'Speak out for us, this is wrong' Anelle Sheline talks about what's really on the minds of Americans working in the State Department

SHAH ALAM - A State Department official has resigned from her position in protest of the United States' (US) backing of Israel's assault on Gaza.

Annelle Sheline who was the foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour said she initially had no intention of resigning publicly but was urged by her colleagues to voice out her dissent against the Biden administration's support for Israel.

In an interview with independent news programme Democracy Now!, she said many people inside the State knew that this was a horrific policy and could not believe that the US government was engaged in such actions which contravened the American values directly.

However, she said the leadership was not listening.

"I hadn’t initially planned to resign publicly. I hadn’t been at State for very long and I didn’t think it would necessarily matter.

"But I decided to go public because when I started to tell colleagues that I was planning to resign over Gaza, so many people’s response was "Please speak out. Please speak for us."

"The evidence speaks for itself. We’ve had not only the ICJ’s (International Court of Justice) ruling, not only the United Nations Security Council ruling," she said.

In the interview, she said this situation not only devastated the lives of people in Gaza but also severely tarnished US' reputation on the international stage.

"Clearly, the administration is unwilling to admit to reality.

"It is incredibly demoralising for people inside the State Department, many of whom believe very deeply in what America says it stands for.

"So, I’m trying to speak on behalf of those many, many people who feel so betrayed by our government’s stance," Sheline added.

Her resignation marks the first public departure of a State Department official since former senior State Department official Josh Paul's resignation several months prior.

It was reported that Paul, a former director in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs, stepped down on Oct 18, 2023 due to disagreements with the Biden administration's stance on the ongoing Israeli colonisation of Palestine.

He said the administration's response to the situation was impulsive and based on intellectual bankruptcy citing his inability to support continued US military assistance to Israel as the reason for his resignation.