Sunday, November 05, 2023

Gaza

“There is no safe place in Gaza right now,” a senior UN official said Friday evening, adding that even “a UN flag” cannot provide any measure of safety to civilians trapped in the Gaza Strip.

-- CNBC





The assault on Gaza continued today.  CNN's Kareem Khadder and Mohammed Tawfeeq report:

Dozens were killed and many more injured in a blast at the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip late Saturday night, according to an official at a nearby hospital.  

Dr. Khalil Al-Daqran, the head of nursing at the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital in Deir Al-Balah told CNN he had seen at least 33 bodies from what he claimed was an Israeli airstrike.

“One of the houses in the camp was struck. This house was crowded with residents. Its residents were bombed while they were safe in their homes," Dr. Al-Daqran said.

The Israeli military did not have an immediate comment as to whether it was targeting the area.   

Dr. Al-Daqran said many of the victims were women and children and that the death toll would increase as more bodies were being brought to the hospital.


ALJAZEERA notes, "Palestinian news agency Wafa earlier reported that the bombing killed 51 people, mostly women and children."  HAARATZ notes, "The Israeli army said it had struck over 2,500 targets in Gaza since the start of the ground operation."






As the slaughter continued, people around the world took to the streets.  WSWS notes, "The massive protests are taking place in the major imperialist centers, the capitals of the powers that constitute the chief allies of Israel, including London, Berlin, Paris and Washington D.C., where Joseph Kishore, National Secretary of Socialist Equality Party-US, estimated “at least a quarter of a million people were there,” making it the largest protest against war in the US since the 2003 demonstrations against the US invasion of Iraq."  




ADRIAN MA, HOST:

Tens of thousands of people have gathered near the White House in what is being called the Free Palestine March. It comes as President Biden has requested more than $14 billion in military aid for Israel, and marchers are protesting that funding and calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war. For more on that, we turn to NPR's Laurel Wamsley, who joins us near Freedom Plaza in D.C.

LAUREL WAMSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Adrian.

MA: Laurel, what are you seeing out there?

WAMSLEY: Yeah. The streets here have been full of people all afternoon. Many of them have been waving Palestinian flags or wearing the kufi, the traditional black-and-white scarf of Palestine. It's just a ton of people here. It's all very peaceful. But there's also been a solid police presence. There are a range of speakers at Freedom Plaza and chants that would erupt from time to time. And then an hour - about an hour ago, the folks at the gathering started marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. This march was organized by a range of pro-Palestine groups in conjunction with a lot of peace and justice, more broadly, organizations in the U.S. And they organized buses from across the country, as far as San Francisco, Miami, Texas to be here today.

MA: So people are coming from all over. What are they telling you?

WAMSLEY: Yeah. We spoke to a lot of people, and they had a range of backgrounds. One we spoke with as is young man named Yunis Berkuch (ph). He's a 24-year-old from Jersey City. And he says his family comes from Morocco. But he says, first and foremost, he's here as an American.

YUNIS BERKUCH: Just as an American, I mean, as someone who grew up in, you know, public schools, I was raised to believe that the United States condemned - right? - atrocities, war crimes, heinous government acts wherever they saw them - right? - regardless of who committed them.

WAMSLEY: And he says, from his perspective, the response from Israel has been disproportionate. He says he's not president. He's never led a country. But he wants a cease-fire. And he wants mediators to come together to resolve this. We also spoke with Amara Rana (ph). She's a 39-year-old who lives in D.C. She said she came to the march because her neighbor is a Palestinian. And she says, as a Muslim herself, it's been emotional to be here at the march today.

AMARA RANA: No. It feels amazing. Like, I'm trying to stop myself from crying. But the unity is amazing to see so many Americans come out, and I hope Joe Biden sees what he's losing.

WAMSLEY: She says Biden voters supported Biden because they believe in equality. But what she's been seeing from the Biden administration right now, she doesn't feel like he's supporting the rights of Palestinians.

MA: So they're sending a message there. Laurel, I wonder, did you speak with any folks there that were Jewish?

WAMSLEY: Yes, we did. We spoke with a man named Pedro Kramer (ph). He grew up in Argentina, and he now lives outside D.C., and he was there holding a sign with the Star of David on it. And he was here with his baby in a stroller.

PEDRO KRAMER: You know, I was raised as a Jewish - Jewish family, Jewish school. And I was always taught that we - what we do is we seek justice. We seek justice everywhere, everywhere and for everyone. And what is happening right now is the farthest, you know, that justice can be.

