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state department
US Official Who Resigned Over Gaza Says Report Absolving Israel 'Patently False'
Stacy Gilbert, a 20-year State Dept. veteran, described reading the final NSM-20 report in shock, given the way it contradicted expert consensus. She immediately decided to resign.
May 30, 2024
Stacy Gilbert, a U.S. State Department official who resigned this week over Gaza, said Thursday that part of a key report on humanitarian assistance issued earlier this month was "patently false" and that it contradicted the consensus of the department's own experts, according toThe Guardian.
Humanitarian groups had widely condemned the department's NSM-20 report, released May 10, which, among other contentious findings, determined that Israel wasn't restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance—an assessment that allowed the Biden administration to continue providing arms to Israel. Countries that have blocked U.S. aid are ineligible for arms and security assistance under U.S. law.
Gilbert's comments on Thursday revealed that department officials, and not just outside humanitarian groups, disagreed with the official assessment, which she said was taken out of expert hands within the department during the final weeks and "edited at a higher level." She told The Guardian that it was clear that Israel was limiting the amount of food and medical supplies coming into Gaza.
"There is consensus among the humanitarian community on that," Gilbert said. "It is absolutely the opinion of the humanitarian subject matter experts in the State Department, and not just in my bureau—people who look at this from the intelligence community and from other bureaus."
"I would be very hard-pressed to think of anyone who has said [Israeli obstruction of aid] is not an issue," she added. "That's why I object to that report saying that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance. That is patently false."
The Washington Post, which broke the story of Gilbert's resignation on Tuesday, reported that her view that "Israel was impeding the aid from reaching civilians in Gaza" was "echoed by the vast majority of aid and humanitarian organizations."
It was not clear from the reporting in The Guardian or the Post whether Gilbert also disagreed with the other major assessment in the NSM-20 report—that U.S.-supplied weapons couldn't be definitively linked to violations of international law in Gaza. Oxfam called the report a "slap in the face," citing a memorandum it had jointly written with Human Rights Watch on international law violations and Israeli restrictions on aid. Other humanitarian and watchdog groups had similar responses to the report.
Gilbert, a 20-year department veteran who worked in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, described reading the final NSM-20 report in shock when it was released. She sent an email explaining her intention to resign just two hours later. This week, she sent another email to department staff explaining her views about the errors in the report, according to the Post.
Gilbert is one of two Biden administration officials to resign this week, bringing the overall total to at least nine. Alexander Smith, a contractor and senior adviser at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), resigned Monday after a presentation that he prepared on maternal and child health in Gaza was canceled. He sent a letter to USAID Administrator Samantha Power critiquing inconsistencies in the agency's approach to different humanitarian crises, The Guardian reported. Smith had been with USAID for four years.
"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," Smith wrote.
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Biden and Blinken—Weapons to Israel Violate US and International Law
Will the U.S. government finally do the right thing when it comes to holding Israel to account for its clear violations of human rights standards?
May 09, 2024
As Israel continues its merciless assault on Gaza, there is at least some sanity taking hold in regard to U.S. policy on military assistance to Israel. Several weapons shipments have been put on hold by the Biden Administration and congressional leadership over concerns about Israeli conduct in its ongoing slaughter in Gaza. This is surely the result of relentless protests, organizing and advocacy by the broad, growing movement for a ceasefire.
Currently, as Israel surrounds and attacks Rafah, and ceasefire talks sputter, the U.S. government is poised to likely give Israel a clean bill of health in a report to Congress.
All that is required of Congress and the president is to do their jobs and uphold existing U.S. and international law.
The report, expected any day now, is required by National Security Memorandum - 20 (NSM-20), and is not specific to Israel. It simply states that countries receiving U.S. military assistance must follow U.S. and international law regarding the laws of war and allow humanitarian assistance to reach civilians. Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Colombia, Ukraine and Israel are the countries addressed in the report. Israel has speciously asserted that it is in compliance.
NSM-20 was adopted by the Biden administration in a compromise with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), supported by 18 other senators, when his and other amendments were denied a vote in the recent military supplemental appropriations process. Subsequently, 88 House members led by U.S. Reps. Jason Crow (D-Col.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) wrote to the Administration expressing their support for holding Israel accountable under NSM-20 and section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits U.S. security assistance to any state which restricts U.S. humanitarian aid.
Reports by the executive branch to Congress are ordinarily obscure and dry, read only by committed policy wonks. This one is justifiably getting more attention, as it is a tool for accountability that merely restates existing U.S. and international law, at a time when ending the calamity in Gaza could not be more urgent. The fact that the report may be delayed (it was due May 8) reflects internal divisions within the State Department not just about Israel’s fallacious claim of compliance, but what to recommend to the executive branch in terms of possible action against Israel.
This is likely the first bite at the apple regarding the NSM-20 process, as peace advocates, and our allies in Congress, see it as a potential lever to impact U.S. policy toward Israel, hopefully to bring about an end to the war.
Congressional action is of course only one form of pressure on the Biden Administration to end military aid to Israel and press for a ceasefire. The remarkable spread of campus protests and consistent "No Preference" or "Uncommitted" Democratic presidential primary votes in state after state are powerful statements of no confidence in Biden’s bear hug of support of Israel. All that is required of Congress and the president is to do their jobs and uphold existing U.S. and international law. The question is whether they can, for once, stand up to the pro-apartheid, anti-Palestinian human rights lobby and do the right thing.
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State Department-Commissioned Report Warns AI Could Be an 'Extinction-Level' Threat
The report says the U.S. government must move "quickly and decisively" to address the threat of artificial intelligence.
Mar 11, 2024
A report released on Monday that was commissioned by the U.S. State Department warns that artificial intelligence could pose an "extinction-level threat."
"Given the growing risk to national security posed by rapidly expanding AI capabilities from weaponization and loss of control—and particularly, the fact that the ongoing proliferation of these capabilities serves to amplify both risks—there is a clear and urgent need for the U.S. government to intervene," the report states.
The report compares the development of AI to the development of nuclear weapons and claims it might "destabilize global security" if it's not properly regulated. The report says the U.S. government must move "quickly and decisively" to address the threat of AI.
🚨 A new report commissioned by the U.S. government has identified "urgent and growing" national security risks "reminiscent of the introduction of nuclear weapons" - including "extinction-level threat to the human species" - from the development of advanced AI & artificial… pic.twitter.com/SvLrdEzz9e
— Future of Life Institute (@FLI_org) March 11, 2024
"The three authors of the report worked on it for more than a year, speaking with more than 200 government employees, experts, and workers at frontier AI companies—like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta—as part of their research," Timereports. "Accounts from some of those conversations paint a disturbing picture, suggesting that many AI safety workers inside cutting-edge labs are concerned about perverse incentives driving decision making by the executives who control their companies."
The report recommends that the U.S. create a new federal agency to regulate the companies developing new AI tools and limit the growth of AI. Experts say such a move does not seem likely.
“I think that this recommendation is extremely unlikely to be adopted by the United States government,” Greg Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Time.
AI is a rapidly developing, and experts have warned that many of the companies creating new AI tools are not acting responsibly. A report from earlier this month also noted how generative AI is increasing the spread of climate disinformation and using up valuable resources.
The U.S. was one of 18 countries that joined an agreement in November to keep AI systems "secure by design," but further action will be needed to accomplish that goal.
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