State Department Official Resigns, Says Israel Is Using U.S. Arms to Massacre Civilians in Gaza
We speak with Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned last month to protest continued arms sales to Israel amid its bombardment of Gaza, writing in a viral letter that one-sided U.S. support for Israel is “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” Media reports say many others inside the State Department are equally frustrated with the U.S. role in the conflict. Paul tells Democracy Now! he tried to raise his concerns with his superiors but found “no appetite for that discussion” and that unlike all other U.S. arms sales that take humanitarian concerns into account, Israel gets a blank check. Paul says the overall message inside the Biden administration is: “Don’t question the policy because it’s coming from the top.”
"So, we’re talking about about 20,000 arms sale cases a year that the State Department processes, which could be anything from bullets to radios to fighter jets."
AMY GOODMAN: The HuffPost has this new piece that reports, “A task force on preventing atrocities did not meet until two weeks into the war, and officials say department leaders are telling them their expertise won’t affect policy.” Explain what goes on.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about this In These Times report that the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public.
JOSH PAUL: Yeah. So, we provide Israel with $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing, which is the State Department and U.S. government’s primary functional — primary mechanism for funding the sale of arms to other countries. Of note, you know, we typically provide — setting aside Ukraine — about $6 billion a year in foreign military financing around the world. So Israel already gets more than half of that.
J.P. "With regards to this package specifically, it includes $3.5 billion in foreign military financing. Israel can draw on that to purchase essentially what it wants. And what’s unusual about this, as well, in addition to the removal of the notification, is that Israel would be entitled, under the proposal sent to Congress, to spend all of this money within its own defense industry. Israel is, of course, a top 10 exporter of arms around the world, often competing with the United States. And the idea that we will be providing funding to subsidize that competition is really unimaginable."
"And Congress generally has stood up in the past repeatedly on matters of human rights and arms sales. What was different here was that there was none of that. There was no debate. There was no space for debate. And there was also no congressional appetite or willingness to have debate."
LISTEN READ MORE Transcript https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/3/josh_paul_resigns_israel_gaza
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"This is not the State Department I know. That's why I left my job."
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