USAID CONTRACTOR RESIGNS AFTER REFUSING TO BE SILENCED ON DAMNING GAZA CHILD-MORTALITY REPORT

June 1, 2024

Alexander Smith, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), resigned from his private sector position on Monday, saying he could no longer perform contract work for the Biden administration after a presentation he was preparing on Gaza’s humanitarian crisis was cancelled.

Smith claimed that USAID gave him a choice between resigning or dismissal after he attempted to give a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, according to The Guardian.

USAID material online shows that Smith has worked on projects including gender and global health and development and the economic cost of gender-based violence.

“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,” Smith wrote, according to a resignation letter referenced by The Guardian.

Smith worked for the Highbury Defense Group, which has a government contract with USAID.

According to The Guardian, Smith was scheduled last week to give a presentation to an internal USAID conference on maternal and child mortality in Gaza and the West Bank.

USAID’s Middle East department told Smith to redact multiple sections, which Smith said included a slide on international humanitarian law, language that alluded to a Palestinian state, and references to agencies that have Palestine in their title, like the UN Family Planning Association (UNFPA) Palestine. The US does not officially recognise a Palestinian state.

After disagreements over the edits, USAID cancelled Smith’s briefing, and two days later his company told him USAID wasn’t satisfied with his work. Given the choice of resigning or being dismissed, Smith chose the former.

Smith’s resignation adds to a small but growing list of officials working inside or for the US government who have resigned in protest against the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

USAID didn’t respond to MEE’s request for comment by the time of publication.

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