Dear Senators Graham, Corker, Cotton, Paul, and Rubio,
I am a US citizen living in Israel. Over the past decades I have had numerous occasions to utilize the services of the US Consulate in Jerusalem.
In all those years, I have observed that I have never seen a Jewish Israeli at any of the various service points where consular staff interact with the public.
All such staff are either from the US or local Arab staffers. Not only is this consistently the case at all consular services inside the consulate, but also it can be seen, shockingly, that even the security staff are often Arabs.
I can assure you that there is no shortage of qualified Jewish Israelis who could fill such consular positions and so the question is begged: is the US State Department systematically choosing, over the course of decades, to not hire Jewish Israelis, while singularly preferring all local staffers to be selected from the Arab population?
The second matter is different but definitely potentially connected to my first query. A perusal of consular activities as reflected on the official website shows that all programming efforts are geared towards and in concert with local Arab populations in eastern Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
There is not a single mention of any cultural, political, educational, business, or any other consular activities or programming on behalf of or in cooperation with the Jewish residents of these areas.
Further to this observation, State Department Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) grants in this area appear to be given only to either Arab grantees or to organizations that work to promote Arab civic, business, cultural, and other agendas in the region.
Again, these observations beg the question: Is the US State Department systematically and systemically singling out one local population for preferential treatment to the complete exclusion of another population?
I sent these queries (twice) to the Jerusalem Consulate, and have received no reply after several weeks.
