US State Department employee resigns in protest for Gaza

WASHINGTON, March 28 (KUNA) -- A female employee of the US State Department announced that she has decided to resign from her post in protest against the US military and diplomatic support of the Israeli occupation aggression in Gaza.
Annelle Sheline, a State Department human rights staffer, said she was resigning in response to the Biden administration's policy on Gaza in a CNN opinion piece on Wednesday. "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, who, according to CNN, worked for a year as a foreign affairs officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said in her piece.
"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. Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities, I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State." She continued.
The former State Department official warned that "whatever credibility the United States had as an advocate for human rights has almost entirely vanished since the war began," in which Washington declared its full support for the occupying entity, which has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians in less than six months, most of them women and children, according to the authorities in Gaza.
The resigned employee revealed that her colleagues in the State Department share the same views opposing the US support of the occupying entity, noting that they asked her to speak on their behalf.
She said that members of civil society have refused to respond to her efforts to contact them and that continued "our office seeks to support journalists in the Middle East; yet when asked by NGOs if the US can help when Palestinian journalists are detained or killed in Gaza, I was disappointed that my government didn't do more to protect them." She added that 90 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed in the last five months, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which is the most recorded in any single conflict since the CPJ started collecting data in 1992.
The US State Department has previously officially acknowledged the divergence of views among its employees regarding the Israeli occupation's war on the Gaza Strip.
The US is constantly witnessing protests rejecting the war in Gaza and calling for the end of sending American weapons to the occupying entity, but the Biden's administration is adamant on sending weapons.
By resigning publicly, I am saddened by the knowledge that I likely foreclose a future at the State Department. I had not initially planned a public resignation. Because my time at State had been so short - I was hired on a two-year contract - I did not think I mattered enough to announce my resignation publicly. However, when I started to tell colleagues of my decision to resign, the response I heard repeatedly was, "Please speak for us." "By resigning publicly, I am saddened by the knowledge that I likely foreclose a future at the State Department. I had not initially planned a public resignation. Because my time at State had been so short ... I did not think I mattered enough to announce my resignation publicly. However, when I started to tell colleagues of my decision to resign, the response I heard repeatedly was, "Please speak for us."" Sheline continued.
This is the second time a State Department official has announced their resignation in protest of Washington's support for the Israeli occupation.
Last October, Josh Paul who had served 11 years in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, the US government entity most responsible for the transfer and provision of arms to partners and allies, resigned for a similar reason.
He said in a letter he was exiting his role because the harm resulting from the "provision of lethal arms to Israel" outweighed the good he could do in the position.
"We cannot be both for freedom, and against it," Paul said. "And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse." (end) asj.dss