A diplomat at the United States’ State Department has resigned over the White House’s policy towards Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, in the latest such resignation by an American official over the genocide.
According to The Guardian newspaper this week, Mike Casey – a US army veteran who served in Iraq and who was until recently the US State Department’s deputy political counsellor on Gaza – told the paper that he had handed in his resignation to the government back in July, ending four years at the State Department.
Casey’s decision to resign was rooted in a growing disillusionment with US policy – or the lack thereof – towards Israel and Palestine, and particularly with Washington’s clear bias toward Tel Aviv in all matters relating to its oppression of the Palestinians.
“We don’t have a policy on Palestine. We just do what the Israelis want us to do”, the former diplomat said. “I was too embarrassed to continue being an American diplomat. I knew I couldn’t go to another assignment and function.”
Now reportedly working at a local bank in Michigan, Casey recalled that he and his colleagues “would write daily updates on Gaza”, which government officials and the president Joe Biden himself would seemingly ignore, leading the diplomat’s team to joke that no one would read the reports even if cash were attached to them.
One such incident he cited was when Biden publicly questioned and denied in October last year the enormous death toll in Gaza at the hands of Israel’s occupation forces, which Casey had personally documented in a report. “I was the one writing the reports”, he said. “What’s the point of me writing this stuff if you’re just going to disregard it?”
The former diplomat added that “I got so tired of writing about dead kids”, expressing his frustration at “constantly having to prove to Washington that these children actually died and then watching nothing happen.”
Casey and his colleagues were also reportedly frustrated at the Biden administration’s repeated rejections of their strategies they proposed for Gaza’s reconstruction – another issue that the Israelis dictated the Americans on. “Every idea we came up with, [the Biden administration] would just say: ‘Well, the Israelis have another idea’”, he said.
An Israeli counter-proposal which Casey cited included letting local clans run the Strip after the war, an idea that American diplomats explained in “numerous reports and cables” why it wouldn’t work as it is “not in our interest to have warlords running Gaza”.
Over half a million Cubans filled the Malecón on Friday December 20 in a massive march against the US blockade. Photo: Presidencia Cuba
Hundreds of thousands of Cuban people participated in the mass demonstration against the six-decade US blockade of Cuba and the inclusion of Cuba on the US state sponsors of terrorism list.
“President Biden, take Cuba off the infamous list!” exclaimed the over half a million Cubans who marched on Havana’s malecón to the US Embassy. The mass march was called for by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel earlier this week to demonstrate the absolute and total rejection of the Cuban people to the six-decade US-imposed blockade on the island as well as the inclusion of Cuba to the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list (SSoT) which together have wreaked havoc on the island’s economy.
The march was led by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and General Raúl Castro who were flanked by over half a million Cubans from all sectors of life including students, doctors, construction workers, artists, and more. Cuban youth and students who participated in the massive mobilization carried banners reading “the youth will not fail!” and “this is the revolution!”
“The youth will not fail!” Photo: UJC
The mass mobilization began at the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal José Martí on the malecón, which is located directly in front of the US Embassy. There, the Cuban president delivered an address wherein he condemned the inaction of Joe Biden in reversing the policies of his predecessor Donald Trump which have tightened the economic and financial stranglehold on Cuba. Biden, he said, “has done nothing to move away from the line of reinforced blockade and economic asphyxiation of Cuba left as a legacy by the Republican administration that returns to the Oval Office in January.”
He also highlighted that people from across the US and the world have in the recent period called attention to the inhumane US policy that goes against international law, “In recent weeks and days there have been numerous pronouncements from US leaders and from other parts of the world demanding that Biden make use of his authority to at least remove the name of a nation that should never have been on this spurious list.”
He emphasized that, “When our international trade is persecuted and financial transactions are impeded, the people of Cuba are being denied food, medicine, fuel, goods, supplies and merchandise essential for their survival.”
In addition to condemning the illegal blockade, Díaz-Canel also alerted the Cuban people that there are currently paramilitary groups training in the south of Florida with the intention of carrying out terrorist attacks against Cuba. “They are based in South Florida and do not hide to train. They do it publicly, in plain sight and with the protection of local authorities, even violating their own laws and international treaties.”
The president’s announcement was both a warning and an attempt to expose the deep hypocrisy of calling Cuba a sponsor of terrorism, whilst in plain view of US authorities, these groups, “organize, promote and finance terrorist actions against social and economic structures in Cuba.” This phenomenon is not new and he reminded the people of how the US sheltered “self-confessed terrorists” and CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch who were the architects of numerous criminal attacks against the Cuban people, the worst one being the 1976 bombing of a Cuban aircraft which resulted in the death of 73 people. “Knowing such antecedents,” Díaz-Canel stated, “no US ruler can classify Cuba as a terrorist state.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and General Raúl Castro marching on the malecón. Photo: Presidencia Cuba
The demand to end the over 60-year US blockade on Cuba and remove the country from the SSoT list has become even more urgent in light of the energy crisis on the island. In recent months, Cuba has suffered a series of blackouts due to its major challenge in accessing fuel to keep its power plants operating.
