5. Kauthar Bouchallikht, GroenLinks MP

Dutch politician and member of parliament Kauthar Bouchallikht has pulled out as a candidate for the upcoming general election in the country in protest of her party’s stance on Israel and the increasing violence in Gaza.

In a post on Instagram, Bouchallikht criticised the GroenLinks party, a green political party that advocates a fair economy and combating the climate crisis, for a lack of context “about the bloody history of Israel and Palestine.”

“Now is the time for context, which should have been the case from the start because without justice, peace is far away and innocent people continue to pay the bill with their lives.

“Context is not a denial of the horrible actions by Hamas last weekend. Context is recognising where they come from, namely the actions of the Israeli government, also against the wishes of many Israelis and Jewish people: structural occupation and oppression, violation of human rights and international law, taking away keys, building walls.”

Bouchallikht added that she had internal discussions about the issue with her colleagues, and said that the discussions to express “important parts of the story” were “not constructive”.

“Not only was the previous history such as the Nakba consistently not mentioned, but even the illegal occupations of recent years were not mentioned,” she said in her post.

Bouchallikht added: “While our members have always been vocal on this point and there was room for it, which is also something I think is very nice about GroenLinks. This is no longer the party I decided to become an MP for, this is no longer the party I want to be an MP for.”