New Delhi: A senior US State Department official, Josh Paul, has resigned from his position because of the Joe Biden administrations response to the situation in Israel and Palestine. Paul said on LinekdIn that his decision was due to “a policy disagreement concerning our [the US government’s] continued lethal assistance to Israel”.
“I have had my fair share of debates and discussions and efforts to shift policy on controversial arms sales,” Paul told HuffPost after his resignation. “It was clear that there’s no arguing with this one. Given that I couldn’t shift anything, I resigned.”
Paul has worked in the State Department’s bureau of political-military affairs for more than 11 years.
In a note explaining his resignation, Paul referred to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel as “a monstrosity of monstrosities”. However, he said, Israel’s military response “will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people – and is not in the long term American interest”.
“This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides. I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer,” Paul continued.
HuffPost reported that other State Department officials who feel similarly to Paul have been experiencing a “chilling effect”.
US President Joe Biden has been unequivocally backing Israel during the last week. Even after a recent strike on a hospital in Gaza killed at least 500 Palestinians, Biden – while visiting Israel – echoed the Israeli administration’s line that the devastation was caused by a misfired Hamas rocket.
Read the full letter below.
