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The US State Department’s Hostility Toward Israel

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks in the briefing room of the State Department in Washington, US January 7, 2022. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS

JNS.orgThe role of the US State Department in preventing the rescue of European Jews during World War II is well known. Top officials at Foggy Bottom instructed American consulates in Europe to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Jews trying to flee the Nazi death machine from coming to the United States. In the American Jewish community, the perception of the State Department is of a cabal of antisemites.

It doesn’t mean that everyone in the department was (or is) an antisemite, but clearly, the obstructionism that came from the leadership during the Holocaust years was responsible for the death of many thousands, if not millions, of Jews who could have been rescued.

Most recently, the State Department under President Joe Biden and headed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued the “tradition,” albeit, not against European Jews but rather toward the State of Israel. According to Michael Herzog, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, hostile elements within the department actively sought to limit Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip and block key security decisions taken by the Netanyahu government. Herzog told Israel’s largest daily, Israel Hayom, that “there are many within the State Department who are not just unfriendly to Israel but outright hostile.”

Herzog revealed that officials at State warned their Israeli counterparts last year against a retaliatory strike against Iran following the Islamic Republic’s missile attack against Israel on Oct. 1, 2024, with nearly 200 ballistic missiles. Israel was warned that any action taken might escalate into a regional war. Although the Iranian attack caused little damage or casualties in Israel, Herzog told US officials that in the Middle East, once attacked, rather than “containing it,” a counterstroke must hit back at the enemy harder and painfully. He said for Israel, retaliation was an existential matter. If Israel failed to respond to Iran, its deterrence would collapse, which would invite more attacks from Iran and its proxies.

Herzog said that Blinken also moved to implement targeted sanctions against the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Unit 504. This unit deals with human intelligence and interrogation. Herzog said Blinken had “already made up his mind, but we managed to stop him just in time.”

Among Herzog’s disclosures was the fact that the State Department has a team focused specifically on tracking Israel’s use of US weapons. This constitutes a double standard since America does not apply such a level of scrutiny to any other country.

The Biden administration also sought to pressure Israel against entering Rafah by delaying and freezing weapons shipments, including 2,000-pound bombs, which the administration justified on humanitarian grounds. Herzog made clear that although there was no formal arms embargo, “bureaucratic delays and political pressure slowed down deliveries at crucial moments.” These obstructions prolonged the war, inflicting increased casualties on Israelis and Palestinians.

Herzog concluded that “in the end, we had to work around US pressure. If we had followed all their advice, our enemies would have sensed weakness. Instead, we acted in Israel’s best interest, even when it meant standing up to our closest ally.”

While Biden might have had pro-Israel instincts, he was under severe pressure from anti-Israel factions within his administration, especially those at State. The administration did little to curb violent antisemitic riots on US college campuses, funded in large part by Qatar. Herzog stressed that the Biden administration “allowed bureaucrats with an anti-Israel agenda to influence US policy, by making sure that nearly every Israeli request was delayed, watered down or obstructed.”

Several Biden foreign-policy officials resigned over US policy toward Gaza, including Josh Paul, former director of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, who resigned in October 2023; and Tarik Habash, who worked for the US Department of Education and resigned in January 2024.

The two have since formed an anti-Israel political action committee called A New Policy PAC. In an Oct. 16, 2024 interview with the Huff Post, they articulated their opposition, if not hostility, toward Israel, advocating among other things for boycotting the Jewish state. Said Paul, “I think it’s very clear that the policies that the United States has been pursuing, certainly for the last year and frankly before that, have been deeply harmful to the Palestinian people, but also to American interests where we are seeing ourselves, our credibility around the world shattered, the stability of the Middle East cast into doubt, and civil rights at home also increasingly damaged by the debate around this issue.”

Typically, Paul and Habash reflect an inherently anti-Israel, if not antisemitic attitude that is pervasive in US institutions. They don’t blame the Hamas terrorists for repeated attempts to destroy Israel in accordance with the terror group’s charter, which culminated in the murderous Oct. 7 assault on Israel. Instead, they put the onus on Israel for its legitimate response against a murderous group that promised to repeat many more “Oct. 7” attacks on Israel. Their concerns for human rights don’t apply to the Israeli hostages kidnapped from their beds, raped, starved and tortured.

Fortunately for Israel, most American presidents and the majority of American citizens understand what Paul and Habash do not: Israel is a vibrant democracy that shares US values and interests and is the only loyal and reliable partner Washington has in the Middle East.

The post The US State Department’s Hostility Toward Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.

The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.

The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.

Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.

Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.

The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”

“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.

Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”

The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.

The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot

i24 NewsPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.

The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

i24 NewsThe Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of ​​operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”

The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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