Senior U.S. State Department Official Resigns Over Biden’s Approach to Gaza

Date: 20 October 2023 - 21:43

News ID: ۱۲۰۴۹۳

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – A senior
official at the U.S. State Department has issued his resignation, citing the Biden administration’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Josh Paul said in a letter, which was posted on X by Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at Crisis Group, “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 worked for more than 10 years in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which is in charge of approving arms transfers to other countries.
He added “blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.”
“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,” he wrote.
In his two-page letter, Paul said, “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 continued.
“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,” he added.
In an interview with Huffington Post, Paul said that because “I couldn’t shift anything, I resigned”.
Biden has been clear in stating that he will support the Zionist regime unequivocally.

Widely Slammed for UNSC Veto

The United States on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip, inciting wide criticism amid mounting global concern over the escalating crisis there.
The Brazil-drafted proposal, if adopted, would have condemned all violence and hostilities against civilians and all acts of terrorism, and called for protecting all medical, humanitarian personnel, and medical facilities, in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Twelve of the 15 members of the Security Council supported the draft, while the United States, with veto power, was the only council member to vote against it. Britain and Russia abstained.
“Certain countries talked about the importance for the council to take the right actions. However, the way they voted only makes us question their willingness to let the council take any actions and their sincerity to find a solution to the problem,” said Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, after the vote.