US Army Intel Officer Resigns Over Moral Concerns About US Support of Israel’s War in Gaza

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:29 pm

A U.S. Army officer assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is resigning his officer’s commission in protest of the U.S. government’s support for Israel’s ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Maj. Harrison Mann announced in a May 13 post on his LinkedIn page, that he had begun his efforts to transition out of the military, by tendering his unqualified resignation.

“With apologies to the DIA Office of Corporate Communications, who is graciously reviewing this letter, I cannot justify staying silent any longer,” Mann’s LinkedIn post reads. “It is clear that this week, some of you will still be asked to provide support—directly or indirectly—to the Israeli military as it conducts operations into Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza. After leaving my office in April, I distributed this letter internally and received an unexpected outpouring of support. I am sharing it now in the hope that you too will discover you are not alone, you are not voiceless, and you are not powerless.”

Mann proceeded to share what he described as a lightly edited version of the resignation letter he shared with a select number of his former colleagues after leaving his DIA post in April.

The Army officer’s LinkedIn profile indicates he has worked as a Middle East all-source intelligence analyst for the DIA and later as the executive officer for the DIA’s Middle East/Africa regional center. In his April resignation letter, Mann said his work at that DIA office “however administrative or marginal it appeared” has “unquestionably contributed” to Israel’s operations in the Gaza Strip, which Mann said “has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.”

Mann went on to express dismay at the “the most horrific and heartbreaking images imaginable” coming from the ongoing conflict, and said he feels “incredible shame and guilt” for his part in it.

The Army officer said his sense of “moral injury” as a result of his role in support of the war led him to offer his resignation on Nov. 1, less than a full month into the Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip, which they launched after Hamas militants carried out attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Mann’s letter acknowledged he signed up for military service with the full knowledge that he might be ordered to support policies for which he wasn’t fully convinced. He said it was actually his European Jewish ancestry and upbringing in a particularly “unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing” and where “the paramount importance of ‘never again’ and the inadequacy of ‘just following orders’ were oft repeated” that caused him to tender his resignation.

The Army officer’s LinkedIn profile states he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and the Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank prior to commissioning in the U.S. Army.

Mann said he is haunted by the knowledge that failed the moral principles of his upbringing, but hopeful that family members like his grandfather would afford him some grace and be proud of his decision to resign “however belatedly.”

Mann shared the details of his resignation decision amid a dispute between President Joe Biden’s administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin over the future plans for Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip.

Biden has urged Netanyahu not to expand Israeli military operations to the southern Gazan city of Rafah over concerns of collateral damage to civilians. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has insisted Israeli forces must press forward in Rafah to eliminate what he believes is one of the last major Hamas strongholds in the embattled territory. Biden recently threatened to withhold certain types of military aid from Israel in hopes of dissuading Netanyahu from pressing the attack in Rafah.