A State Department official in the bureau that oversees arms transfers resigned this week in protest of the Biden administration’s decision to continue sending weapons and ammunition to Israel as it lays siege to Gaza in its war with Hamas.
In his resignation letter, Josh Paul, who has been the director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for over 11 years, said the Biden administration’s “blind support for one side” was leading to policy decisions that were “shortsighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory to the very values we publicly espouse.”“The response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people,” he wrote, adding, “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.”In an interview, Mr. Paul said that Israel’s cutting off of water, food, medical care and electricity to Gaza, a territory of two million people, should prompt protections in a number of longstanding federal laws intended to keep American weapons out of the hands of human rights violators.
But those legal guardrails are failing, he said.
Persons:
Biden, Josh Paul, Biden administration’s, ”, Paul
Organizations:
Department, State Department’s Bureau, Political, Military Affairs
Locations:
Israel, Gaza