The election of far-right leader Donald Trump as president has also awoken fears that he may intensify existing unilateral coercive measures against Cuba.
However, as manifested in the mass mobilization, the Cuban people have vowed to remain firm in the face of any threat lodged at them by the US government and maintain that they are open to dialogue with any US administration based on mutual respect and equality.
In concluding his address, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel declared, “If the United States persists in its determination to undermine our sovereignty, our independence, our socialism, it will only find rebellion and intransigence! Every administration that has tried has been outlived by the Cuban Revolution, and it will continue to be so. This is a march, yes, a very anti-imperialist march! Against US imperialism and its pretension to impose itself in Cuba by force or seduction, we will march now and always!”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on October 12, 2023. (Photo: Eyepress Media Limited/Reuters via Getty Images)
“This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” said one advocate.
Palestinians and Palestinian Americans on Tuesday filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. State Department of creating a “loophole” allowing Israel to skirt federal legislation barring American military aid to foreign militaries that violate human rights law.
The lawsuit, which was filed by five individuals and supported by the group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), accuses the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken of violating the Leahy Law, legislation passed in two parts in the late 1990s that built on the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961‘s proscription of U.S. military aid to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations.
According to DAWN, the suit “documents how the State Department has created unique, insurmountable processes to evade the Leahy Law requirement to sanction abusive Israeli units, despite overwhelming evidence of their human rights violations” including “torture, prolonged detention without charge, forced disappearance, and flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, and security, such as genocide, indiscriminate and deliberate killings, and deprivation of items essential to survival, including food, water, fuel, and medicine.”
Case plaintiff Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American from the southern Gazan city of Rafah who has lost numerous relatives in Israeli attacks, toldZeteo‘s Prem Thakker, “I’m hoping, through this action, through this lawsuit, that we can just call out the federal government to begin to enforce American laws.”
The State Department has sparked international outrage by repeatedly finding that Israel is using U.S.-supplied arms in compliance with domestic human rights law, citing the key ally’s right to defend itself and the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. However, Israel’s 438-day retaliation has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Thousands more have been killed or maimed in the West Bank.
South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Both men have been warmly welcomed in Washington, D.C.. Congress and the Biden administration have approved tens of billions of dollars in arms transfers to Israel. U.S.-supplied bombs have been used in some of Israel’s most notorious airstrikes. The U.S. has also vetoed numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding a Gaza cease-fire.
Today, the White House welcomed Yoav Gallant, charged by the ICC with the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. What a disgrace.
“This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement on Tuesday. “For too long, the State Department has acted as if there’s an ‘Israel exemption’ from the Leahy Law, despite the fact that Congress required it to apply the law to every country in the world. As a result, millions of Palestinians have suffered unimaginable, horrific abuses by Israeli forces using U.S. weapons.”
Stephen Rickard, a former U.S. official who helped pass the landmark legislation, said that “long-standing concerns that the State Department was not cutting off aid to specific Israel units as required by the Leahy Law… have been given dramatic urgency by the tragic ongoing crisis in Gaza.”
“If the State Department will not comply with the law, then it is time for the courts to vindicate the rule of law and order it to do so,” Rickard added.
The new lawsuit came a day after relatives of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi—the Turkish American woman who, according to witnesses, was deliberately shot in the head while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank in September—met with Blinken in search of justice and accountability for the activist’s killing.
Referring to another American activist killed by Israeli forces while defending Palestinian homes, Hamid Ali, Eygi’s widower, said that Blinken “was attentive in listening to us, but unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie’s killing.”
Ali called Blinken “very deferential to the Israelis,” adding that “it felt like he was saying his hands were tied and they weren’t able to really do much.”
A journalist asked State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a Tuesday press conference why the U.S. has not suspended arms transfers to Israel by invoking the Leahy Law and citing the cases of victims like Eygi or Shireen Abu Akleh—the Palestinian American Al Jazeera correspondent who, according to witnesses and several independent probes, was deliberately shot dead by an Israeli sniper in the West Bank in May 2022.
“We have taken those cases extremely seriously,” Miller claimed. Referring to Eygi, he added that he made it clear to Israel that “her death was unacceptable, that it should have been avoided, it should have never happened in the first place, that we want to see the results of their investigation, and we want to see them change their rules of engagement.”
Palestinians are surrounded by buildings destroyed by Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 10, 2024. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Failure to do so not only risks our leverage in ceasefire negotiations, it undermines our country’s own national security and weakens America’s commitment to human rights as a cornerstone of our foreign policy.”
