Sometimes a statement from a government official, or a former government official, comes along that is so staggeringly obtuse, so unflaggingly out of line with reality, that you have to do a double take and make sure your mind isn’t playing tricks on you.
This brings us to Hala Rharrit, who was, until April of 2024, an Arabic Language Spokesperson for the State Department. In a recent “60 Minutes” interview with Cecilia Vega, she made a statement that makes one’s eyebrows toboggan right off the top of one’s skull.
U.S. support for the war in Gaza has put a target on America’s back, says Hala Rharrit, a former State Department official. pic.twitter.com/99X1vt2oPm
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 13, 2025
She states:
Hala Rharrit: The level of anger throughout the Arab world, and I’ll say beyond the Arab world, is palpable. Protests began erupting in the Arab world, which I was also documenting, with people burning American flags. This is very significant because we worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen the ties with the Arab world.
Cecilia Vega: You believe this has put a target on America’s back, you said.
HR: 100 percent.
CV: Those are strong words.
HR: Yes. I don’t say them lightly. And I say them as someone who myself has survived two terrorist attacks. My first assignment was in the US Embassy in Yemen. I survived a mortar attack. I say it as someone who has worked intensely on these issues, and who has intensely monitored the region for two decades.
CV (Aside): Multiple diplomats we spoke with say that U.S. policy has led to widespread dissent at the State Department. A rarely-used method of sending cables to the Secretary of State created during the Vietnam War so employees could voice objection has received a record number of submissions over Gaza. 13 officials, including from the State Department, White House and Army, have publicly resigned in protest.
Let’s get one thing straight here: It’s not American support for Israel in their war to wipe out Hamas, a fate Hamas richly deserves after the Oct. 7th attacks, that has the Muslim world – and yes, let’s be honest, it’s not the “Arab world,” it’s the Muslim world – that has drawn the ire of terrorists. It’s not America’s support for Israel in any sense that has these people angry. If that was the case, you wouldn’t see lists like this.
Here are 10 terrorist attacks against the United States in the 21st century prior to Oct. 7th:
2009 Fort Hood Shooting: Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major, killed 13 and injured 30 in a shooting spree, inspired by extremist ideologies.
2013 Boston Marathon Bombing: Two bombs… https://t.co/yAr1WraIfr
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) January 13, 2025
Nope. American support for Israel isn’t the problem, and too many people at the State Department are obviously clueless about that.
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No, the thing that draws the ire of Islamist terrorists is just the fact that America exists, just as they are angry that Israel exists. But America, with our Constitution’s guarantee of individual rights – most especially freedom of conscience, which recognized the right of every American to worship (or not) as they please – angers these people. These are people of the Bronze Age at best, people who are intolerant in the extreme of any dissent.
They call us the Great Satan, for crying out loud.
The incoming Trump administration has a lot to do – including, we hope, shuttering entire cabinet agencies. While the State Department can’t be done away with, we can at least go through its ranks and make sure this kind of suicidal thinking is removed, root and branch, from our foreign services. The people tending to our affairs with other nations need to be firmly grounded in reality, and the notion that somehow America’s support for Israel against Hamas, who by the way still holds Americans as hostages, is somehow setting off a new wave of anti-American sentiment, is just too stupid to be believed.
