US diplomat who quit over Biden administration’s Gaza policy speaks out
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/03/politics/hala-rharrit-us-diplomat-biden-gaza/index.html
Hala Rharrit never expected that she would choose to leave her career as a US diplomat.
She had spent her “entire adult life” at the State Department having joined the foreign service in 2006, raising her hand for one of the toughest postings — Yemen — for her first assignment and going on to serve in places like Hong Kong, Qatar and South Africa. About a year and a half ago, after mostly behind-the-scenes roles, Rharrit became an Arab language spokesperson for the State Department.
“I had full intentions of continuing on in my career until I reached senior levels. I never had the intention of resigning,” she told CNN.
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Rharrit told CNN that she and her colleagues were “horrified” by the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, which triggered the war in Gaza.
“Everyone was sort of bracing themselves, ‘Oh, my goodness, what’s going to happen next?’” Rharrit recounted. She said they “knew obviously there was going to be a forceful reaction, but I don’t think anyone predicted the outcome would be 34,000 killed, famine conditions.”
Rharrit told CNN there wasn’t one particular incident that prompted her to resign, but rather the cumulative build-up of events throughout the war — and the growing sense of that her warnings about “destabilizing” policy were going unheeded.
“I’m fundamentally concerned that we’re on the wrong side of history and we are hurting our interests,” she said, referring to the Biden administration’s strong backing for Israel in the war with Hamas.
Rharrit also pointed to a “double standard” in US policy around the effects of the war, including the humanitarian crisis and the deaths of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
“As the United States we have to stand on our principles. We cannot make exceptions. Our allies and our adversaries are watching and it is hurting us as a nation,” Rharrit explained. “It was just one devastating frustration after another. I just kept on hoping until finally I was just like, I think I need to start planning. I don’t think things are going to get any better.”
As a spokesperson, Rharrit was tasked with presenting the US policy on the war to an Arabic-speaking audience, but from the outset, she said, the talking points were sharply distant from the images that audience was seeing on a daily basis, she explained.
Those talking points “focused towards a domestic US audience,” she said, and she warned the State Department that they would spark backlash and “be seen as dehumanizing to Palestinians.”
“That’s indeed what we saw. Through polls, we saw just growing anti-Americanism, our favorability plummet across the entire region, in countries where we had great relations,” Rharrit said.
Divided views within the department
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/politics/state-department-israel-gaza-international-law-us-weapons/index.html
continued here https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/03/politics/hala-rharrit-us-diplomat-biden-gaza/index.html
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