‘Israeli atrocities in Gaza will haunt Blinken for life’

Last Updated on January 19, 2025 6:12 am

Israel has launched an indiscriminate and destructive attack on Gaza. The unconditional US support for this attack will “chaser” outgoing Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for the rest of his life, says former US diplomat Hala Rarit.

Hala Rarit resigned from the US State Department in April last year to protest US support for Israel in the Gaza war.

In a recent telephone interview, Rarit told Al Jazeera that despite the evidence of torture and oppression in Gaza, the US administration has continued to supply weapons to Israel, ignoring its own laws.

Rarit added, “They have deliberately violated US law and ignored the law. I do not use the word ‘deliberate’ lightly. When I took office as a diplomat, I took an oath to protect the US Constitution.

Regarding the US arms supply to Gaza, Rarit added, “They knew how disastrous it could be. Yet they are circumventing all kinds of processes to continue supplying arms. They knew how disastrous it was. Yet they continue supplying arms by circumventing the entire process.”

The US has several laws prohibiting the transfer of arms to human rights violators. One of these laws prohibits the provision of security assistance to countries that obstruct Washington-backed humanitarian aid.

The Lehigh Act restricts US assistance to military units that have credible allegations of serious human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings, torture and rape.

The war in Gaza has been going on for 15 months. So far, 46,876 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Israel is also blocking aid deliveries there. As a result, millions of people in that small territory are at risk of famine.

However, Blinken assured the US Congress that Israel was not blocking the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Various humanitarian aid organizations rejected the assessment of Biden’s Secretary of State.

Blinken has a long history of working for Israel. For this reason, he has had to face protests from Palestinian rights activists at various times. There have also been protests in front of his home.

This week, when Blinken gave a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, several rights activists chanted “Secretary of State for Genocide.”

Blinken was subjected to a barrage of questions from several journalists at his last press conference as US Secretary of State at the US State Department in Washington on Thursday.

That day, journalists peppered him with questions for supporting Israel, which has killed people by indiscriminate attacks on Gaza, Palestine. The commotion there reached such a level that security personnel were seen forcibly taking two journalists out of the room.

“This will haunt him for the rest of his life. History will definitely judge him and that work has already begun,” Rarit said.