A number of State Department staffers joined with staffers from the Agency for International Development — 100 in total — in criticizing President Joe Biden’s response to the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
Israel declared a state of war with Hamas after terrorists breached the border on October 7, slaughtering 1,200 Israelis – most of them civilians – and kidnapping more than 200, taking them into Gaza.
According to an Axios report published on Monday, a five-page internal memo referred to as a dissent cable was “organized by a junior diplomat” and accused Biden of failing to deescalate the situation when Israel began to retaliate against Hamas — in addition to accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza.
The dissent cable was written by Sylvia Yacoub — identified by Axios as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Middle East Affairs — who criticized Biden directly via X in early November. “You are providing significantly more military assistance to the government that is indiscriminately attacking innocent Gazans …. you are complicit in genocide @POTUS,” she said.
Claiming that Israel had cut off electricity to Gaza and restricted aid, the memo alleged that those actions — and the Israel Defense Forces’ targeted strikes on Hamas leaders and weapons’ stores — “all constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law.”
“Yet we have failed to reassess our posture towards Israel. We doubled down on our unwavering military assistance to the (Israeli government) without clear or actionable redlines,” the memo continued, arguing that Israel’s response to Hamas should have caused the United States to adjust its policy.
“Members of the White House and (the National Security Council) displayed a clear disregard for the lives of Palestinians, a documented unwillingness to de-escalate, and, even prior to October 7, a reckless lack of strategic foresight,” the memo continued, going on to chastise the Biden administration for refusing to take the word of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry when it came to assessing the number of casualties.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the dissent within the State Department, saying in a memo to staffers, “I know that for many of you, the suffering caused by this crisis is taking a profound personal toll. The anguish that comes with seeing the daily images of babies, children, elderly people, women, and other civilians suffering in this crisis is wrenching. I feel it myself. Some people in the Department may disagree with approaches we are taking or have views on what we can do better.”
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