Dissent over US policy in the Israel-Hamas war stirs unusual public protests from federal employees
WASHINGTON — Federal government officials from the State Department to NASA are circulating open letters demanding that President Joe Biden seek a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas. Congressional staffers pick up microphones in front of the Capitol and speak out to condemn lawmakers’ silence on the toll on Palestinian civilians.
As deaths in Gaza rise, Biden and Congress are facing unusual public challenges from within over their support for the Israeli offensive. Hundreds of staffers in the administration and on Capitol Hill are signing open letters, speaking to reporters and holding vigils, all in an effort to shift U.S. policy toward more urgent measures to stem the number of Palestinian casualties.
“Most of our bosses on Capitol Hill are not listening to the people they represent,” one congressional staffer told the crowd at a protest this month. Wearing medical masks that covered their faces, the roughly 100 congressional staffers piled flowers in front of Congress in honor of civilians killed during the conflict.
Federal officials’ concerns about U.S. military and other support for Israel’s Gaza campaign are partly an outgrowth of changes taking place more broadly in American society. As the United States becomes more diverse, so too does the federal workforce, including more appointees of Muslim and Arab descent. And surveys show that public opinion is changing towards US ally Israel, with more and more people expressing dissatisfaction with the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
After weeks of seeing images of bloodied children and fleeing families in Gaza, a significant number of Americans, including Biden’s Democratic Party, disagree with his support for Israel’s military campaign. A poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in early November found that 40% of the American public thought Israel’s response in Gaza had gone too far. The war has roiled college campuses and sparked nationwide protests.
Late this week, one open letter was endorsed by 650 staffers of various religious backgrounds from more than 30 federal agencies, organizers said. The agencies range from the Executive Office of the President to the Census Bureau and include the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Defense.
A Biden political appointee who helped organize the multi-agency open letter said the president’s rejection of calls to push Netanyahu for a long-term ceasefire had caused some federal staffers to ” in a sense ‘dismissed’.
“That’s why people use all kinds of dissent and open letters. Because we have already gone through the channels to try it internally,” this person said.
The letter condemns both Hamas’s killings of about 1,200 people in Israel during the militants’ Oct. 7 incursion and Israel’s military campaign, which has killed more than 11,500 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The letter calls on the US to push for a ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians the signatories say have been wrongfully detained by Israel, as well as greater action overall on behalf of the citizens of Gaza.
Organizers of the executive branch and congressional protests all spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, citing fears of professional and other repercussions. The federal employees who are speaking out against U.S. policies appear to be seeking a balance, presenting their objections in a way that doesn’t deprive them of a seat at the table and jeopardize their careers.
Some current and former officials and staffers said it is unusual for some of the challenges faced by federal employees to become public. Some are concerned about it because it poses a potential threat to the functioning of government and to cohesion within agencies.
The State Department has an honorable tradition of allowing formal, structured statements of dissent on U.S. policy. It dates back to 1970, when U.S. diplomats resisted President Richard Nixon’s demands to fire foreign service members and other State Department employees who signed an internal letter protesting the U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia.
Since then, Foreign Service officers and civil servants have used what is known as the dissent channel during moments of intense policy debate. That includes criticism of the George W. Bush administration’s prosecution of the Iraq war, the Obama administration’s policies in Syria, the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions on predominantly Muslim countries and the Biden administration’s handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
But dissents, which are signed, are classified and not for public release.
In State Department tradition, at least, if “for whatever reason a criticism or complaint was not taken into account or was not believed to be sufficient to change policy, then it was time to move on . It was done,” said Thomas Shannon, a retired Foreign Service officer who held senior positions in the State Department. “It was time to salute and execute.”
Shannon briefly served as interim secretary of state in the Trump administration. There, he rebuffed a recommendation from White House spokesman Sean Spicer that State Department staffers who signed a dissenting cable against President Donald Trump’s so-called Muslim ban should resign.
The growing diversity of the State Department’s workforce is positive, Shannon said. But “in the foreign service, as in the military service, discipline is real and important,” he said, citing the need for a consistent, coherent foreign policy.
“I guess I’m just saying that I’m not a fan of open letters,” Shannon said.
State Department officials say several expressions of dissent have reached Secretary of State Antony Blinken through formal channels.
One State Department official, 11-year veteran Josh Paul, resigned late last month in protest at the administration’s rush to supply weapons to Israel.
Blinken addressed internal opposition to the government’s handling of the Gaza crisis in a department-wide email last Monday. “We listen: what you share shapes our policies and messages,” he wrote.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the dissent was welcome. “One of the strengths of this department is that we have people with different opinions,” he said.
In contrast to the dissent, the multi-agency open letter and another letter endorsed by more than 1,000 U.S. Agency for International Development employees have been made public. They are also anonymous and no names of signatories are publicly associated with them.
The USAID letter, with 1,000 staffers supporting it, which was given to The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and others, calls for an immediate ceasefire. But a former USAID official said it alarmed some agency staffers, including some who are Jewish, by not addressing the Hamas killings of civilians in Israel. The letter’s delivery to news organizations also appeared outside the agency’s tradition of handling matters internally in a consultative manner, said the staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
By comparison, an internal State Department memorial to all citizens killed since October 7, organized by Muslim, Christian and Jewish employee organizations, brought greater comfort and appeared to bring colleagues with different views and backgrounds closer together, according to one USAID employee.
Organizers of the multi-agency open letter said they acted out of frustration after other efforts, most notably a tense meeting between White House officials and Muslim and Arab political appointees, appeared to have no effect.
Remaining silent or resigning would avoid their responsibility to the public, the employee said. “If we just leave, nothing will ever change.”
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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva and AP diplomatic writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.