In his resignation letter — officially submitted Nov. 1, distributed internally on April 16 and publicly released Monday on LinkedIn — Maj. Harrison Mann asserts that the U.S. government's unquestioned backing of its ally has "enabled and empowered" the killing of Palestinian civilians.
"The policy that has never been far from my mind for the past six months is the nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel, which has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians," Mann wrote in his letter. "This unconditional support also encourages reckless escalation that risks wider war."
Mann, an executive officer at the DIA, an organization charged with collecting military intelligence, has been in the Army for 13 years, specializing in the Middle East and Africa for about half of that time. He also previously served at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, according to his LinkedIn biography.
"Each of us signed up to serve, knowing we might have to support policies we weren't fully convinced of," Mann wrote. "At some point — whatever the justification — you're either advancing a system that enables the mass starvation of children, or you're not."
Mann is among several U.S. officials to step down from their posts, citing disagreements with the administration over how it has been handling the Israel-Hamas war, sparked in October by deadly Hamas-led attacks in Israel.
Mann said he already intended to leave the Army at some point but could not contend with how his work "however administrative or marginal it appeared — has unquestionably contributed" to U.S. support of Israel.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza in seven months due to a brutal air and ground campaign by the Israeli military. That figure continues to climb thanks to Israel's continued push into the territory's southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million civilians have been sheltering, as well as further bombing of areas in Gaza the country said were already clear of Hamas.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
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