Mutiny Brewing’ Inside State Department Over Israel-Palestine Policy
Oct 19, 2023
President Joe Biden’s approach to the ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine is fueling mounting tensions at the U.S. government agency most involved in foreign policy: the State Department.
Officials told HuffPost that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his most senior advisers are overlooking widespread internal frustration. Some department staff said they feel as if Blinken and his team are uninterested in their own experts’ advice as they focus on supporting Israel’s expanding operation in Gaza, where the Palestinian militant group Hamas is based.
“There’s basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels,” one State Department official said.
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, fighting in the region has killed more than 4,000 people, and Israel is preparing a ground invasion of Gaza that is expected to claim tens of thousands of additional lives.
Biden and Blinken say they want to help Israel decisively defeat Hamas, but that they do not want to see suffering among ordinary Gazans or a broader regional conflict. Both have recently visited Israel, and Blinken is prioritizing an attempt to open the Gaza-Egypt border to allow humanitarian aid into the besieged region and let some civilians out.
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State Department Official Resigns Over Biden’s Support for Israel’s Gaza War
Oct 19, 2023
An official with the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM) announced his resignation on Wednesday due to President Biden’s full-throated support for Israel’s onslaught in Gaza that came after the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Josh Paul said in a statement on his LinkedIn account that he had worked for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for 11 years. He strongly condemned the Hamas’ attack on Israel, describing it as a “monstrosity of monstrosities,” but said Israel’s response will only make things worse.
“I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people – and is not in the long term American interest. This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising,” Paul wrote.
Continue reading at news.antiwar.com
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