2023-10-19 12:50:00
US State Department official resigns over Biden administration’s handling of Israel-Gaza conflict
A State Department official has resigned from the agency over the Biden administration’s approach to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza, the official announced on LinkedIn Wednesday.
Josh Paul — who says he has worked in the Office of Political-Military Affairs (PM) for more than 11 years — said in his LinkedIn post that he resigned “due to a policy disagreement regarding our continued lethal assistance to Israel.” .
“Let me be clear,” Paul wrote. “The Hamas attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that a possible escalation by groups linked to Iran, such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a new cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy But I believe to the core of my soul that the response that Israel is giving, and with it the American support for both that response and the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to greater and deeper suffering for both the Israeli people and for the Palestinian, and is not in the long-term American interest.
The official described the administration’s response as “disappointing” and “not surprising.”
“The response of this Administration—and of much of Congress as well—is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political expediency, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia,” Paul adds. “Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security nor peace. The fact is that blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of people on both sides,” he stated.
Paul assured that he cannot work to support a set of political decisions that include the shipment of weapons, which he considers “shortsighted, destructive, unfair and contradictory to the very values that we publicly defend.”
In an interview with the New York Times, the former State Department official said legal barriers intended to keep American weapons out of the hands of human rights violators are failing, as the United States backs Israel while the nation has cut off the supply of water, food, medical care and electricity in Gaza.
“There’s a time when you can say, well, it’s out of my hands, but I know Congress is going to object,” he told the Times. “But in this case, there’s not likely to be any significant reaction from Congress, there’s no other oversight mechanism, there’s no other forum for debate, and that’s part of what influenced my decision-making.”
Contacted for comment, a State Department spokesperson told CNN that the agency declines to comment on “personnel matters.”
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