There is clearly considerable dissent within branches of the U.S. government—notably the State Department—over the Biden administration’s policy toward Israel and the horrific humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip caused by Israel’s U.S.-backed policy of “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people. After high-level State Department official Josh Paul resigned on Oct. 18 and publicized the reasons for his resignation, now Sylvia Yacoub, a foreign affairs staffer in the Bureau of Middle East Affairs, is gathering signatures on a “dissent cable” on U.S. policy toward Israel to express her disagreement.
Dissent cables are a means by which employees can express disagreements with policy but are supposed to stay within the Department and not made public. Signing a dissent cable is not supposed to affect one’s employment or career advancement. According to Axios on Nov. 2, Yacoub sent an email to colleagues to gather signatures for her dissent cable which read, in part, “in light of Hamas’s heinous attack on October 7, the ensuing response by the Government of Israel, and the seemingly full endorsement by the U.S. government to the response, we have drafted a dissent cable calling for a significant change in the Administration’s short and long-term policy surrounding the conflict and path towards regional integration and security.”
