Exclusive: 'Mutiny Brewing' Inside State Department Over Israel-Palestine Policy

[Eugene]

Source: HuffPost

Exclusive: ‘Mutiny Brewing’ Inside State Department Over Israel-Palestine Policy

Morale is low, and some staffers are preparing to formally express their opposition to President Joe Biden's approach, officials told HuffPost.

By Akbar Shahid Ahmed
Oct 19, 2023, 06:41 PM EDT

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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Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/state-department-gaza_n_6531a23ae4b0da897ab75ce4

[Eugene]

1. State Department official resigns over Biden administration's handling of Israel-Hamas conflict

Related: 'I Couldn't Shift Anything': Senior State Department Official Resigns Over Biden's Gaza Policy (HuffPost)

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Source: CNN

State Department official resigns over Biden administration’s handling of Israel-Hamas conflict

By Sharif Paget, CNN
3 minute read
Updated 3:11 PM EDT, Thu October 19, 2023

(CNN) — A State Department official has resigned from the agency over the Biden administration’s approach to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, the official announced on LinkedIn Wednesday.

Josh Paul, who said he has worked in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for more than 11 years, said in his LinkedIn post that he resigned “due to a policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel.”

“Let me be clear,” Paul wrote. “Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But 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,” Paul adds. “That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.”

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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/state-department-official-resigns-israel-gaza/index.html

[elleng]

2. ;-(

[Bev54]

3. What is so different from Biden policies in comparison to other administrations? Not to include

Trump administration, they were not normal. Is it really that different? One person resigns does not a mutiny make.