An administrator within US President Joe Biden’s State Department resigned on Wednesday, an event which would typically generate few headlines; however, the manner in which the official parted ways has attracted significant attention.
Josh Paul had worked at the US State Department for 11 years before his sudden departure this week. His most recent job title was director of congressional and public affairs within the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, a position in which he was involved in arms transfers between the United States and allied countries like Israel.
It was this role that created an irreconcilable ethical dilemma that prompted Paul’s resignation.
“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,” wrote Paul in his resignation letter. “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 – I have reached the end of that bargain.”
Paul praises the “engaging” and “challenging” nature of his position within the State Department while defending his colleagues as “courageous and good civil servants.” He also criticizes both Israel and Hamas militants, denouncing the “murder of civilians” and “kidnapping of children” in a blunt passage that notably identifies “terrorists” on both sides of the conflict.
But other portions of Paul’s letter are unambiguous in their withering critique of Israel, violating a powerful taboo in US politics against criticizing perhaps the country’s closest ally.
“We cannot be both against occupation, and for it,” writes Paul. “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.”
“There is beauty to be found everywhere in this world, and it deserves both protection, and the right to flourish, and that is what I most desire for Palestinians and for Israelis… Collective punishment is an enemy to that desire, whether it involves demolishing one home, or one thousand; as too is ethnic cleansing; as too is occupation; as too is apartheid.”
“Support for Israel… is the best $3 billion investment we make,” then-Senator Biden proudly declared from the floor of the US Senate in 1986. “If there weren’t an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”
In fact, the United States did help to establish Israel, with American backing for the state proving crucial in its early years.
“I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism,” former US President Truman candidly told advisers in 1945 as they warned him of the prospect of destabilizing the region. “I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.”
By 1948, Zionist groups were given a green light by Western powers, wiping out more than 500 Palestinian villages and killing thousands of Palestinians as they sought to clear the territory. Albert Einstein called the groups responsible for the acts “terrorist organizations” and decried Israel’s major conservative party at the time as “closely akin… to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”
Former US ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann believes Paul’s statement won’t change much in the short term. “I do not know that any of such resignations have ever had an effect on the department writ large or that they have a major effect on policy,” said Neumann in an interview with US media, referring to previous departures such as Paul’s.
“It's important for that active policy discussion and dissent that people do respect their professional obligation to either keep dissent inside the organization or to do what Mr. Paul has done and resign and take it outside,” added Neumann, stressing the importance of civility and decorum in discussing US backing for massive bombing of civilian populations.
On October 7, after the failure of peaceful protest efforts in Gaza as recently as 2019, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack that killed some 1,400 Israelis. The armed group has historically benefitted from funding from Netanyahu’s government, which preferred for Hamas to represent Palestinians in Gaza rather than a mainstream force that might have successfully pursued Palestinian statehood.