Hala Rharrit on Quitting State Dept. & Ending U.S. Complicity in Gaza

DEMOCRACY NOW! OCTOBER 23, 2024

GUESTS

Hala Rharrit
former career diplomat who resigned from the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.

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.”

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Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza as Israel’s devastating siege on the area continues. In a statement, the group said, quote, “The magnitude of the crimes Israel is currently committing in the northern Gaza Strip in its campaign to empty it of however many residents are left is impossible to describe, not just because hundreds of thousands of people enduring starvation, disease without access to medical care and incessant bombardments and gunfire defies comprehension, but because Israel has cut them off from the world.” These are the words of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

In the Jabaliya refugee camp, Israeli forces stormed at least three schools, forcing Palestinians sheltering inside to leave at gunpoint, before setting fire to the buildings. Palestinians in the refugee camp say they fear they’ll be killed if they stay put or if they try to flee south.

UMM AWAD AL-MADHOUN: [translated] A lot of rockets fell on us, and the quadcopters started shouting and telling us to get out, get out of the area. We evacuated and found lots of tanks and Israeli soldiers, and we were taken to a very large area, and they started shooting at us. They then started evacuating us from the area 10 by 10. When we reached here, I didn’t know where to come or go. I’m sitting in the street with my children.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, has issued a report stating it could take Gaza 350 years to rebuild if it remains under an Israeli blockade.

Meanwhile, Israel is also intensifying its attack on Lebanon. Earlier today, Israel bombed the historic Lebanese town of Tyre, one of the oldest cities in the world.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken has arrived in Saudi Arabia after leaving Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. Blinken spoke to reporters before leaving Israel.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Israel has achieved most of its strategic objectives when it comes to Gaza, all with the idea of making sure that October 7th could never happen again. In the space of a year, it’s managed to dismantle Hamas’s military capacity. It’s destroyed much of its arsenal. It’s eliminated its senior leadership, including, most recently, Yahya Sinwar. This has come at the cost, great cost, to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Now is the time to turn those successes into an enduring strategic success. And there are really two things left to do: get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow.

AMY GOODMAN: That was U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken.

We’re joined now by Hala Rharrit. She served 18 years as a career diplomat before resigning in April from the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. She’s the first and only State Department diplomat to publicly resign over Gaza. At the time she left, she was the Arabic-language spokesperson for the State Department and the deputy director of the State Department’s Dubai regional media hub.

Hala Rharrit, thank you so much for being in our New York studio. We were just playing a clip of your former boss, of U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Your thoughts as we just passed this first anniversary of the Hamas attack on southern Israel and the ensuing Israeli attack on Gaza that has killed — this is by far considered an underestimate by most — at least 42,000 Palestinians, over 17,000 of them children?

HALA RHARRIT: First of all, Amy, thank you so much for having me. It really is an honor. And I have to tell you on behalf of so many diplomats, huge fan of yours. American diplomats have been watching your show for years, and we thank you for everything that you do.

In response to the onslaught of Gaza, I want to state the failures of this policy, that even for those that are thinking of it as this side versus another, we have to be realistic about the fact that it has absolutely failed. Secretary Blinken said Israel has achieved the strategic objectives in Gaza. No, it hasn’t. That is quite a lie. Its objectives was the release of the hostages. That has not been achieved. Its objective was also the destruction of Hamas. That has not been achieved.

The reality is that we, as the United States government, are in violation of U.S. law, of multiple of laws that your viewers can Google for themselves: the Leahy Law, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act. We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel.

To what end? We are only empowering Benjamin Netanyahu to expand the conflict in Gaza, to expand the conflict within the West Bank, and now we’re seeing the devastation in Lebanon. Again, to what end? We saw the Lebanese foreign minister insist that Nasrallah and Hezbollah had actually agreed to the U.S. and France proposal for a ceasefire before he was assassinated. There are other ceasefires in Gaza that we have been pushing that Netanyahu is the obstacle. Yet this administration refuses to shift its policy, refuses to enforce U.S. law and continues to surge U.S. military assistance.

And the result has been devastating, absolutely devastating. These are human beings in Gaza that are being absolutely massacred, children. And this is going to have generational impacts and ultimately will not keep Israel any safer. And the entire region is destabilized, as we’re seeing now with the threat of Iran, as well. The policy has to change, and it has to change now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hala, I wanted to ask you — it wasn’t until earlier this month that Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a letter threatening to cut off U.S. military assistance if Israel does not boost humanitarian aid to Gaza in the next 30 days. What’s your response?

