State Department employees urged ‘more to punish Israel’ in private meetings: Report
By
Gabe Kaminsky
April 19, 2024 11:20 am
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Employees at the State Department privately called for “more to punish Israel” in meetings at Foggy Bottom, according to a new report.
The listening session meetings started in February and have been hosted by Kurt Campbell, deputy secretary of state and former Indo-Pacific coordinator for the White House National Security Council, Jewish Insider reported. News of the meetings comes after various reports on State Department employees expressing dissenting views from the Biden administration’s position on supporting Israel, a key ally of the United States, after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack last year on the Jewish state.
“It was overwhelmingly calls, including from people I respect, [that] we need to do more to sanction Israel, we need to do more to punish Israel, we need to be more seriously considering ways in which we can sanction them, condition aid, cut off aid, reduce weapons flows,” a foreign service officer said of the meetings, according to the report. “There were people whose issues don’t have anything to do with the conflict … who were making the case for why we need to do more to bash Israel.”
Tensions at the State Department have boiled over into public view after Oct. 7, as staffers resigned over their issues with U.S. policy on aiding Israel against its war with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist faction. The conflict in the Middle East has escalated this week on the heels of Iran attacking Israel directly, an unprecedented event — leading to Israel striking back on Friday.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/foreign-policy/2971834/state-department-employees-more-to-punish-israel-private-meetings/
