Resignation of US State Department official highlights widening rift over Gaza war

A US State Department official’s decision to resign in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza has emphasised growing rifts in Washington over the Biden administration’s stance on the conflict.

Annelle Sheline announced she would step down from her role as foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour.

In an article for CNN, she wrote that she was “unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities”.

She said her focus had been promoting human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.

“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,” Ms Sheline wrote.

“Whatever credibility the United States had as an advocate for human rights has almost entirely vanished since the war began.”

She said the government of President Joe Biden was shifting its Gaza policy slowly, but its actions so far had caused too much damage.

The US, which has faced criticism for vetoing UN Security Council resolutions on the conflict in the past, this week abstained from a vote on a resolution that called for an immediate ceasefire in the enclave.

Ms Sheline said plans for the US military to build a pier to help aid enter Gaza from the sea amounted to a “PR stunt”.

“I can only hope that things are starting to change. Unfortunately, I don’t yet see the US actually using its leverage as far as ending or withdrawing support for Israeli military operations, turning off the tap of weapons,” she told AFP.

Ms Sheline is the latest official to resign from the State Department. Josh Paul, a director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, stepped down in October last year while Department

of Education official Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American, resigned in January.

Washington’s abstention from the vote on the resolution, which was adopted by the council, was a response to domestic pressure over the Gaza war and calls from allies to compromise, said Michael Singh, managing director of the Washington Institute.

A resolution “is a signal, but it doesn’t, in any tangible way, impact Israel’s ability to prosecute the conflict”, Mr Singh, who was a Middle East aide at the White House under former president George W Bush, said.

Arms restrictions imposed by the US would “come at a much higher cost” strategically and politically, he added.

Israel has waged a military campaign in Gaza in response to an attack by Hamas on October 7 that killed about 1,200.

More than 32,400 Palestinians have been killed in the enclave since then, Gaza’s health authorities said.

The US has repeatedly warned Israel not to attack Rafah.