HALA RHARRIT: Thank you, Juan, for highlighting that. I can tell you, as someone that worked within the State Department PR machine, that this, unfortunately, is a public relations ploy. I am sad to say it, but it’s the truth. It is conveniently 30 days, marking the time after the election. Also, it was conveniently leaked. It’s not typical for a statement like this to be leaked to the press, but it was.

The reality is that the State Department and the administration at this point is trying to give voters, especially those that are so concerned about the conflict in Gaza, some level of hope: “As long as you vote for us, after this 30 days, we’ll enforce the law, and we will make a change.” This is absolutely a deception for the voters and for the American people.

We don’t need another 30 days. We have had ample evidence from within the United States government, not just the State Department, but a multitude of U.S. agencies, with proof that Israel is violating so many of our laws, is systematically withholding humanitarian assistance from going in. As was mentioned in the report, as well, Leahy vetting is being violated, with army units determined to have committed gross human rights violations. We need to take action, and we should have taken action months ago. This 30 days is only a PR ploy, and that is the only thing it really is.

And that’s the devastation of all of it, because we have to ask ourselves: What is going to happen in these 30 days? Right after this letter was sent, the Israeli government announced that medical groups were no longer allowed to go into Gaza. They informed the WHO. These are medical groups, including from the United States, that are providing lifesaving assistance to people in need, to civilians in need. This was a slap in the face of the administration. If they had actually taken this letter seriously, they wouldn’t have taken that step. Additionally, the onslaught of northern Gaza is clear. They’re continuing the onslaught, specifically of northern Gaza, a complete blackout, no food, no water, no internet — all this in this 30-day period supposedly. Unfortunately, we need to stop with the words, with the PR, and we need to take serious action.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you — even as the war, this horrific war, continues, the United States’ policy, and that of most European countries, is still in favor of a two-state solution long term in the area. But the Israeli Knesset itself, overwhelmingly, not just Netanyahu’s portion of the government, but overwhelmingly voted earlier this year to reject any possibility of a Palestinian state. I’m wondering your thoughts about the long-term future of the area.

HALA RHARRIT: You’re absolutely right. And the fact that the Knesset voted on that shows the fact that we, as the United States, have been enabling and empowering a right extremist government in Israel. And it’s time that we stop doing so. There are so many Israeli peace activists. We heard of B’Tselem, but there is a growing movement from within Israel, including members that — family members that actually lost relatives on October 7, that are demanding an end to the nonstop violence. These are the groups that we need to support; same on the Palestinian side, Palestinian activists that are calling for coexistence. The U.S. government needs to shift its policy. Again, I’m just going to repeat this over and over again. We continue to empower a right-wing extremist prime minister, when we should be doing is supporting civil society on both sides that are actually seeking to promote humanity for both peoples.

AMY GOODMAN: Hala, tributes have poured in from across the globe for 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou. He was a software engineering student who burned to death after Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah last week. He didn’t actually die then, but the bombing set fire to the displaced persons camp around the hospital. He had built his little tent area for his family. This is a clip of Zeteo Newsreporter Prem Thakker questioning recently State Department spokesperson Matt Miller about Sha’ban’s death.

PREM THAKKER: One of the people the world saw burned alive by the bombing of the Gaza hospital was Sha’ban al-Dalou, a 19-year-old engineering student who was still attached to an IV drip recovering from a previous bombing. And his story kind of speaks to how this isn’t just about one attack, a 19-year-old having to provide for his family, repeatedly displaced, brought to hunger, bombed twice in a matter of days. This is a year, and this isn’t out of nowhere. So, how many more patients burned alive by U.S. bombs —

MATTHEW MILLER: We don’t want to see any.

PREM THAKKER: — until this is enough?

MATTHEW MILLER: None. We don’t want to see any.

