State Department official resigns over US support for Israel

An 11-year employee of the US State Department resigned on Wednesday over what he described as America’s ‘blind support’ for Israeli ‘apartheid.’

By The Algemeiner 

Josh Paul, a director of congressional and public affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, published his resignation letter on LinkedIn, explaining that he could no longer morally tolerate US arms transfers to Israel.

“When I came to this bureau, the US government entity most responsible for the transfer and provision of arms to partners and allies, I knew it was not without its moral complexity and moral compromises, and I made myself a promise that I would stay for as long as I felt I [sic] the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do,” Paul wrote.

“I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards [sic] to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel, I have reached the end of that bargain.”

In response to the war sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of Israel that resulted in over 1,400 Israelis murdered, the Biden administration has said that it is surging munitions to Israel, including defensive munitions like Iron Dome interceptors that can shoot down Hamas rockets.

Paul condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel as a “monstrosity of monstrosities” but said he believed Israel’s response, along with US support “for the status quo of the occupation” and its “blind support for one side,” is “destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.” He described the response by the Biden administration and the US Congress as the result of “confirmation bias” and “intellectual bankruptcy.”

Following Hamas’ terror onslaught, Israel has been launching airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza, where the Palestinian terrorist group has continued to fire rockets at the Jewish state and reportedly blocked civilians from fleeing southward away from most of the fire.

The now-former bureaucrat, who described himself as being “solidly in the arms transfer space,” then compared Hamas’ slaughter of civilians to actions taken by Israel, implicitly describing Israelis as “terrorists” and saying they are both equally counter to his desire to protect “beauty” and the “right to flourish.”

“The murder of civilians is an enemy to that desire — whether by terrorists as they dance at a rave, or by terrorists as they harvest their olive grove … And collective punishment is an enemy to that desire … as too is ethnic cleansing; as too is occupation; as too is apartheid,” Paul wrote.

The State Department has long been accused of being institutionally biased against Israel, dating back to Secretary of State George Marshall’s opposition to the US recognizing the state of Israel in 1948.

According to a sympathetic report in HuffPost on Wednesday, “several staffers across multiple agencies, most of whom work on national security issues” are likewise critical of US support for Israel.

“I’m trying to educate people about Palestine through social media, but I’m worried I’ll lose my security clearance for criticizing the president or blaming the US for civilian massacre,” one anonymous staffer said. “I feel like there’s no place for me in America anymore, and I’m on thin ice with my clearance because of my heritage and because I care about my people dying.”

Paul is the first known US official to resign from government service over US support for Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre.