Annelle Sheline, said she had hoped to have an influence on policy by staying at her post in the Near Eastern section of the bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, taking part in discussions, signing dissent cables and raising her concerns with her supervisor. But she had lost confidence she could do anything that would affect the flow of US arms to Israel.
“The fundamental reason was – I no longer wanted to be affiliated with this administration,” Sheline told the Guardian. “I have a young daughter. She’s not yet two, but if some day in the future, she is learning about this and knows that I was at the state department and she asked me [about it] – I want to be able to tell her that I did what I could.”
Josh Paul, a senior State Department official (Director) resigned just a few weeks into the war and here’s his interview with CNN. He says he resigned over “unscrutinized arms transfers to Israel” saying that it would only lead to harm for both Palestinians and Israelis and wasn’t in the long-term interests of America. Another article writes, "In his 11 years at the bureau, Paul said, he had “made more moral compromises than I can recall”.
“I knew [the role] was not without its moral complexity and moral compromises, and I made myself a promise that I would stay for as long as I felt the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do,” he wrote. “I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued – indeed, expanded and expedited – provision of lethal arms to Israel, I have reached the end of that bargain.”
