Alexander Smith Powerpoint The presentation did not seem designed to be controversial: Slides highlighting the poor maternal health of the Gaza Strip cite public health data from the United Nations and the World Health Organization. His employer, the United States Agency for International Development, selected him to present the data at the agency's Global Gender Equality Conference.
But a controversial issue emerged just before the meeting.
One slide mentioned international humanitarian law against the backdrop of the health crisis in Gaza. USAID officials cited the slide and discussion of international law as potential fodder for the leaks, documents, and emails that Smith released to The Intercept. Despite Smith's willingness to correct it, his presentation was eventually canceled. On the final day of the conference, he lost his job.
“I thought it was really obscene that false information was being spread so freely around the world. [about Gaza]”But we can't talk about the reality of a hungry pregnant woman,” said Smith, a former senior contract adviser on gender and material health at USAID. “We can't even whisper about it in a conference on the topic.”
In a statement to The Intercept, the agency declined to comment on personnel matters but said Smith was not fired as a result of her presentation. “As an agency, we value and intentionally seek diverse perspectives,” a USAID spokesperson said.
Smith, a lawyer and public health expert, worked for USAID for four years. In February, he submitted an abstract for a presentation titled “Gender Perspectives in Gaza: Ethnicity, Religion, Geography, Legal Status, and Maternal and Child Health Outcomes,” which was accepted for a USAID small conference. He was scheduled to present in Washington, DC, on May 22.
On May 10, two weeks before the meeting, the State Department released a report on Israel's compliance with international law (called the “NSM-20” report). As The Intercept reported, USAID officials had urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken to determine that Israel's commitment to complying with international law was not credible, based on its actions in Gaza since October.
While Blinken's report expressed “deep concern” about the Israeli government's “actions and inactions” that have led to “inadequate” aid deliveries to Gaza, it took a fairly cautious stance, concluding that Israel “has not prohibited or restricted the shipment or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
At the conference, Smith wanted to address international humanitarian law, although his slides on the subject did not specifically mention Israel, according to the presentation.
“I didn't mean to stand up and scream, 'Israel is committing genocide,'” Smith said. “I was just stating the law.”
Courtesy of Alexander Smith
Courtesy of Alexander Smith
The remainder of Smith's presentation was based on data from the UN, WHO and other sources on the decline of maternal and child health in Gaza, including reports on devastating Israeli attacks on Gaza's health infrastructure.
When USAID Middle East Bureau officials reviewed Smith's presentation a few days before the event, they took particular note of a slide on international humanitarian law.
“Please remove it. This framing is unnecessary for subsequent slides,” department spokeswoman Erica Yepsen said in a statement. “This is an inappropriate forum to comment on Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law.”
“The U.S. government's assessment of Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law has been a major issue across Congress,” Jepsen wrote in a statement. He recommended that the Middle East Bureau “not approve any presentations that include this topic” because of “problematic language.”
Yepsen did not respond to The Intercept's inquiries, but in emails with other USAID advisers noted that “while the NSM-20 report has made national news, Israel's compliance remains an open issue.”
Courtesy of Alexander Smith
Courtesy of Alexander Smith
Email correspondence shows that Smith agreed to remove the slide. In accordance with administration guidelines, he also agreed to remove references to “Palestine” from the title of a chart created by the United Nations Population Fund for Palestine, among other things. He also agreed to other changes to follow the agency's talking points and messaging, and offered to present without the slide, Smith told The Intercept.
Ultimately, USAID officials rejected the entire presentation. “Please remove this from the meeting agenda,” Alison Salyer, a senior adviser at the USAID office, said in an email. Salyer did not respond to requests for comment from The Intercept.
In a statement, USAID officials declined to discuss “specific personnel matters” but said Smith's “job duties did not include supporting USAID's response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or the devastating impacts of the conflict on women and children.”
USAID officials did not raise concerns about Smith's expertise in any of the documents reviewed by The Intercept, instead focusing on his language choices.
“Nobody asked me before the meeting if Gaza was outside my purview or said they wouldn't talk about it for that reason,” Smith said. “The 35 people who reviewed and approved my brief must have thought it appropriate to talk about Gaza.”
But Smith chose to attend the conference anyway. On the final day, he tried to ask USAID Administrator Samantha Power why his presentation had been canceled, but he wasn't called, Smith said.
Smith said he received a call last weekend from a company that contracts with USAID, offering him the choice of resigning or being fired due to “personality incompatibility.”
“What happened to me sends a very clear message to staff: 'We don't talk about Gaza.'”
Smith said the company would not tell him whether the presentation contributed to USAID's dissatisfaction with his performance.
On Monday, Smith joined the ranks of Biden administration officials who have resigned over Gaza.
“Aggressively silencing discussion about Palestinian lives and an ongoing global health disaster is inhumane not only to the people of Gaza, but also to the American people, who deserve to know the extent to which we are funding and supporting crimes against the Palestinian people,” Smith wrote in his resignation letter to Power.
“What happened to me sends a very clear message to staff: 'We don't talk about Gaza,'” Smith told The Intercept.
