[ The document offers a window into internal fury at the State
Department over President Joe Biden’s Middle East policies.]
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U.S. DIPLOMATS SLAM ISRAEL POLICY IN LEAKED MEMO  
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Nahal Toosi
November 6, 2023
Politico
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_ The document offers a window into internal fury at the State
Department over President Joe Biden’s Middle East policies. _

View of the Department of State in Washington, DC., Kevin
Lamarque/Reuters

 

State Department staffers offered a blistering critique of the Biden
administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war in a dissent memo
obtained by POLITICO, arguing that, among other things, the U.S.
should be willing to publicly criticize the Israelis.

The message suggests a growing loss of confidence among U.S. diplomats
in President Joe Biden’s approach to the Middle East crisis. It
reflects the sentiments of many U.S. diplomats, especially at
mid-level and lower ranks, according to conversations with several
department staffers as well as other reports
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If such internal disagreements intensify, it could make it harder for
the Biden administration to craft policy toward the region.

The memo has two key requests: that the U.S. support a ceasefire, and
that it balance its private and public messaging toward Israel,
including airing criticisms of Israeli military tactics and treatment
of Palestinians that the U.S. generally prefers to keep private.

The gap between America’s private and public messaging
“contributes to regional public perceptions that the United States
is a biased and dishonest actor, which at best does not advance, and
at worst harms, U.S. interests worldwide,” the document states.

“We must publicly criticize Israel’s violations of international
norms such as failure to limit offensive operations to legitimate
military targets,” the message also states. “When Israel supports
settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of
force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly that this
goes against our American values so that Israel does not act with
impunity.”

The memo is marked “sensitive but unclassified.” It’s not clear
how many people signed it or if and when it was submitted to the
department’s Dissent Channel, where employees can voice policy
disagreements. It’s also not clear if the document was revised in
any way beyond the version obtained by POLITICO.

Still, the arguments in it offer a window into the thinking of many
people at the State Department, which has long been vexed by the
decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The department declined to comment directly on the memo, as is
standard on such communications. It referred POLITICO to past
statements by spokesperson Matthew Miller, who has said Secretary of
State Antony Blinken welcomes such arguments and weighs them
carefully.

“One of the strengths of this department is that we do have people
with different opinions,” Miller said about such messages during a
press briefing last month. “We encourage them to make their opinions
known.”

Multiple dissent memos about this war are being circulated
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the State Department in efforts to gather signatures. These
communications may or may not be classified, but their contents are
rarely leaked. The department’s Dissent Channel is
a long-established vehicle
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to freely express their discontent on a policy matter without fear of
reprisal.

The memo obtained by POLITICO was authored by two midlevel staffers
who have worked in the Middle East, said a department employee who has
seen the document and was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive
topic.

The memo concedes that Israel has a “legitimate right and
obligation” to seek justice against the Palestinian militants of
Hamas, who killed some 1,400 Israelis in a shocking Oct. 7 attack. But
it argues that “the extent of human lives lost thus far is
unacceptable” — referring to the thousands of Palestinians, most
of them civilians and many children, killed by Israel in the days
since.

The U.S. “tolerance” for such a high civilian death toll
“engenders doubt in the rules-based international order that we have
long championed,” the document states. It argues that the United
States must hold both Israel and Hamas responsible for their actions.

The memo’s demands are unlikely to get far with Biden or his top
aides, at least not anytime soon.

The president, Blinken and others have ruled out demanding a
ceasefire, backing Israel’s desire to dismantle Hamas, which is
based in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas embeds its arsenal and fighters throughout the civilian
population, making it hard for Israel to delineate targets. Israeli
officials say they try to minimize civilian deaths but that a certain
number are inevitable given how Hamas positions its people and assets.

The Biden team has increasingly shifted its public messaging to
emphasize the importance of safeguarding civilians and following
international law. But it has largely avoided direct public criticism
of Israeli actions.

Blinken has been holding listening sessions with groups of staffers
unhappy with the trajectory of U.S. policy in the last few weeks.

In a message to staff last month
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Blinken stressed the importance of allowing and listening to
disagreements within the department.

_NAHAL TOOSI is POLITICO's senior correspondent for foreign affairs
and national security. Her work has taken her from the halls of the
U.S. State Department to refugee camps in Asia. In 2019, Toosi was a
finalist for the National Magazine Award in reporting for her story on
the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh and Myanmar. _

* Israel-Gaza War
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* US State Department
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* dissent
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* Anthony Blinken
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* President Joe Biden
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