Jessica Le Masurier
• May 9, 2024
Welcome to a special episode of PassBlue podcast series UNSCripted. I’m Jessica Le Masurier, and I’m joined by Hala Rharrit, the Arabic language spokesperson for the Mideast-North Africa region for the United States State Department who recently resigned in protest over US policy on the war in Gaza. (The text part of the interview, below, has been edited for clarity.)
PassBlue: As the US is rocked by antiwar protests on campuses nationwide, it’s also clear there’s much discontent within the Biden administration over the war. Mrs. Rharrit is the third State Department official to publicly quit over the Biden administration’s stance on the conflict. You worked for the State Department for over 18 years, what made you finally decide to quit?
Rharrit: I joined straight out of my graduate studies in 2006, and the reason I decided to become a diplomat was because, as silly as it sounds, I wanted to do good in the world and I wanted to help my country. I felt for the last 18 years that every single day as a diplomat, I was doing those things. I was helping the United States of America. I was strengthening ties between the United States and other countries. I felt like I was a force of good in the world. Unfortunately, the role that the United States has chosen to play in this crisis has been catastrophic. It pains me very much to say that as a dedicated diplomat.
It pains me to say that out loud, and it took me a while to even admit it to myself. But the reality is that President [Joe] Biden has chosen to implement a militaristic policy that has focused on sending weaponry to Israel for a continued bombardment on a besieged civilian population.
This policy has failed. It has not achieved any of its military objectives. The Israeli hostages are still stuck in Gaza. Obviously, 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, 14,000 of whom are children. As a diplomat, I strongly believe in the power of diplomacy. There are other ways to achieve goals and diplomatic solutions work. But unfortunately, the administration has chosen to ignore its diplomats and has chosen to consistently abide by this militaristic policy.
I could no longer be part of that.
PassBlue: Could you describe what it was like inside the State Department after the Oct. 7 attacks?
Rharrit: For us that are serving overseas as diplomats, especially in the Middle East, we were horrified by the terrorist attacks. Everybody was just shocked at the devastation and the horrors that occurred that day. And we were all very concerned about, obviously, what would happen next, because it was without a doubt Israel would react and obviously try to bring home the hostages and would react against Hamas.
But I think it’s clear that nobody quite realized, or at least would have hoped, that it would not have gotten to this stage, when we’re talking about famine. I want to be clear now, this is not an us-versus-them dichotomy that has been a lot on mainstream media. It shouldn’t be an Israeli versus Palestinian side. We should really be looking at this conflict in terms of the people, the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, and the fact that we’ve gotten to the point of famine, that children have died of starvation, when there are grocery stores that are completely full, just 30 minutes away from where these children are dying of starvation, it’s unacceptable.
PassBlue: What was it like working for the State Department during these months of war? Were there particular incidents that will stay in your mind that you won’t forget?
Rharrit: It’s been the most, by far, challenging time of my entire career, and obviously it ended in resignation. So my role was as spokesperson for the State Department in the region. I was in charge of the Middle East and North Africa media markets, with the Arabic language market. So prior to Oc. 7, I had done well over 100 media engagements on Arab media. But after Oct. 7, it became clear to me that our messaging in the region was pouring gas on the fire. It was not helping the situation and it was actually generating significant anti-American backlash.
So I stood down on interviews, which was quite controversial for me professionally. . . . and instead I was sending reports back to Washington on a daily basis documenting and reporting what was happening in the region — on both traditional media and social media — and what I was reporting to Washington was the growing anti-Americanism, the likes of which I haven’t seen in decades. And my warning was, this policy is not only hurting Palestinians, it’s not only hurting Israelis, but it’s also hurting us and the repercussions are going to be severe on the United States for generations to come potentially.
But what was frustrating is that no matter what data, no matter what information was sent back, we never changed course. I was definitely sidelined. I was silenced. I started being excluded from certain things, from certain meetings, my name started disappearing off emails because people did not like this critical feedback I was giving. This was a first for me because the State Department has always been a place of discussion, of negotiations internally.
Within the halls of the Department as diplomats, we’ve always been able to, from my experience, have a frank, honest, open conversation about what’s working, what’s not. What can we do to improve this? How can we strategize this for the good of our country? But there’s been a chilling effect with this conflict, where people are scared to discuss it.
PassBlue: Why accounts for the “chilling effect”? What’s different about this war?
Rharrit: Honestly, from my perspective, it’s coming strictly from the top down. And the State Department is not able to and the diplomats out in the field are not able to effectively influence in a way that we have before. In our role as diplomats working in embassies and consulates, we become experts wherever we work, and we provide information to Washington to try to help them and guide them in making policy decisions.
But no matter what was coming from the field with this conflict, the policy was the policy. And it wasn’t shifting even in terms of our own messaging, not even speaking about the broader policy. My point, which is not my point based on my personal opinion, it was my point based on reporting, on documenting things, on data that our messaging is causing a backlash. There was no evidence that we still message these talking points to the Arab world, no matter what the reaction we were going to generate and how much anti-Americanism we were going to generate. And so that’s been different. The State Department has shrunk, from my experience with this particular conflict, to strictly implementing arms. And we haven’t been able to leverage our own influence, which led me to ask, “Why am I here?”
Because then it made me feel complicit and feel like I’m enabling the policy by remaining because it was coming directly from the top of the camp; it was not changing or shifting, no matter what it learned about the ramifications of the policy.
