U.S. Jewish Army Intel Officer Quits over Gaza, Says "Impossible" Not to See Echoes of Holocaust

this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez we end Today's Show with the first military and intelligence officer to publicly resign over the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza Jewish American Army Major Harrison man resigned from his role at the defense intelligence agency after a 133-year career the DIA is essentially the Pentagon CIA in a letter explaining his resignation he posted online last month man wrote quote this office does not only inform policy it facilitates and at times directly executes policy and the policy that's never been far from my mind for the past six months is the nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel which has enabled and empowered The Killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians as we were recently reminded this unconditional Support also encourages Reckless escalation that risks wider War he wrote man submitted his resignation November first just over three weeks into Israel's assault on Gaza his separation from the military became effective last week Harrison Man joins us now from Washington DC welcome to democracy Now Harrison if you can go back to November and talk about what drove you to decide to separate from the US military you're a US Army Major who worked for the defense intelligence agency and explain exactly what your role was and what the DIA does yes and uh and thank you for having me so just in terms of what I was was seeing what drove my decision back in October is uh even even in the first weeks after October 7th with the start of the Israeli air campaign on Gaza it was really clear that they were prepared to inflict huge numbers of Civilian casualties which they which they did and which your you know a trend your your last uh guest described and really heartbreaking detail uh so there's very high tolerance and willingness to inflict civilian casualties which we already saw we already saw the the autoimmune response from us and Israeli adversaries or Iranian proxies in the region where that I think the first uh houthi attack starting in uh in mid October and really Beyond those those risks and the humanitarian cost it was really clear both both at the national level and from what I was hearing from the the senior leadership in my uh my community that our support for Israel was going to be really unshakable and and unconditional uh no matter how many people they killed and how they conducted the war and my job at the time was assistant to the director of basically the the Middle East and Africa office for the agency who was also the the official who overa the Israel crisis response so I I was very well placed to understand some of the the higher level discussions happening uh about the war and about us support to the war and that really left me feeling hopeless that we were going to condition or moderate our our Aid or our support in any way yeah uh and uh Harrison man I'm wondering if you could talk about from the perspective of what the defense intelligence agency the kind of information it was collecting U even before uh the uh uh the events of October 7th and this new War uh to your knowledge has there ever been a situation like Gaza where basically people were in an open air prison where the Israelis essentially controlled All In uh Ingress and egress uh from the territory and was were able to cut off uh any kind of uh uh contact with the outside world whenever they wanted to yeah I mean there's certainly been other conflicts including in our in our region where uh other forces um did some level of Siege or or or cut off access to the the population they were attacking and I think the uh Saudi Le coalitions were in Yemen against the houthis um which until recently had had wound down was probably the next closest example of a a man-made humanitarian crisis cutting off the entry of food and medication while while bombing the population and in terms of what were the why you decided specifically in the first few weeks uh as the conflict began to resign what were the the main reason that you felt you had to resign I mean fun fundamentally I understood that every every day that I was going to go into the office I was going to be contributing to the Israeli campaign um that was something that that DOD was supporting it's something that uh Dia was supporting and uh I think it's it's open that we have a very close intellig intelligence relationship with Israel and and so I was I was tangentially involved in that and I kind of got more and more discouraged and hopeless that uh we were going to stop the US was going to stop its support and and I understood early on and and was unfortunately validated in this that nobody was going to come tell me to stop uh nobody at any level in my chain of command even even people who I think were were sympathetic to what was happening to the Palestinians uh was going to ask me or anybody I worked with to reconsider the support that we were facilitating Harrison man you're an American Jew um as well as a uh an Army Major working at the DIA how did your Jewish background uh influence your decision my my Jewish background you know influenced both my my service and my my decision to leave I I have a very distinct memory of several years ago going to the yadvashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel on a on a trip that was actually sponsored and hosted by the IDF and you you go through that Museum and you see all these the sites of the the Holocaust victims and then at the end there's this giant blowup photo that I think is still there showing a lot of US Army soldiers uh interspersed with Holocaust Camp survivors and they're attending a service led by a US Army Rabbi after their Camp has been liberated and that I think seeing that photo which I hadn't seen before was like one of my my proudest moments of my service uh understanding that I got to wear the same uniform and be in the same Army as the men who liberated that camp and today seeing photos of of charred bodies and burnt corpses and starved emaciated children that are from you know 2023 2024 not not the 40s it's it's impossible not to make that connection and I guess it forced me to realize that that's what I was contributing to in the same uniform um instead of instead of uh saving those people and so I think the you know the situations are not perfectly analogous but the moral logic was