PREM THAKKER: Well, I guess the U.S. has said, you know, again and again, that no civilian loss is acceptable, 10,000 deaths ago, 20,000 deaths ago, and yet it’s continued. So, how does this answer mean anything without a policy shift?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, it is an incredibly difficult environment that Israel operates in. And I’ll just make clear, the thing that that question leaves out, as often happens — and I understand why — is the burden that Hamas bears, and not just the burden that Hamas bears by hiding behind humans and using humans as civilian shields, but the burden that Hamas bears in not coming back to the table to try to get to a ceasefire. So, Israel needs to do more to minimize civilian harm. Hamas needs to stop hiding behind human shields.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker. Hala, if you can respond to this report? And, you know, since Sha’ban has died, his brother has died, his mother has died, his sister has died. And people are saying that the family members who are burnt but not yet dead, because they can’t get out and because the hospital is in such disrepair, they are dying from their burns.

HALA RHARRIT: Such immense human suffering, the scale of which we just can’t really grapple with. And I have to just thank you, Amy, for humanizing the victims. And we all have to do that as Americans, because, ultimately, it is our bombs, it is our tax dollars that is creating this catastrophe.

As to Matthew Miller, I’m going to be unequivocal: He’s lying. And I know, I realize it’s quite a forceful thing for me to say, but as a former diplomat, I can assure that. There have been ceasefire deals that Hamas has agreed to. I am not one to advocate for the terrorist organization whatsoever, and I want to be clear about that. But facts are facts. Hamas has repeatedly agreed to ceasefire deals. It is Benjamin Netanyahu who has reneged on those deals.

Additionally, you had another guest on this show a while back, Gershon Baskin, who’s an Israeli negotiator, who has been negotiating on behalf of families of hostages. I have been in close touch with Gershon over the last month. He had, and continues to have, a deal that, again, is an Israeli deal that Hamas has agreed to. I pushed this to the State Department. I pushed this to the White House, at very senior levels. They have it. And it guaranteed the release of all of the hostages, and it guaranteed security for Israel, as well. I’m sorry, go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: We have a clip of —

HALA RHARRIT: OK, great.

AMY GOODMAN: — Gershon Baskin.

GERSHON BASKIN: I’ve pleaded with the Hamas to say yes not only to me, but to tell the Egyptians and the Qataris that they agree to the deal that I proposed to them, which is a three-week, end-of-war, full-term ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, release of all the Israeli hostages and a release of an agreed number and list of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. This is a deal that can be made. It is a million times better than the deal that the United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to negotiate, unsuccessfully, for the last three months, which would just keep the war going and only release 32 hostages in 42 days. That’s a bad deal. We need to have a good deal put on the table. I’ve communicated this to the White House, to the Qataris, to the Egyptians and, of course, to the Israeli government. Now the officials need to push this through.

AMY GOODMAN: Why is Netanyahu refusing?

GERSHON BASKIN: Well, it’s very clear that Netanyahu doesn’t want to end the war, as one of his top negotiators told me on Saturday. The problem with any agreement that we can put forward is that the bottom line is that Hamas won’t make an agreement that doesn’t end the war, and Netanyahu won’t agree to any agreement that ends the war. He wants to keep this going.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Gershon Baskin speaking last month. It was before Yahya Sinwar was assassinated. Gershon Baskin, the Israeli researcher and peace activist who’s negotiated agreements with Hamas. The significance of what he is just saying? And also, I mean, Tony Blinken was your boss. You would brief him. You translated his words to the Arab world and the messages. And talk about the moment that you decided you cannot do this anymore.

HALA RHARRIT: Honestly, there were many moments, Amy, many, many moments. And after an 18-year career, you don’t take the decision to resign lightly. But it was despite all of my efforts, despite everyone’s efforts in terms of us career diplomats, highlighting the inhumanity, the illegality of this policy, the fact that it’s a counterproductive policy that is actually emboldening extremism on all sides, it is only ensuring generational cycle of violence.

I was initially told, “Good. Thank you for your feedback.” I was actually sending daily reports to the department. That was part of my job as a spokesperson. And I was highlighting what was happening in Gaza from the pan-Arab media. So I thought that my work was helping and feeding into Washington’s formulation of what to do next. But it became abundantly clear eventually that the policy was the policy. It was not shifting. I was actually asked in January to stop sending in those reports. Those reports also included the images that were going viral all over the Arab world of children being massacred, oftentimes showing U.S. complicity with fragments of U.S. bomb. Any other circumstance, this would have at least prompted a type of review of our, again, Leahy Law, everything else. It didn’t. Instead, I was silenced. I was sidelined. And that is something that has been unprecedented for me as an 18-year diplomat.

