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A senior US state department official, Josh Paul, resigned on Tuesday due to policy disagreements with President Joe Biden's support for Israel amid its response to attacks by Hamas.
Paul, who served 11 years in the bureau of political-military affairs, criticized the administration's response, saying it would lead to further suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians.
He expressed concerns about repeating past mistakes and refused to be a part of it any longer.
“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 — I have reached the end of that bargain,” Paul wrote in his post.
“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,” Paul said in his post on LinkedIn.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden expressed his full support for Israel during a visit to the country, where he accused Islamist militants of causing a fatal rocket attack on a Gaza hospital and declared the resumption of urgent aid to the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The president’s brief trip followed a massive explosion and fire at the Ahli Arab hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night, which triggered anger in Arab nations that hold Israel responsible and protests in Muslim countries from Egypt to Pakistan.
In Tel Aviv, Biden said he was “deeply saddened and outraged” by the blast, but added: “From what I’ve seen, it looks like it was done by the other side, not you.”
“It seems that the blast was caused by a rogue rocket launched by a terrorist group in Gaza, based on the information we have seen today,” Biden said later at a press conference.
Biden has defended Israel’s right to protect itself, and said he understood the “all-consuming rage” to retaliate against those behind the October 7 attacks, which saw Hamas fighters kill, mutilate or burn some 1,400 people.
But he added: “I warn you while you feel that rage: don’t let it take over you. After 9/11, we were furious in the United States. While we pursued justice we also made errors,” he said.
Israel said later that it had accepted Biden’s request to let aid into the besieged Gaza Strip through Egypt after growing concern about scarce supplies and alerts of a humanitarian crisis.
But it said it was restricted to “food, water and medicine” and dependent on it not being used by Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
(With inputs from agencies)
English (US)