was very clear to me because I'm Jewish I wanted to ask you about more recent events like this weekend and as your role as a Dia officer if you could explain what's really going on here um talking about the role of us intelligence support uh in Israel's war in Gaza this is National Security adviser Jake Sullivan to speaking on CNN from Paris the United States has been providing support to Israel for several months in its efforts to help identify the locations of hostages in Gaza and to support efforts to try to secure their rescue or recovery uh I'm not going to get into the specific operational or intelligence related matters associated with that because we need to protect those uh I can only just say that we have generally provided support uh to the IDF uh so that we can try to get all of the hostages home including the American hostages who are still being held so I understand that intelligence uh us intelligence assisted uh but will you say anything about us Personnel Us weapons well the one thing I can say is that there were no US forces no no us boots on the ground involved in this operation we did not participate militarily in this operation so no boots on the ground Jake Sullivan says to danab bash of CNN he's talking about this weekend when more than 200 70 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli military operation that uh freed four Israeli hostages in new sedat and Gaza Israeli intelligence officials told the New York Times this is in an article today that US military officials in Israel provided some of the intelligence about the hostages rescued on Saturday according to the times the Pentagon and the CIA have been providing information collected from drone flights over Gaza Communications intercepts and other sources about the potential location of hostages while Israel has its own intelligence the United States and Britain have been able to provide intelligence from the air and cyers space that Israel cannot collect on its own the New York Times reports so Harrison man talk more about this and what kind of support was it looks like provided this weekend and then go more generally into well President Biden more recently said he's a proving a billion dollars more of just outright weapons to Israel yeah I think the the operation this weekend is a is a kind of unusually public example of the value of intelligence support that the US provides uh to Israel which is you know we've had a longstanding and very strong relationship and usually it's not discussed but I think this weekend we saw how how Intel support even even if f for for a goal that I think is nominally um you know quite something that's difficult to dispute which is rescuing hostages can nonetheless contribute to operations that kill what what looks like a very large number of civilians and I think it's also indicative of the value of the Intel support that we give Israel and I I just highlight that because that's the the area that I I worked in or adjacent to and and it's another form of valuable support that we give Israel that helps them prosecute this war and it's a another less disussed uh form of Leverage that we also have over the Israeli government and Harrison man I'm wondering U your moral concerns about what was going on in Gaza to what extent you shared it with other fellow military or defense intelligence people and what uh what advice you would have to those in the military or in the intelligence community that are still grappling with their ethical concerns so for the the first months after I I initiated my resignation process which did not actually uh conclude until last week I I was really kind of afraid I didn't feel comfortable talking about this with anybody because nobody else was discussing it and and it felt like it was way outside of our our norms and and outside of what would be culturally acceptable where I worked but in in April when I finally shared my resignation uh my resignation letter uh with my office I got really overwhelmingly positive and supportive feedback from the people that I worked with and I discovered that there were a lot of people who felt pretty much the same way that I did and also felt like they could not openly discuss their concerns and since I've I've publicized my letter more people from both my office and elsewhere in the Department of Defense and the military have have also reached out and you know my my number one piece of advice or or kind of uh tough love here is is understanding again that nobody is going to tell you to stop I do not think we are near an end to this conflict and so you are nowhere near the end of being finally told that you can stop participating in it and so understanding that you you then have to realize that moderating your level of support or participation is a choice the same way that going to work tomorrow and continuing to support the Israeli campaign is a choice and I I know that what I did is is not feasible for a lot of people I understand that uh I know other other folks in our line of work who have asked for a transfer or who have uh asked their supervisor hey I'm going to keep doing all of the portfolios you give me but find somebody else for Israel uh I think another possibly effective option is asking for an assurance in writing that what you're doing is both legal and consistent with your organiz A's ethical standards and value statements that's something I wish I had done which I think would have given some people pause uh because we're we're asking each other we're asking our subordinates to do a lot of these things and contribute to this this conflict Without Really pausing to to think about the the ethical Dimension and that's something I'm I'm guilty of as well Harrison man just finally go ahead go ahead I would just finally say if you if you can't do that just start talking about it and and letting somebody that you work with know that they're not alone might be incredibly valuable and of itself we just have 10 seconds what effect did the protest have on you do they make it inside the campus protests yes uh I was just it was further indication about whether or not I was on the right side of history and you know how I'd be able to look back at this years from now which is which is what helped drive my decision

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 99,521

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: p0PuMRCRlYQ

Length: 15min 4sec (904 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2024