PassBlue: When you say directly from the top, do you mean US Secretary of State Antony Blinken? Or President Joe Biden? Could you please explain?
Rharrit: It’s clearly from the President. President Biden and those around him in the White House. And Secretary Blinken; they’re the ultimate decision-makers regarding this policy.
PassBlue: What did you do to try and change things? Did you try to go through the official channels? It seems as though you tried to express your discontent.
Rharrit: Absolutely. I went through official channels, cable. I wrote reports. Like I mentioned, I was writing daily reports, analyzing traditional and social media. I wrote emails. I had phone calls. I had conversations face to face. Really, it was very frustrating because, again, we were seeing the ramifications throughout the region. We saw that everything we worked for to improve ties between the United States and Arab countries was just crumbling. I don’t know how we’re going to regain our credibility. And that was my point, that not only is it causing a generational cycle of violence for the Palestinians and the Israelis, there is no rational way that you can assume this level of killing is not going to just generate a generational cycle of violence or people will continue to have back and forth revenge destabilizing the Middle East.
But it’s also devastating our own credibility as the United States. We could no longer talk even about press freedom because we were remaining silent on all of the journalists that got killed in Gaza. So it was very frustrating to continuously report this information back to Washington, but nothing was really changing.
PassBlue: How many others do you think feel the same way you do? Do you sense any unease from other officials in the State Department?
Rharrit: I know there are a lot because many came to me after my resignation was announced internally within the department. A lot reached out to me expressing that they felt similar frustration that they were very, very devastated by the policy and understood how much it was hurting America and how much it was destabilizing to the region that they felt they couldn’t see anything, they weren’t empowered enough to say anything, and that they were worried about their own career, which is also a very sad thing. That’s not what the department is supposed to be about. In my view, there aren’t enough diplomats that are concerned about the policy.
PassBlue: Did you observe any unease from, say, Secretary of State Blinken or the US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield? In the Arab world, she’s been nicknamed by some as the “hand of death” following the multiple US vetoes of Security Council resolutions on Gaza.
Rharrit: She’s been vilified throughout Arab social media in particular, and I sent a lot of that back to Washington and all of those memes with her hand bloodied because I wanted to show Washington, “Look at at how our ambassador to the United Nations is being portrayed.” This image of her with a bloody hand will remain embedded in the minds of millions of people across the region if we don’t change course. People do feel unease. It’s very uncomfortable, especially for people that work in the region. And we have to interact with people that call us out on our double standards. I was meeting with Arab journalists, for example, and they would ask me all the time, why isn’t America doing anything to protect these journalists? I thought you all stood up for press freedom. I thought that was one of your values.
Passblue: Can you tell me about other responses to US policy that you were observing in the Middle East?
Rharrit: Our air drops were horribly rejected throughout the region; they were mocked, actually, and they were seen as an insult by so many people that [said], How dare you just send these parachutes from the sky. And we’re seeing Palestinians look so undignified running after the food it was received, as [if] you’re only doing this to appease the critics and make it look like you’re helping. Whereas if you actually cared about alleviating mass starvation, you would condition military aid, leverage that and force the aid trucks that are at the border [to get through] . . . the US is not doing that. I have to say that the policy did not impact strictly the Israeli-Palestinian issue. We were being called out on our double standard for everything else: Russia-Ukraine, Sudan. The region started to call us out on double standards across the board, which made things very difficult diplomatically.
PassBlue: What response did you see to Biden’s announcement about the construction of the US-led pier off the Gaza coast to deliver aid?
Rharrit: It was a horrific response to the point where a lot of Arab social media were talking about how the pier was being built with rubble that included the bodies of Palestinians. It was very graphic, the messaging, and then it led to so many conspiracy theories that this is what the West wanted all along, and they’re not even going to use it for humanitarian aid. There became such a level of distrust because people could not wrap their heads around the fact that if you really wanted to help, you would stop arming. Why are you sending Israel offensive weaponry if you actually care about the Palestinian people?
PassBlue: Why do you think the Biden administration acted so rashly in response to the Israeli allegations against UNWRA staffers without having any underlying evidence? Is there a loophole that Biden could use to ultimately reinstate the funds to UNWRA?
Rharrit: Of course he could reinstate the funds to UNWRA. But you’re right, it was a very rash decision to cut the aid and shows the double standard because as soon as we had received word from from Israel — and yes, the allegations were very concerning — that to make a decision that collectively punishes an entire population, especially in times of potential famine, it just didn’t make sense, especially when there was not proof provided before that decision was made. Again, I think it speaks to the exceptions to our rules. We generally don’t operate that way. There’s due process. There are things that are usually done in order for us to make decisions.
PassBlue: Finally, how do you think the Biden administration’s Gaza policy is working out on the domestic front; we’re seeing student uprisings, many Americans are saying that they’re going to vote uncommitted. How do you see Biden’s Gaza policy impacting the US election?
Rharrit: I think the impact will be significant. It took seven months before these students started protesting. These students have been much like people across the world and, in particular, the Arab world, have been consuming on a daily basis through their social media, horrific and traumatic images of the carnage of the mass killings that have been occurring every day in Gaza. If President Biden had resolved this conflict, we wouldn’t have student protests today. And we have to realize that, and that’s a failure of the policy.
Jessica Le Masurier is a New York and UN correspondent for France 24. She has both a bachelor’s degree, with honors, and a master’s degree in modern languages and literature from Oxford University.
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