Former State Department official reasons for resigning over ‘lethal assistance’ to Israel are ‘unbelievable’

A former State Department official resigned last week over the Biden administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. 

Josh Paul, the former director of congressional and public affairs at the department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, announced his resignation on Oct. 18 in a two-page letter posted to LinkedIn, stating he couldn’t stay because of a “policy disagreement” with the United States’ “continued lethal assistance to Israel.” 

“Let me be clear: Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities.  I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But 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,” Paul wrote in part. 

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A smoke rises and ball of fire over buildings in Gaza City on October 9, 2023 during an Israeli air strike. (Photo by Sameh Rahmi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia.  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, who worked 11 years for the State Department, told the New York Times “legal guardrails” were failing after Israel cut off water, food, electricity and medicine to Gaza after Hamas terrorists killed 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds more. 

The Biden administration announced a $100 million humanitarian aid package for Palestinians last week and requested roughly $15 billion in aid for Israel from the U.S. Congress. 

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Aid convoy trucks loaded with supplies are seen at Cairo-Ismailia Desert Road on 14 October, 2023 in Cairo, Egypt.  (Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images)

Fox News’ Griff Jenkins said Paul’s letter was “unbelievable.” “This is the guy, Josh Paul, who was providing aid from our president’s direction to the State Department to Ukraine. And now he says he has a moral problem with taking a ‘side’ with Israel,” he said on “The Big Weekend Show.”

“And in this very same breath, this guy who said he was there for 11 years saying that he can’t pick a side, took a side in Ukraine, but somehow he lacks the moral clarity to understand that we have not seen in any of our lives the level of human depravity that was carried out by Hamas with beheading babies, raping teenagers to the point that their pelvic bones broke, taking Holocaust survivors back hostage. And this guy has a moral compromise with taking a side?” Jenkins asked.  

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Co-host Joey Jones argued the Biden administration has an “ideological problem.” “It’s a problem that goes into our universities and into our culture,” he said. “It is an ideological wormhole in our country that we have to understand that evil is evil and an ally protecting itself is not.” 

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