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A top State Department official under Joe Biden has acknowledged that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza with the help of the U.S. — but says that it is still “critical” for the U.S. to continue backing the genocidal state despite laws explicitly prohibiting such a practice.
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who served in the role up until July 2023, is seemingly the most senior Biden administration official to label Israel’s slaughter as a “genocide” in public remarks so far, save for a few officials who resigned from the administration in protest over the backing of Israel’s slaughter.
In an interview with Bloomberg published on Friday, Sherman said that both Democrats and Republicans “have not dealt with the Middle East in a way that’s helped create stability and peace,” and lamented that domestic politics have become “very tied up with our relationship with Israel.”
She then said that the U.S. must continue giving Israel support despite admitting that it has committed genocide in Gaza.
“It is critical that Israel remains an ally of the U.S. and we protect the right of a Jewish state. I also believe that Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] has led us down a road — and we have been part of it — that has, in essence, created a genocide in Gaza that has destabilized the Middle East,” said Sherman.
The former official clarified that she “can’t make the legal analysis about whether it is literally a genocide, but there is no doubt that Gaza was demolished.”
Sherman is a career diplomat who served under Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. She helped negotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal struck under the Obama administration.
The idea that the U.S. has an obligation to send aid to a genocidal regime contradicts U.S. law.
Sherman’s assertion that Israel has committed genocide is backed by countless experts of international law, including an independent UN group that concluded that Israel has committed genocide in a report published in September.
U.S. law, however, bars the U.S. from sending weapons to foreign states if they fail to comply with human rights guidelines.
Even the State Department, which carved out special procedures to expedite arms transfers to Israel amid the genocide, has internally found that Israel has committed “many hundreds” of potential human rights violations that would render it illegal to receive U.S. military aid under the Leahy Laws. Another Biden administration official, former State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller, admitted last year that “it is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes.”
Sherman is not asked about the contradiction in the interview, merely saying: “Palestinians deserve a home, dignity and peace. Israel absolutely deserves security and peace.”
Public opinion has been turning against sending more aid to Israel. Polling released last week by The Economist/YouGov found that only 38 percent of Americans say that the U.S. should increase or maintain the same level of military aid to Israel, while 41 percent said the U.S. should decrease or stop it altogether. This includes only 23 percent of Democrats who say aid to Israel should increase or stay the same, compared to 56 percent who say it should be decreased or ended completely.
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