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josh paul
In 60 Minutes Interview, Ex-State Dept. Officials Spotlight US Complicity in Gaza Assault
"There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S.," said one former official.
Jan 13, 2025
In a Sunday interview with 60 Minutes, former State Department officials spoke with journalist Cecilia Vega and offered a window into how the United States has greased the wheels of carnage in Gaza.
Hala Rharrit, an American diplomat who spent 18 years working on human rights and counterterrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere, left her post last spring—becoming the first State Department diplomat to publicly resign over the Biden administration's policies backing Israel's siege on Gaza, according to Democracy Now!.
Rharrit would send daily reports to senior leadership in Washington containing "gruesome images and her warnings," according to 60 Minutes. "I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of... mostly children," Rharrit recounted.
Here's what else Rharrit had to say:
Cecilia Vega: When you tried to speak out, vocalize what you saw.... like you were told to shut up?
Hala Rharrit: Yes. I would show images of children that were starved to death. In one incident, I was basically berated, "Don't put that image in there. We don't wanna see it. We don't wanna see that the children are starving to death."
Cecilia Vega: Who told you that?
Hala Rharrit: A colleague.
The United States has offered largely unchecked support for Israel since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, prompting Israel to launch attacks on the Gaza Strip. The U.S. has provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military aid to its ally in the Middle East, and in early January the State Department informed Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale. Local health officials in Gaza say the death toll in the enclave stands at over 46,000. However, a recently published peer-reviewed analysis estimates that Israel's assault on Gaza had actually killed 64,260 people between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024—a figure significantly higher than the one reported by the enclave's health ministry.
Meanwhile, multiple human rights organizations have said that Israel's conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide or acts of genocide.
60 Minutes tallies that 13 officials in the White House, Army, and State Department have publicly resigned in protest.
"There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane," Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department's Bureau of Political - Military Affairs who resigned shortly after October 7, told 60 Minutes.
"After October 7th, there was no space for debate or discussion. I was part of email chains where there were very clear directions saying, 'Here are the latest requests from Israel. These need to be approved by 3:00 pm,'" said Paul, who was involved in signing off on U.S. security assistance to other countries.
Andrew Miller, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, resigned last June to spend more time with his family, but has since gone public with concerns about U.S.'s role in the war—the highest ranking official to do so thus far, according to 60 Minutes.
In reference to 2,000-pound bombs that the U.S. has supplied to Israel, Miller said that "the Israelis were using those bombs in some instances to target one or two individuals in densely packed areas. And in enough instances, we saw that was in question, how Israel was using it. And those weapons were suspended."
The U.S. suspended a shipment of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel in spring 2024, though in general weapons have continued to flow.
Reacting to Miller’s comments that Israel bombed densely packed areas, one observer wrote Sunday: “60 Minutes is finally exposing the supply chain of genocide.”
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'Morally Bankrupt' Biden Blasted for $8 Billion More in Arms to Israel Amid Gaza Genocide
"The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it," said A New Policy co-founder Josh Paul, "with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests."
Jan 06, 2025
Human rights advocates in the United States and around the world on Monday condemned outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden for continuing to fuel Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip with a pending $8 billion weapons package.
Since
Axoisrevealed late Friday that his administration had notified Congress of the deal, Biden has faced a fresh flood of outrage, with critics calling the president "morally bankrupt" and his decision to keep arming Israel "willful madness."
"Too many kids still alive in Gaza for Joe Biden's liking," Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American political analyst,
said on social media. "This is an administration of cowards and criminals and will go down as a historic worst."
Two men who resigned from the Biden administration over U.S. support for Israel's assault on Gaza—which has
killed at least 45,854 Palestinians and led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—shared sharp critiques on Monday.
"The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it," said ex-U.S. State Department official Josh Paul, "with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests."
"The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come."
Paul and former Education Department official Tariq Habash launched the lobbying group A New Policy in October. Habash also took aim at Biden's new effort to arm Israel with missiles for fighter jets and attack helicopters, 155 mm artillery shells, small-diameter bombs, 50-pound warheads, bomb fuzes, and kits used to convert "dumb bombs" into precision-guided munitions.
"Americans continue to struggle here at home, so the notion that the Biden administration would push another $8 billion in weapons to Israel on the backs of American [taxpayers] demonstrates how unmoored this administration has become from its values and its commitments to the American people," said Habash. "The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come."
Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti also denounced the effort, saying in a Monday statement that "these weapon sales won't bring hostages home and don't get us closer to a viable long-term solution that ensures Israelis and Palestinians can live with dignity without the threat of violence."
"Many of the types of weapons reported to be part of this $8 billion package have been used—or are likely to be used—to kill and wound Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in a war that drags on because the president and his advisers refused to exercise real leverage to end it," she noted. "This new tranche of weapons will surely be used to the same horrific ends."
Haghdoosti highlighted that "President Biden and his senior advisers continue skirting U.S. laws that should prohibit the sale of deadly weapons while Israeli officials restrict humanitarian aid and seek to make Gaza uninhabitable."
Despite attempts by progressives in Congress such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block some arms to Israel, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly voted to send more—including with the $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025 that they sent to Biden's desk last month.
