WHAT happens in Gaza doesn't just stay in Gaza. It has Washington consequences.
Call it a connected world, though not a very moral one. But of late, conscience is growing to be contagious there, leading to a spate of resignations from the United States administration.
In a space of seven months — as if the clock of conscience began on Oct 7 — there have been nine resignations announced publicly. If The Guardian is right, two dozen more left quietly.
All because of US-Israel policy. Not since this side of Vietnam. The latest resignation was on Tuesday, when Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department's Population, Refugees and Migration Bureau as a subject matter expert, quit accusing the administration of falsely stating that Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza in a report submitted to the Congress.
Gilbert, who worked on the report, was quoted by Reuters as saying on Thursday in an interview thus: "There is so clearly a right and wrong, and what is in that report is wrong."
A day earlier, another US official, Alexander Smith, who was a contractor for the US Agency for International Development, resigned under similar circumstances.
Writing to the British newspaper, Smith elaborated his stand thus: "I cannot do my job in an environment in which 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." Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. From Josh Paul, the first to quit, to Gilbert — who may not be the last — US officials have gone public hoping to push the US administration to end the atrocities in Gaza and to address the root causes of the conflict. A permanent ceasefire — the immediate goal — will not only bring relief to the Palestinians, but also to the Israelis. Hostages can be brought home and so can Palestinian prisoners, picked up off the streets just like the hostages.
But Tel Aviv appears not interested in seeking their release. Instead, it has opted to bombard the occupied territories. An AFP report quoting a Hamas statement on March 2, said the number of hostages killed as a result of Israeli military operations "may have exceeded 70".
It should be clear to Washington by now its unconditional support for Israel is not working. Instead, Tel Aviv has used it to its advantage to bring ruin to the Middle East and to the reputation of the US. Just count the number of times that Israel has crossed Washington's red lines. Countless, just since Oct 7.
Crossing red lines must come with costs. Moving them to accommodate more atrocities will only encourage Israeli impunity. We saw that in the West Bank, in Gaza and now Rafah.
As this Leader goes to press, 36,284 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed by Israel in just seven months.
It is now saying that its bombardments and ground raids will continue for another seven, even if that means more Israeli hostages would be killed. It has become part of Israel's discourse to link everything in the Middle East to Israel's security. It is a smokescreen of an apartheid state. Israel just can't bomb its way to security without consequences.