EXCLUSIVE: State Dept Invites All Hands to Amorphous ‘Solidarity’ Meeting

The California Globe has learned that the US Dept of State has issued a widespread email calling for “all employees to participate in a Gathering in Solidarity for community, healing, mourning, and hope.” The words “Gathering in Solidarity” are bolded.

The unusual meeting is to take place in person Wednesday at 10 am EST at the Harry S Truman Lounge at the Dept. of State, and given the nature of the department’s work and far flung workforce, employees can join the 40 minute event via Webex. “This apolitical forum will feature readings from religious texts, poetry, music and words of inspiration.”

According to several State Dept. sources the Globe reached for comment, this odd event is widely perceived to be a statement in favor of pacifism and perhaps even a coded signal in support of a ceasefire in the currently paused but still-raging war in Gaza following the Hamas attacks on Israel of Oct. 7.

According to one former high-ranking State Dept. official who served during the Trump Administration, the invitation arrived today at about 1 pm CST via cable (the Globe is sharing some screen grabs of the cable, but not all; according to a source who shared it with the Globe, it’s unclassified information).

According to the source who shared it, “The way cables work at the State Department is it goes out to all posts, like every single post, every embassy, every USAID office, you know, everything. All foreign posts.”

According to a source at the State Department, “Nobody knows what they’re gathering for.” Asked if the invitation had any dogwhistles to indicate its underlying purpose, such as the colors of the Israeli or Palestinian flags, that source said, “No, but this is this is their attempt to say we’re all coming together in solidarity. It’s so generic. You don’t even know what you’re coming together for. So they want like Hamas supporters and Zionists to all come together in solidarity about something. But they don’t say what. Here’s the problem. It’s either a ruse and the organizers are going to turn it into something. And then they can say, look at this big crowd that are rejecting Netanyahu and Hamas.”

Another woman who worked in the State Department during a previous administration told the Globe she was surprised to see this “weird event.”

The Globe reached out to Richard Grenell, who served as the United States Ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020 and as the Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia. He had seen the invitation and told the Globe, “The State Department is calling everyone to gather in unison for…. something, but they refuse to say what the event is about. What are they in solidarity for? No one is sure what the purpose is. I wouldn’t go because you don’t know if it’s for Hamas or the hostages.”

The Gathering is sponsored by seventeen employee organizations within the State Dept, including American Muslims and Friends at State, Jewish Americans in Diplomacy, LGBTQIA+ Pride in Foreign Affairs, and the Christian employee organization GRACE.

One former State Dept official shared his nonplussed reaction with the Globe. “Usually we do these things when, you know, it’s the Fourth of July or there’s been a terrorist attack against us. But suddenly we’re doing it for solidarity with people we don’t know if we’re even in solidarity.”

The State Department has long been regarded as a bastion of progressivism that resists the will of the president. That perception is especially powerful when a Republican is in the White House. But as Biden staked out a strongly pro-Israel stance in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, he’s come under substantial pressure from the left, including government employees of the variety that epitomizes what the right calls “the deep state.”

Two weeks ago, over 500 political appointees and staff members from 40 government agencies sent a letter to President Biden protesting his support of Israel and demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. That follows three different similarly pro-Palestine internal memos that dozens of State Dept staffers sent to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. There is also an open letter signed by a thousand employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who chose to remain anonymous because of “concern for our personal safety and risk of potentially losing our jobs.”