US Armed Forces officer resigns over support for Israeli offensive on Gaza

May 13. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The commander of the US Armed Forces Harrison Mann has announced his resignation from the military for reasons of conscience and in protest of the US Government’s support for Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Mann, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency, announced his decision in a message published on the social network LinkedIn in which he explained that the United States has “facilitated and provided the means” for the death of Palestinian civilians.

“For months now I have been thinking about the policy of almost unconditional support for the Government of Israel, which has been facilitated and provided with means to kill and starve tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians,” he explains, according to the newspaper ‘The New York Times’.

Mann’s LinkedIn bio indicates that he specializes in the Middle East and Africa and has been in his career for thirteen years. He previously worked at the American Embassy in Tunisia.

“This unconditional support encourages a reckless escalation that could provoke a broader war,” he added before indicating that he wanted to leave the Armed Forces, but that the Israeli offensive on Gaza encouraged him to make the decision last November 1.

In the letter he refers to the “horrible and disheartening images” that have come from the conflict. “I have not been able to ignore the relationship between those images and my work. This has caused me incredible shame and a sense of guilt,” she stressed.

“I want to clarify that as a descendant of European Jews I have received an implacable moral education when it comes to responsibility for ethnic cleansing,” he added. Mann himself explains in the text that he already conveyed his opinion to his colleagues on April 16.

Mann confirmed in a telephone conversation with ‘The New York Times’ that he is the author of this text, but did not want to make any statements due to internal military regulations.

This is the first public case of a military member resigning in protest of US support for Israel. In any case, these types of resignations are very rare and even more so when the case and its motivations are made public.