As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel.

We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    13 days ago

    tldr: the US is still supporting Israel is because Israel has historically been extremely beneficial to US interests.

    full:

    The reason is that Israel has been a steadfast ally in advancing and defending us interests for half a century, and there is no one else in the Middle East who could play that role half as effectively or reliably.

    there was zero chance of the US immediately cutting off aid after 50 years of aid, especially while dozens of other countries have also been providing aid and are still providing aid to Israel.

    that was never an option and should not have been an expectation from the public, who only has that expectation because most people have only recently learned about the Palestinian invasion by Israel that’s been happening for over half a century.

    One year is not much time internationally or diplomatically. it’s not much time for intelligence agencies to determine what is happening, especially in the fog of war, and it isn’t much time for effects of actions to be seen, no matter what actions are taken.

    in israel, The US has an attack dog to deal with US enemies in the Middle East, and now the attack dog has broken its leash and isn’t responding to commands. Netanyahu is aging, centralized power, and is acting literally insane.

    while I have been loyal, this completely separate nation has saliently chosen to have been loyal, although they were and are under no obligation to be loyal to the demands of the United States, as is now being seen.

    it’s only been one year, and regardless of what you hear, diplomatically the US is continually trying different tactics to stem the violent efforts of a nation with plenty of resources that has no obligation to listen to the US other than continued financial support, that it has plenty of already and has many other sources of aid.

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      The reason is that Israel has been a steadfast ally in advancing and defending us interests for half a century

      Tell that to the crew of the USS Liberty.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      12 days ago

      So to counter basically your whole point: You know how Reagan stopped the Israeli bombing of Beirut in 20 minutes with a phone call in 1982? That’s how someone who actually wants Israel to stop does it. Biden isn’t stopping them because he doesn’t want to, not because his administration is “diplomatically the US is continually trying different tactics to stem the violent efforts of a nation…”.

      Don’t defend genocide support, it’s not a good look.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      11 days ago

      there was zero chance of the US immediately cutting off aid after 50 years of aid, especially while dozens of other countries have also been providing aid and are still providing aid to Israel.

      Those other dozen countries are only doing because they follow the USs lead. And maybe Germany being hysterical about it instead of learning from its past, that never again must mean never again for everyone…

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      a steadfast ally in advacing and defending us interests

      How? At least militarily they’ve only ever been a liability.

    • sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      The reason is that Israel has been a steadfast ally in advancing and defending us interests for half a century

      what a load of crap. Israel almost always has right wing leadership and those leaders run far more billboards celebrating their relationship with Putin that with the US. We have no operational bases there. They havent participated in any of our military conflicts. They are not an extension of US power. If they were, we have operations happening out of there.