Amid “growing internal frustration” over the U.S. State Department’s handling of the war in Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been holding “listening sessions” with Arab-American, Jewish and Muslim staffers, reported the Washington-based Al-Monitor.
“The meetings came after a State Department official resigned in protest this week over continued U.S. support for an Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip that the Hamas-run health ministry says has killed more than 4,000 people,” Elizabeth Hagedorn reported.
“On Friday afternoon, Blinken met with a small group of State Department staffers who are members of two Arab-American and Muslim employee organizations,” she wrote. “The top U.S. diplomat also had a meeting arranged with a group of Jewish employees at the department.”
“He’s running the U.S. State Department like a college campus. Just unreal,” wrote Stephen Miller, a podcaster and contributing editor at The Spectator.
“If you are a public servant and are lobbying for your religious or ethnic group rather than serving your country, you should lose your job,” added Sebastian Milbank, executive editor at the British monthly The Critic.
Jon Levine, a New York Post political reporter, agreed. “Their job is to enforce State Department policy. If they don’t want to do that, they should resign,” he wrote. “This isn’t a college campus.”
Others predicted “struggle sessions,” TED talks or puppies and coloring books would come next.
