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While a veteran U.S. state department official has quit in response to the Biden administration’s decision to send more weapons and ammunition to Israel, others within the department are also reportedly feeling a mounting dissatisfaction.
Josh Paul, the director of congressional and public affairs for the state department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, wrote that the U.S. government “rushing” to provide arms to Israel was “shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse,” The Guardian reported, citing the letter Paul posted on LinkedIn.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden plans to ask Congress to approve $10 billion in “mostly military assistance” for Israel.
Paul is not alone. Biden’s approach to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict is fueling mounting tensions at the State Department, which is the U.S. government agency most involved in foreign policy.
One State Department official told HuffPost that “there is basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels.”
According to an exclusive report by HuffPost, the negativity is surfacing in a variety of ways.
One official described peers as “depressed and angry about it all,” while another said some staff are experiencing “resignation.” That official recalled a colleague in tears during a meeting over their view “that U.S. policy statements emphasized support for Israel over the lives of Palestinians,” said the exclusive report.
Besides, the report also showed that two officials said that diplomats are preparing what’s called a “dissent cable,” a document criticizing American policy that goes to the agency’s leaders through a protected internal channel.
Such cables are only prepared at major historical moments of serious disagreement and are seen as consequential. They were first developed during the Vietnam War.
(With input from agencies)
(Cover: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with Jewish community leaders in the Indian Treaty Room on the White House complex in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 11, 2023. /CFP)
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