The US State Department’s hostility toward Israel

Joseph Puder

Michael Herzog, outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United States, speaking at his farewell event at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 16, 2025. Photo by Shmulik Almany.

The role of the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. college campuses, funded in large part by Qatar. Herzog stressed that the Biden administration “allowed bureaucrats with an anti-Israel agenda to influence U.S. policy, by making sure that nearly every Israeli request was delayed, watered down or obstructed.”   

Several Biden foreign-policy officials resigned over U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. values and interests and is the only loyal and reliable partner Washington has in the Middle East.

Joseph Puder is the founder and director of the Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel (ITAI).