Rubio's Reforms at State: Good Steps and Bad

On May 1^st, I commented here on Secretary of State Rubio’s plans for State Department reform. Now he has announced one additional step that’s very sensible, and there is talk of another step that would be quite damaging.

The positive step is placing the Office of Palestinian Affairs fully under the control of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. In previous years, the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem was independent of the embassy, which was in Tel Aviv, and reported not through the embassy but directly to Washington.

President Trump closed the Consulate General and had Palestinian matters handled by the embassy, as part of his move of the embassy to Jerusalem. President Biden tried to reverse this decision at least in part by re-opening the Consulate General, but Israel refused. Biden then in June 2022 established the independent Office of Palestinian Affairs—and now Rubio is limiting its independence.

This is sensible because the embassy, under U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, should be the single place through which Israeli and Palestinian matters are handled. Having a separate office whose reports may contradict those of the embassy (as it did when, after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the Office of Palestinian Affairs called on Israel to “refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks”) means there is no unified mission and no ambassadorial control—a bad practice in any country.

The far less sensible reported move is elimination of the position of U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC). I was in the George W. Bush administration in 2005 when this post was created, and it has been manned by a three-star general ever since. The USSC has dozens of officers from allied countries working under that general officer, today Lieutenant General Michael R. Fenzel. There are contributions from nine NATO members including Bulgaria, Canada, Italy, Greece, Poland, Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States. The staff consists of military and civilian security experts and the goal is to improve security for Israelis and Palestinians. USSC is an invaluable link between Israeli and Palestinian security forces, especially when the two sides are officially not talking at all,  and helps make the Palestinian forces more responsive to threats and more professional.

Given the level of violence in the West Bank and the potential for instability when the 89-year old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas leaves power, eliminating the USSC now would be an unforced error for the United States. So would downgrading the post, because sending a one-star general or a colonel would mean less influence for the United States. Rubio is down-sizing State, which is a worthy goal—but not when being penny-wise may mean reduced U.S. influence and more violence.