News of the $8 billion package comes just two weeks away from the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Paul said that "there is no need to rush these sales to completion, but it is clear President Biden and his appointees at the State Department do not have confidence in the Trump administration to follow through on their decision to rush arms to Israel with no questions asked, which is why they are pushing through these sales now."
While the current administration is clearly aiming to push the package through ahead of the looming transition of power in the United States, Trump is widely expected to serve as an ally to Israel, as he did in his first term. Haghdoosti sounded the alarm about the Republican's return to the White House with a GOP-controlled Congress.
"These latest sales mark a bleak handoff to the incoming Trump administration, whose senior nominees openly ally with far-right Israeli government ministers who plan to settle Gaza and annex the West Bank, all but guaranteeing another generation of displacement and deprivation that will undermine security for Palestinians and Israelis alike," she said.
Trump and far-right leaders in Israel—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—"will use these sales to advance that violent project," Haghdoosti added. "It is an utter shame that President Biden has chosen to abet it during his final days in office."
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Biden Officials Who Quit Over Gaza Launch Effort for 'New Policy' in Middle East
"The past year has shown us just how deeply damaging our policy in the Middle East is—to the region, and to America."
Oct 16, 2024
Two Biden administration officials who resigned in protest over federal policy on Israel and the Gaza Strip launched an advocacy effort Wednesday to "seek change in U.S. policy towards the Middle East."
By creating both a lobbying arm and a political action committee, co-founders Josh Paul and Tariq Habash say their project, including A New Policy and its companion A New Policy PAC, aims to better "represent the majority of Americans" who disagree with the government's approach to Israel-Palestine as well as the broader Middle East.
Paul, who spent 11 years as director of congressional and public affairs for the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, resigned last October, and Habash, a Palestinian American who served as a policy adviser in the Education Department's Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, left his post in January.
"The past year has shown us just how deeply damaging our policy in the Middle East is—to the region, and to America," Paul said in a statement. "We've spent billions of taxpayer dollars while sacrificing national interests and global credibility, the safety of all people in the region has been compromised while Palestinians, in Gaza in particular, endure immeasurable suffering, and now we're on the brink of a regional war."
While U.S.-armed Israeli forces initially responded to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 with a devastating assault on Gaza, which the Palestinian group has governed for nearly two decades, Israel has also killed at least 2,350 people in Lebanon over the past year, many of them with recent intensified bombings and a ground invasion.
"More than a policy problem, we have a political problem and until we address the politics, we won't make significant headway on the policy issues," asserted Paul, the first of several officials who have publicly resigned since last October. "A New Policy recognizes this dynamic, and is designed to address it head-on."
A New Policy—whose incoming board of directors includes former U.S. Ambassador to Syria and Algeria Robert Ford and corporate executive Jaleh Bisharat—plans to focus on "relationship-driven, policy-oriented lobbying" while the PAC "will direct financial support to political campaigns."
As the statement detailed, the groups are launching with the belief that U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine should:
- Advance American national security and foreign policy interests in the Middle East, and should contribute to peace and prosperity for all Americans;
- Reflect American values in our policy towards the Middle East, including freedom, equality, and human rights, and should enhance the health, security, welfare, and prosperity of all peoples; and
- Comply with American and international law, including laws, regulations, and policies governing the transfer of arms equally to all countries in the Middle East, including Israel.
Additionally, "A New Policy will work to oppose the enactment of laws or issuance of policies that run counter to American domestic interests," the statement said, pointing to "recent efforts to repress free speech, to prevent accountability, and to limit Americans' abilities to exercise their constitutional freedoms."
As HuffPostreported Wednesday:
The decision to launch A New Policy just weeks before the U.S. election is not lost on the former officials, who said they felt it was important to avoid appearing as if they formed the group in response to whoever wins the presidential race.
"Our effort, I think, transcends this one election, right? It is more than just what’s happening in November. This is an issue that continues to undermine our own national interests and our American values in a way that is dangerous in the long term," Habash said, with Paul echoing that the issue will persist regardless of who becomes president.
Early voting is already underway for the November 5 election. The contest for the White House is between former Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the party's nominee after President Joe Biden exited the race this summer.
During the Democratic primary, when Biden was still the presumed candidate, the Uncommitted National Movement formed to pressure the president to push harder for a cease-fire and stop giving Israel weapons to commit genocide. The movement said last month that although it cannot endorse Harris, it opposes the Republican, "whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing," and does not recommend a third-party vote, which "could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country's broken Electoral College system."
The launch of A New Policy and its related PAC came just a day after reporters revealed a Sunday letter in which the Biden administration finally threatened to cut off weapons unless Israel takes certain actions to improve conditions in Gaza within 30 days. Critics of the Israeli assault responded by renewing calls for halting arms immediately, pointing over a year's worth of proof of war crimes.
As of Wednesday, officials in Gaza put the confirmed death toll at 42,409, with 99,153 others injured, though thousands more remain missing. The carnage has led to a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
"This past year has brought unimaginable pain and suffering to Palestinians in Gaza. For decades, elected officials have compromised American interests in favor of funding Israel's continued oppression of Palestinians," said Habash. "American voters are clear: They do not want to be complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe and a majority want an end to the transfer of lethal weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians. Elected officials have not kept up with the sea change in public opinion and A New Policy will work to close this gap."
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