US major explains he resigned to reject 'ethnic cleansing' in Gaza
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Former Army Maj. Harrison Mann who openly quit in protest in May describes "Israel's" attack on Gaza as "ethnic cleansing".
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Israeli occupation forces and Israelis attack Palestinians in al-Quds on June 5, 2024. (AP)
In mid-May, Harrison Mann, a Jewish US Army officer, resigned in protest over the US support for "Israel", which, according to him, had “enabled and empowered” the killing of Palestinian civilians.
In his first broadcast interview since resigning, Mann, who served in the military for 13 years and was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency, told CBS News that "Israel almost certainly" utilizes US weaponry in its aggression on Gaza.
A descendant of European Jews, he expressed to reporter Jim Axelrod, “I don’t know how you kill 35,000 civilians by accident,” adding that the Israeli response is neither “productive for the security of the state of Israel or Jews worldwide.”
“I’m confident saying it’s certainly some measure of ethnic cleansing, [which] I do not think is in the spirit of ‘never again,’” he added, responding affirmatively to Axelrod's question of his work being "directly connected to starving children."
Major Harrison Mann announced his resignation and explained his reasons for leaving the service in a post on LinkedIn last month.
"The past months have presented us with the most horrific and heartbreaking images imaginable — sometimes playing on the news in our own spaces — and I have been unable to ignore the connection between those images and my duties here. This caused me incredible shame and guilt," Mann wrote in the post.
“The policy that has never been far from my mind for the past six months is the nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel, which has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians,” his letter read.
Moreover, Mann stressed in his letter that "the policy that has never been far from my mind for the past six months is the nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel, which has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians," adding that "this unconditional support also encourages reckless escalation that risks wider war."
Significantly, Mann also stated in the letter that he had previously emailed his comments to colleagues on April 16.
#US Army Major Harrison Mann, employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency, has declared his resignation, citing an inability to remain silent any longer regarding the US policy on the Israeli war on #Gaza.
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) May 13, 2024
In a letter shared on his public LinkedIn profile, Mann expressed… pic.twitter.com/9LHWp9bcy2
Mann is not the only one that resigned, as in October, Josh Paul, a State Department official in the bureau overseeing arms transfers, resigned in objection to the administration's choice to persist in sending weapons to "Israel".
The US State Department witnessed yet another resignation announced on March 29 as a result of US President Joe Biden’s “horrific policy” toward "Israel", which is enabling “a genocide in Gaza.”
Biden's handling of war on Gaza prompts another official resignation
At the end of May, Alexander Smith, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), told The Guardian that he was given the option of resigning or being fired after organizing a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, which was abruptly canceled by USAID leadership.
Smith wrote that he could not perform his job where "specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race."
He also shed light on the double standards when compared to Ukraine, where USAID prides itself on "programs supporting democracy, human rights, and rule of law," calling for legal repercussions when people are victimized.
A senior US State Department official, Stacy Gilbert, also resigned over disagreements with a newly published report claiming "Israel" was not blocking aid into Gaza, according to The Washington Post, citing two officials.
Gilbert served in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and she emailed staff stating her belief that the State Department was wrong in its conclusion that "Israel" is not behind obstructing humanitarian assistance to Gaza, as per officials who read the letter.
Smith and Gilbert's resignations bring the tally of Biden officials who have openly quit over US policy on Gaza to nine, however, Josh Paul, the first official to leave, said that at least two dozen more had departed discreetly, without making a public statement.