Twenty progressives in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday wrote to top Biden administration officials arguing that “the United States government must suspend offensive weapons” to Israel over its destruction of the Gaza Strip, citing federal and international law.
Led by Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Greg Casar (D-Texas), the incoming Congressional Progressive Caucus chair, the lawmakers began by thanking U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for their October 13 letter threatening to cut off weapons to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government if it did not dramatically improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
“However, despite your administration acknowledging that the Netanyahu government did not fully address the United States’ concerns over Gaza and has failed to meet all of the conditions stipulated in this letter, the State Department decided not to take further action, including the suspension of offensive military assistance, to ensure full compliance,” the Democrats wrote.
“We believe continuing to transfer offensive weapons to the Israeli government prolongs the suffering of the Palestinian people and risks our own national security by sending a message to the world that the U.S. will apply its laws, policies, and international law selectively,” they continued. “Furthermore, a failure to act will put Israeli lives in danger by prolonging Netanyahu’s war, isolating Israel on the international stage, and creating further instability in the region.”
The new letter comes just over a month away from President Joe Biden leaving office and follows one from last week signed by 77 House Democrats—including Casar—that demanded “a full assessment of the status of Israel’s compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”
This one goes further, explicitly urging the Biden administration to suspend offensive military transfers and warning that “failure to do so not only risks our leverage in cease-fire negotiations, it undermines our country’s own national security and weakens America’s commitment to human rights as a cornerstone of our foreign policy.”
“We remain committed to saving Palestinian and Israeli lives. This means doing everything possible to prioritize the release of hostages, secure a lasting cease-fire deal, and move toward long-term peace,” the 20 progressives concluded.
In addition to Lee and Casar, Tuesday’s letter was signed by Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Joaquin Castro (Texas), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Jesús “Chuy” García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Sara Jacobs (Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Hank Johnson (Ga.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia C. Ramirez (Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
It came on the same day as a lawsuit filed by Palestinians and Palestinian Americans accusing the U.S. State Department of creating “unique, insurmountable processes to evade the Leahy Law requirement to sanction abusive Israeli units.”
As of Tuesday, the 14-month Israeli assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack has killed at least 45,059 people and wounded another 107,041, according to local officials. Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinian civilians have led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice as well as International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Palestinians carrying empty pots line up to receive meals distributed by charity organizations in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 13, 2024. (Photo: Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Lawmakers told the Biden administration they are “deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza.”
As Israel continues to decimate the Gaza Strip with American weapons, 77 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week demanded that the Biden administration “provide a full assessment of the status of Israel’s compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”
Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) spearheaded the Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with less than six weeks left in President Joe Biden’s term.
Since Biden issued NSM-20 in February, his administration has repeatedly accepted the Israel government’s assurances about the use of U.S. weapons, despite reports from journalists and human rights groups about how they have helped Israeli forces slaughter at least 44,875 Palestinians and injure another 106,454 people in the besieged enclave over the past 14 months.
“Our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes.”
House Democrats’ letter begins by declaring support for “Israel’s right to self-defense,” denouncing the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, and endorsing the Biden administration’s efforts “to broker a bilateral cease-fire that includes the release of hostages,” noting the deal recently negotiated for the Israeli government and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
“Further, we condemn the unprecedented Iranian attacks against Israel launched on April 13, 2024, and October 1, 2024,” the letter states, declining to mention the Israeli actions that led to those responses. “We must continue to avoid a major regional conflict—and we welcome the concerted diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and our allies to prevent further escalation.”
“We are also deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza,” the lawmakers wrote, citing the administration’s October 13 letter imposing a 30-day deadline for Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Palestinian territory. “That deadline has expired, and while some progress has been made, we believe the Israeli government has not yet fulfilled the requirements outlined in your letter.”
Asked during a November 12 press conference if the Israeli government has met the administration’s demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that “we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law.”
Shortly after that, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) forced votes on resolutions to block the sale of 120mm tank rounds, 120mm high-explosive mortar rounds, and Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) to Israel, but they didn’t pass.
Progressives and Democrats in Congress have been sounding the alarm about U.S. government complicity in Israel’s armed assault and starvation campaign—which have led to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice—to varying degrees since October 2023, including with a May letter led by Crow and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) and signed by 85 others.
Citing that letter on Thursday, the 77 House Democrats wrote that “our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes, among others. As a result, Gaza’s civilian population is facing dire famine.”
“We believe further administrative action must be taken to ensure Israel upholds the assurances it provided in March 2024 to facilitate, and not directly or indirectly obstruct, U.S. humanitarian assistance,” the letter concludes. “We remain committed to a negotiated solution that can bring an end to the fighting, free the remaining hostages, surge humanitarian aid, and lay the groundwork to rebuild Gaza with a legitimate Palestinian governing body. We thank you and the administration for its ongoing work to achieve those shared goals.”
