“I Was Shocked”: Meet the State Dept. Official Who Quit After Report Denies Israel Blocking Gaza Aid

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today with another Biden administration official who resigned over the administration’s support for the war on Gaza. Stacy Gilbert served as senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which is the State Department’s chief humanitarian office and features heavily in internal policy discussions over Gaza.

This week, she sent an email to staff explaining her disagreements with a recently published State Department report that she worked on, but which concluded that Israel was not obstructing U.S. humanitarian assistance to Gaza. That report was used by the Biden administration to justify continuing to send more than a billion dollars of weapons to Israel. Stacy Gilbert resigned after working at the State Department for over 20 years, joining us now from Baltimore, Maryland.

Stacy, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain your final decision to resign.

STACY GILBERT: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

I have — about myself, I’ve worked for the State Department for a while. And it’s not just working in the State Department. I’ve worked in humanitarian issues, refugee crises, basically most every refugee and humanitarian crisis involving conflict in that time, so Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan. My role in all of this, specifically, was supporting our team that oversees assistance to Gaza and the Middle East.

But specifically, working on this report, it was — we were directed in early February by the White House to come up with a report that assesses different countries based on two things primarily. One is their adherence to, as Alex mentioned, international humanitarian law, which is the law that says there are wars, but there are rules in war. There’s rules about the kind of weapons you can use, about making the distinction between civilians and combatants. And basically, it’s a body of laws that says, even in war, there are ways that you have to mitigate the consequences for civilians and soldiers. And we adhere to that. Israel adheres to it. It is international law. So this report was looking at adherence to that body of law, as well as whether countries allow humanitarian assistance.

There were several countries we were assessing, but the one, unsurprisingly, that generated the most debate was Israel. I was working on this report with many others. There were a handful of us who were very, very engaged in every sentence of that. But at some point, we were removed from that report, and it was moved up to a higher level to be written and edited and cleared. So, even though I had worked on this pretty heavily since this directive from the White House came out in early February, I did not know what was in the report until it came out.

That said, I was actually hopeful that it would be an honest report, because earlier that week the White House had made an announcement that it was going to pause the 2,000-pound bombs that have really caused disproportionate destruction in Gaza. So, they had announced a pause on that. And I was actually pretty hopeful that maybe this report was going to be honest.

So, when the report came out on May 10th late in the day, I read it. And I had to reread it, because I couldn’t believe what it said. It said very clearly — it actually — so, on those two points, I was surprised on the point about Israel’s adherence to international humanitarian law. For the first time I’m aware of, we admitted — in very, very weak terms, but we admitted — that Israel is likely using U.S. weapons in violation of international humanitarian law. I was surprised. That was a step forward in admitting that.

I was shocked, however, that it also went on to say that Israel — it is our assessment that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance. That is not — that is not the view of subject matter experts at the State Department, at USAID, nor among the humanitarian community. And that was known. That was absolutely known to the administration for a very long time, not just within the government, but having received reports and letters from organizations on the ground in Gaza, organizations the U.S. government funds, credible organizations, saying Israel is blocking humanitarian assistance.

And that’s not to say that Israel is the only problem in this. There are certainly — it’s a conflict. It’s difficult. But these are professional organizations with expertise, local knowledge. They know how to work in conflicts. They know how to get — to do the negotiations to get the assistance to where it needs to be. They know how to do it. The issue is, they are not being allowed to.

And it’s a range of issues. It’s not just blocking trucks from going in, because we see, over the course of this conflict, sometimes trucks go in, sometimes they’re delayed, sometimes assistance goes in, but then it’s ratcheted back. But we’re seeing, consistently through this, a pattern of obstruction that the aid — that prevents these organizations from doing their work and delivering this assistance to the people who need it. It’s a variety of things. It’s blocking — it’s delaying or blocking visas for aid workers. It’s causing trucks to be unloaded because there is a single item that Israel considers dual-use. And the things that are considered dual-use are incredible: tent poles, flashlights, surgical scissors. All of these things, if found to be in a load of assistance, will cause the whole thing to be offloaded, back everything up.

And it’s this pattern of arbitrarily limiting, restricting or just outright blocking assistance going in that has caused the very grave situation in Gaza that we’ve heard about: famine. This is not hunger. Famine. “Famine” is a word that we are very, very cautious about using in the humanitarian sector. Words like “famine” and “starvation” are only used when very specific indicators have been met. So, the fact that there is famine is extraordinary. That doesn’t have to happen in a conflict, but it has happened here.

And the remedy — when you’ve reach the stage of famine, the remedy is not more food. Absolutely, more food is needed. But for people who are experiencing that extreme stage of malnutrition, that requires an immediate, intensive medical intervention. And where are you going to find that in a country now where the hospitals have been destroyed? For the people who have reached that stage, it’s too late. And any effort to bring in more food is absolutely necessary, but anything that comes in now is — it’s too little, too late.

And the reason we’ve come to this point is because of Israel’s obstruction. And to see that written in a report, a joint report from the State Department and the Department of Defense, to Congress is ludicrous. And I was just —

AMY GOODMAN: Stacy, we just have 30 seconds.

STACY GILBERT: — I couldn’t, for my —

AMY GOODMAN: Your final message to President Biden?

STACY GILBERT: Do the right thing. Listen to your experts. Do the right thing. It is difficult, but it is necessary, because what we’ve done up to now has not worked for anyone. It doesn’t help Israel. It doesn’t help —

AMY GOODMAN: And what is the right thing, in this last 10 seconds?

STACY GILBERT: — the people of Gaza. It undermines our credibility. The right thing is to acknowledge Israel is blocking humanitarian assistance, and there are consequences of that. And the consequences affect our military sales.

AMY GOODMAN: Stacy Gilbert, we thank you so much, former senior civil military adviser in the State Department, has just resigned. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.