A career State Department official resigned from her post on Tuesday, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza.

Stacy Gilbert, who served as a senior civilian-military advisor to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), sent an email to staff saying she was resigning because she felt the State Department had made the wrong assessment, The Washington Post reported, citing officials who read the note.

The report was filed in response to President Joe Biden issuing a national security memorandum (NSM-20) in early February on whether the administration finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons do not violate either American or international law.

The report said there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel on several occasions had used American-supplied weapons “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law, but said it could not make a definitive assessment - enough to prevent the suspension of arms transfers.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    6 months ago

    but I honestly just don’t understand what’s driving such terrible decision making.

    I mean, look around these comments sections and see the apologism. If you bring up any criticism of Biden, you must support Trump! Its 2016 all over again, where voters with legitimate concerns about the candidate are being told to basically stfu. Democrats of a certain vintage think they are owed your vote.

    • Wrench@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Yeah, and imagine where we’d be today if people had just sucked it up and voted for Hillary in 2016. Just the SCOTUS alone.

      But sure, it’s the fault of the people warning you how bad it would be to let Trump win, because they couldn’t make voting for Hillary feel good.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        6 months ago

        if people had just sucked it up

        If ifs and buts were candy and nuts…

        You have to come to terms with the material fact that this approach to electoralism doesn’t work. Shaming votings, telling them you know better, that they owe you their vote, that Trump is way worse so they should vote for someone they dont want: Its been demonstrated to be ineffective at winning elections.

        You can and maybe should be disappointment in the electorate for this being the case, but you can’t be in denial of it if you actually want to beat Trump. You have to do something different and convince them that the candidate is worth voting for. Or rather, the candidate needs to convince the electorate they are worth voting for. They need to go out and build a coalition. Candidates need to go to where voters are, hear their issues and concerns, and address them with their platform.

        Trump is doing that. Maybe he gets booed. He got booed at the libertarian conference last weekend I think. But he’s showing up to where voters are, and attempting to convince them that he’s the answer for the issues they face. Democrats could take a hint.