State Department Official Resigns over U.S. Providing Weapons to Israel After Terrorist Attack

A senior civil servant at the State Department resigned on Wednesday over the Biden administration’s provision of weapons to Israel after Hamas conducted terrorist attacks in southern Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,200.

The official, Josh Paul, who served as director of the Office of Congressional & Public Affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, posted a two-page statement on LinkedIn explaining his resignation.

Paul wrote in his statement:

When I came to this Bureau, the U.S. 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 the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do. In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind and intact. I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued – indeed, expanded and expedited – provision of lethal arms to Israel – 1 have reached the end of that bargain.

Yes, [Political-Military] can still do an immense amount of good in the world: there is still, sadly, a great need for American security assistance – a need for American arms and defense cooperation to defend against the multiple military perils that democracy, democracies, and humanity itself, face on this earth. But we cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse.

He called Hamas’s attack on Israel a “monstrosity of monstrosities,” but said, “I believe to the core of my soul that 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 – and is not in the long term American interest.”

He called the Biden administration’s response, and “much of Congress’ as well” an “impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia.” He went on:

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 praised the Biden administration for its efforts to “temper Israel’s response,” but said in his role at the bureau, his responsibilities “lie solidly in the arms transfer space.” He wrote:

And that is why I have resigned from the U.S. Government, and from PM: because while I can, and have, worked hard to shape better policy making in the security assistance field, I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse, and which I wholeheartedly endorse: a world built around a rules-based order, a world that advances both equality and equity, and a world whose are of history bends towards the promise of liberty, and of justice, for all.

A resignation by a career civil servant is rare, even more so publicly, in regards to disagreement over policy.

During the Trump administration, a number of career civil servants and even political appointments stayed within government and worked to undermine then-President Donald Trump’s policies.

The Biden administration has in recent days surged military assistance to Israel in the wake of the attacks, which saw the brutal murder and kidnapping of innocent Israeli citizens during a surprise ambush that initially shocked the world.

Activists — particularly on the left — and Democrat lawmakers called for restraint from Israel and, after Israeli Defense Forces began airstrikes in Gaza, those voices began denouncing Israel and calling on the administration to broker a ceasefire.

Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) have been particularly vocal in their calling for a ceasefire and recently accused Israel of striking a hospital in Gaza. After evidence suggested the strike was caused by a misfired rocket by a Palestinian militant group allied with Hamas, Omar walked back her accusation and called for an investigation.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a revised number on the death toll from the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. The Israeli government estimate of 1,400 was revised to around 1,200, according to Reuters.

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