The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, condemned former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and senior State Department official Stephanie Hallett as “war criminals” for what it described as their role in suppressing internal U.S. government reports detailing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Reuters revealed that U.S. diplomats and humanitarian experts repeatedly warned senior Biden administration officials that Gaza was facing an “apocalyptic” humanitarian collapse. Those warnings that were allegedly blocked, delayed or buried by U.S. envoys working to shield the Israeli government from accountability.
According to the Reuters investigation, internal assessments described widespread civilian death, starvation, disease and the destruction of nearly all civilian infrastructure in Gaza, while U.S. officials publicly downplayed or dismissed those findings and continued military and diplomatic support for Israel.
Reuters reports: “The staff reported seeing a human femur and other bones on the roads, dead bodies abandoned in cars and ‘catastrophic human needs, particularly for food and safe drinking water.’
“But the U.S. ambassador to Jerusalem, Jack Lew, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, blocked the cable from wider distribution within the United States government because they believed it lacked balance, according to interviews with four former officials and documents seen by Reuters.”
“In any just international legal system, officials who knowingly conceal evidence of genocide to enable its continuation would be investigated as war criminals,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s National Deputy Director. “Based on the facts as reported, Jack Lew and Stephanie Hallett did not merely fail in their duties, they allegedly used their power to suppress life-saving information, helping turn Gaza into a graveyard.”
“No official is above the law,” Mitchell said. “History will record not only who dropped the bombs, but who silenced the warnings. Neither Lew nor Hallett, or similarly implicated individuals such as Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk, should have any role in guiding our nation’s foreign policy in the future.”
END
CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com