Alexander Smith, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said he was given a choice between resignation and dismissal after preparing a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, which was cancelled at the last minute by USAID leadership last week.
Smith, a senior adviser on gender, maternal health, child health, and nutrition chose to resign on Monday after four years at USAID. In his resignation letter to the head of the agency, Samantha Power, he complained about the inconsistencies in USAID’s approach to different countries and humanitarian crises, and the general treatment of Palestinians.
“I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race,” he wrote.
Biden is a doddering old man who still has this romanticized vision of Israel from the 1970s as the young scrappy country rather than apartheid rightwing ethnostate that bombs its neighbors that it is now. As senator Biden took more AIPAC lobbying money than any other member, so of course he sucks on this issue. But incredibly he’s ignoring his own advisors who warn him he’s going too far and could lose the election as a result. His political instincts are failing him this time.