There is always disagreements within the U.S. Foreign Service in terms of policy, but it’s always been a spirit of collaboration, a spirit of “We want to hear from you. Let’s talk.” This has been different. It has been silence. And let me tell you, it has sent a chilling effect across the entire — I can speak about the Foreign Service. People have become to self-censor themselves. They are worried. And that hurts us as Americans, because when you have your experts — your experts, your U.S. government experts — silencing themselves because they’re worried about retribution, or they’re worried about what it will do to their career, we all lose. We lose as American citizens. It doesn’t keep us secure, doesn’t keep us safe.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering if you could talk about the impact of all of this and the U.S. position of unequivocal support for Israel has done to the standing of the United States in the Arab world and in the Global South.

HALA RHARRIT: Yeah, that’s a very good question, Juan. That’s actually one of the things that I used to highlight in my daily reports. And I used to show clips and images that were going viral of, basically, America being determined to be child killers, the country of child killers.

After 9/11 and after the “war on terror,” the U.S. government worked so hard to rehabilitate ties in the Arab world, to improve people-to-people relations. All of that has been devastated. And we are not going to see the repercussions of that — I mean, we are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generation, because we have lost all credibility. We are seen as a country of double standards. We only care about human rights when it’s the human rights of a certain people. We only care about freedom of press when the journalists are not Arab, right? And this is abundantly clear to people across the Arab world and, at this point, beyond.

So, unfortunately, we’ve lost credibility not in terms of just our U.S. policy with regard to the Middle East, but also on Russia-Ukraine. We don’t have a leg to stand on. As a spokesperson before the conflict, I did well over a hundred interviews, including on Russia-Ukraine, for example. We can no longer talk about that with any credibility, because the answer is: Why do you care about a Ukrainian child, but you don’t care about a child in Gaza? What is the difference? And the racism, the blunt, absolutely blunt, racism of this administration has been laid bare.

And it’s going to be very, very hard to recover from this in the Arab world, because we’ve lost even — as I’ve discussed publicly before, we’ve lost, quote-unquote, the “liberals” across the Arab world, the ones who, despite it all, respected us for our values. But those values, even here at home, with the student protests being violently beaten down, it’s all seen through. They’re seeing through all of these double standards. And it’s hurting us, again, hurting us as American citizens.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the reality of this administration that you resigned from and that several other career government officials have resigned from, how do you see this election coming in two weeks and the impact of the “uncommitted” movement, and what you see, as an American who’s going to have to cast a ballot in this election?

HALA RHARRIT: Absolutely. Well, I think the Democratic Party is underestimating the power of this issue. I think they are assuming that people will turn up for Harris because, obviously, Trump is a threat to our democracy. But I think they’re underestimating the trauma — and I don’t use that word lightly — the trauma that this conflict has caused, because so many of us that have been focused on the Middle East have been consuming these incessant images of massacres, absolute massacres, of children getting killed, of the suffering now in Lebanon, and it’s unacceptable. And I think for a lot of people of conscience, they are not going to be able to bring themselves to vote for Harris, even though they understand that Trump is a threat to our democracy, as he surely is. And I think many are taking serious consideration in a third-party option, whether it’s the Green or another, because they’re tired of the institutionalized corruption that has become our government, and they’re tired of politicians who are not working on behalf of the United States, but are, rather, working on behalf of special interests.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know Philip Gordon, who the national security adviser to Kamala Harris? We’re going to have to wrap up in one minute, but to ask: If you see any distance between Kamala Harris and President Biden?

HALA RHARRIT: I don’t now, because those are their own words. They’ve made it abundantly clear that they’re going to continue unconditional support to Israel. And they need to —

AMY GOODMAN: And Philip Gordon?

HALA RHARRIT: I think we’ve seen too many words, and at this point action. And Philip Gordon has made it clear that there’s going to be no arms embargo. And for me, that is him agreeing to a continuation of violation of U.S. law. And as someone that served my country and swore an oath to the Constitution, that’s something I cannot accept.

AMY GOODMAN: Hala Rharrit, we want to thank you so much for being with us, 18-year career diplomat, the first and only career diplomat to resign the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Puerto Rico. Stay with us.