THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY AUGUST 2024 15 national security memorandum, “NSM20: Safeguards and Accountability with Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services,” issued in early February. Secretary Antony Blinken submitted the report to Congress on May 10 to address two key questions: whether Israel is restricting humanitarian aid and whether Israel has violated international law while using U.S. weapons. The report did not formally conclude that any violations had occurred, stating that the U.S. lacks “complete information” on whether U.S. weapons were used in these actions. The report notes that the aid reaching Palestinians remains insufficient. Stacy Gilbert, a senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, who worked on the original draft of the report, resigned in protest following its publication. Her resignation, tendered hours after the report was published on May 10, was fueled by her belief that it contradicted the consensus among State Department experts that Israel was indeed blocking humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Gilbert asserted that subject matter experts were removed from the report’s final drafting phase. “When the report came out on May 10, and I read the conclusion, especially the conclusion on—that Israel was not blocking humanitarian assistance, I decided I would resign, because that was absolutely not the opinion of subject matter experts in the State Department, USAID, the humanitarian community, organizations that are working in Gaza,” Gilbert said in a PBS interview. In another Gaza-related resignation, Alexander Smith, a contractor with USAID, said he was given the choice to resign or be fired after his presentation on child mortality among Palestinians was canceled by USAID leadership. On May 27, in his resignation letter to Samantha Power, Smith criticized USAID for treating the Gaza conflict and Palestinians differently from other humanitarian crises, failing to uphold international humanitarian principles, and avoiding acknowledgment of Palestinian rights. The administration is under extreme pressure to balance its support for Israel with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and concerns about potential violations of international law. Biden dispatched CIA Director Bill Burns to the region on May 3 for another round of negotiations in an effort to reach a deal to cease the violence and free Israeli hostages. President Biden has paused some arms transfers and threatened further suspensions. Amid mounting international scrutiny of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, on May 20, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over alleged war crimes during the seven-month conflict. The U.S. has objected to the ICC charges against Israeli officials. As this edition went to press, Secretary Blinken was on a four-country Middle East tour, planning to visit Cairo, Tel Aviv, Amman, and Doha, at each stop urging world leaders to push Hamas to accept a Biden-led peace deal. n This edition of Talking Points was compiled by Mark Parkhomenko.
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