State Department Official Resigns Over Biden’s Gaza Policy

On Wednesday, Annelle Sheline, 38, resigned from job as a foreign affairs officer in the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, saying her job had become “impossible” as the Biden administration continues to “send a steady stream of weapons to Israel”.

"If they are willing to engage, they mostly want to talk about Gaza rather than the fact that they are also dealing with extreme repression or threats of imprisonment," Sheline said of activist groups in the region who had stopped talking to American personnel due to the flow of US arms to Israel.

"I wasn't able to really do my job anymore," Sheline added, during an interview. "Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible."

She said in the interview that she tried to raise concerns internally with dissent cables and at staff forums but came to the conclusion that the Biden administration’s Israel policy had made her efforts pointless. The former official also questioned why the Biden administration was prioritizing blank checks for Israel over economic relations with China, human rights, or climate change.

“My question was: Why is this support for Israel seen as more important than all of these other, arguably very significant priorities?” she said. “I still don’t feel like I have a great answer as to why.”

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“Whatever credibility the United States had as an advocate for human rights has almost entirely vanished since the war began. Members of civil society have refused to respond to my efforts to contact them,” Sheline wrote in an open letter.

Sheline’s resignation follows that of Josh Paul who was a senior State Department official involved in arms transfers to foreign governments. Paul resigned from his role ten days after Hamas first launched its attack on Israel, citing the allyship between Israel and the US.

“I believe to the core of my soul,” Paul wrote at the time, “that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support for both that response, and for the status quo of the occupation will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and Palestinian people—and is not in the long-term American interest.”

Paul recently commended Sheline for her decision to resign, and criticized the Biden administration for their disregard of the law.

“When the staff of that bureau feel that there is no more they can do,” Paul said, “it speaks volumes about the Biden administration’s disregard for the laws, policies and basic humanity of American foreign policy that the bureau exists to advance.”

Despite dissent among their own government employees and protests by US citizens, the Biden Administration has maintained their support for Israel in their war against Hamas. Since the war began, more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

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In response to Sheline’s resignation, State Department spokesman Matt Miller told reporters that Secretary of State Antony Blinken “wants” to hear about the dissent within the department.

“He wants to hear them. He reads dissent cables when dissent cables are authored on any issue. He meets with employees who have a broad range of views, he listens to their feedback, and he takes it into account in his decision-making,” Miller said.

On Monday, the Biden administration chose not to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire during the remaining weeks of the holy month of Ramadan. The resolution also called for the release of all hostages. Since then, the US has called the resolution “non-binding”, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a planned trip of top aides to Washington.