Ex-officials call Biden's Gaza war policy a 'failure' and 'threat' to US

About a dozen ex-US officials who recently quit their jobs in the government to protest America's unbridled support for Israel's war on besieged Gaza have termed the policy of President Joe Biden's administration "a failure and a threat to US national security" while exhorting their former colleagues to use their positions and not to be mute in the face of "violence unfolding in Palestine."

"Biden administration's policy in Gaza is a failure and a threat to US national security. 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," a joint statement signed by the ex-US officials said on Tuesday.

In the scathing statement titled "Service in Dissent", the ex-officials said Biden's policy is not only morally reprehensible and in clear violation of international humanitarian law and US laws "but it has also put a target on America's back."

They said the intransigent policy risks US national security and the lives of American service members and diplomats "as has already been made evident with the killing of three US service members in Jordan in January and the evacuations of diplomatic facilities in the Middle East".

Last week, a US official revealed the extent of dissent within State Department over Gaza casualties, telling TRT World that staffers affected by loss directly or indirectly are increasingly demanding action in the backdrop of high-profile resignations.

Among those who signed the statement included:

Mohammed Abu Hashem, former First Sergeant with US Air Force

Lily Greenberg Call, former Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff in the US Interior Department

Josh Paul, ex-Director of the State Department's Bureau of Political Military Affairs

Harrison Mann, ex-US Army Major and Defence Intelligence Agency official

Tariq Habash, ex-Special Assistant in the Education Department's office of Planning

Annelle Sheline, ex-officer in the State Department's Human Rights Bureau

Hala Rharrit, ex-Arabic language spokesperson for the State Department

Alexander Smith, ex-contractor for US foreign aid agency, USAID

Stacy Gilbert, ex-Senior Civilian-Military Advisor in the US State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration

Anna Del Castillo, former Political Appointee & Deputy Director Office of Management & Administration (the White House)

Maryam Hassanein, former Special Assistant Office of the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, US Department of the Interior. Hassanein, who resigned on Tuesday criticised the Biden administration for funding and enabling "Israel's genocide of Palestinians."

Major Riley Livermore, former Futures Flight Commander, US Air Force

Policy amendments sought

In their statement, the ex-officials offered policy proposals which they said the Biden administration must adopt "to ensure that catastrophic policy failure like this can never happen again."

"US policy choices have begotten a disaster. First and foremost is the catastrophic and rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis that the Israeli government has created for the Palestinian people, for whom the missteps of the ink of American bureaucracy has been paid in the blood of innocent men, women, and children," they said.

Rather than hold Israel responsible for its role in "arbitrarily impeding humanitarian assistance", they accused the US of cut off funding to the single largest provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza — UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinians.

The experts noted that US policy has contributed to immense humanitarian harm and has facilitated Israel's "self-destructive actions", saying it has deepened Israel's political quagmire and contributed to its enduring global isolation.

"There is no regional settlement, no agreement with autocratic regimes, no diplomatic step short of the resolution of the Palestinian right to self-determination that can provide Israel with real security," they argued.

The experts said Biden's policies have damaged US' credibility, saying, "on the global stage, who does not see us as hypocrites when the US condemns Russian war crimes while unconditionally arming and excusing Israel's?"

"Who does not now laugh when Secretary Blinken describes the 'rules based international order' while simultaneously undermining it in favour of Israel? — a tragedy after the decades Americans have spent building that order."

Do 'not be complicit'

The former US administration officials said Washington is willfully violating multiple US laws and attempting to deny or distort facts, use loopholes, or manipulate processes "to ensure a continuous flow of lethal weapons to Israel."

They said every credible and independent international human rights organisation has identified gross violations of human rights by Israeli military, dating back well before 2023, "that should compel ineligibility determinations under the Leahy Laws."

Accusing Israel of arbitrarily obstructing US-funded humanitarian assistance, they demanded "suspension"of security assistance to Tel Aviv under Section 620I of the US Foreign Assistance Act.

Urging US government to use all available leverage to help end war on Gaza and to achieve the release of all hostages and prisoners, both in Gaza and Israel, the ex-officials said US must ensure immediate expansion of humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, and the reconstruction of that territory.

It is "a moral obligation given that the harm and destruction to-date has largely been dealt by American weapons."

The statement urged US to immediately announce that the policy of the Washington will be to support self-determination for the Palestinian people and an end to Israeli military occupation and Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

They former US administration and defence officials said that freedom of speech is under threat in America, "and we abjure political pressure on colleges and universities in particular that have led to a militarised police response to peaceful protests

In their message to their former colleagues, the said, "Your voice matters. We write to you with hope that you will use your positions to amplify calls for peace and hold your respective institution accountable to the violence unfolding in Palestine."

Speaking out can spark a movement and encourage others to join in, they said while urging their former colleagues "not be complicit" in Israel's war on Gaza.

Israel's war on Gaza, now in its 271st day, has killed at least 37,925 Palestinians — mostly women and children –– and wounded 87,141, with 10,000+ feared buried under the rubble of the bombed homes and over 9,500 abducted by Tel Aviv, according to Palestinian officials.

Efforts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza have stalled. Hamas says any deal must end the war and bring a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it will accept only temporary pauses in the fighting until Hamas is eradicated, a goal many experts say is far-fetched.