WAMSLEY: He said there's no difference between his own son, who's here at the rally, and any child living in Gaza, who he said are dying as we speak. He said he's been questioning what Israel is doing and that it's led to a rift with his family and his friends, even with his best friend, who called him an anti-Semitic for questioning Israel's leadership right now.


Protests also took place in London.  CNN notes, "Tens of thousands of demonstrators had gathered at Trafalgar Square for the protest, according to London's Metropolitan Police Service, and most were demonstrating peacefully."





People across Britain protested for Palestine in great numbers on Saturday—and, in many places, they were determined to do more than just passively stand in the streets. 

In London’s Trafalgar Square, where organisers had called a static rally, the numbers were so large they spilled onto the road within half an hour of the assembly time. Then hundreds of the more than 40,000 who had gathered occupied and shut the nearby Charing Cross station—with over 1,000 outside trying to join the packed concourse. 

Protesters cheered as station staff had to pull down the shutters and close the station. People then took over the Strand briefly and sat in the road.

Kara was one of the Charing Cross occupiers. She told Socialist Worker, “We have to do things like this to get the politicians to pay attention. 

“We need to build a powerful and visible movement. I’m not worried about the police. What can they do when there’s this many of us?”

People are defiant. “We can’t be half-hearted when Israel is murdering the children of Gaza,” said Akhtar, a Unite union member from west London. “I want to be on the streets every day.”

Other station occupations took place in cities including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Nottingham and Leeds.

In London, protester Jess told Socialist Worker that she felt she couldn’t sit at home and watch the news anymore. “I had to come today,” she said. “I couldn’t be idle. It feels like we are watching a genocide playing out on social media. It feels unprecedented. 

“I have no faith in our political system. I have no faith in the Tories or the opposition. They can get in a blender, all of them.”

Asha raged against the imperialist system that has led to such levels of barbarity. “England is built on the stealing of resources of other countries through colonialism,” she said. “It’s always the same everywhere." 

They turned out in Montreal to say stop the violence.

 






 Israelis Against Apartheid, a group representing more than 1,500 citizens, this week urged the International Criminal Court's prosecutor "to take accelerated action against the escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people" in Gaza.

"For the safety and future in the region, all elements of international law must be enforced and war crimes should be investigated," declares the letter to the ICC's Karim A. A. Khan, noting his ongoing Palestine investigation and recent remarks on the war.

The letter, dated Thursday, explains that "as Israeli anti-colonial activists, we have joined our voices to the voices of Palestinians for decades warning on the dangerous course of action pursued by the Israeli state and repeatedly called for international intervention."

"Persistent impunity has created the conditions for the consolidation of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is intent on committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian population," the letter continues. "The acute deterioration in basic conditions of life that we are now witnessing could have been avoided if Israel had not been continuously granted impunity for its ongoing crimes."


US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has achieved nothing with his visit to Tel Aviv but then was there ever a real effort on the part of the US administration to end the violence?  Probably not.  THE TIMES OF ISRAEL writes:

American officials have advised Israel to take several steps to reduce firepower in the Gaza Strip and take a more exacting approach to its war against the Hamas terror group, pointing to its own experiences in Iraq two decades ago, according to a report Saturday.

However, Israeli officials see much of the advice as irrelevant, and the head of the Israel Defense Forces rejected the advice as liable to cause even more casualties, according to a separate Israeli report Saturday.

US officials say they have held a number of talks with Israelis in which they recommended taking actions to reduce civilian casualties, according to The New York Times, which cited officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Among the steps US advisers recommended was gathering more intelligence on Hamas command centers before launching strikes on them, improving their targeting of Hamas leaders, using smaller bombs against the terror group’s underground fortifications and deploying pinpoint commando squads to flush out fighters, the report said.


What a load of garbage.   The White House is an embarrassment right now -- as well as complicit in Israeli War Crimes.   CNN notes ,"The US resistance to calls for a ceasefire has put it at odds with its Arab partners, including those with whom he [Blinken] met in Amman, Jordan."  And it's at odds with the governments of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Columbia . . . 


Widespread dissension spurs resignations and protests

  1. Josh Paul, a Congressional staffer, has not only resigned but has borne witness to widespread dissension against the neocons and the hawks inside the U.S. government.
    Mirroring these ominous divisions are the increasing street protests in Tel Aviv fed by a growing number of anti-Netanyahu Israelis who were opposing his far right judicial reforms way before Oct. 7 – to the point where it is said that Netanyahu welcomed the Hamas attack and the pretext to invade Gaza to distract from his unpopularity. Just as Biden seems happy to have Israel’s war to support now that his war in Ukraine is not doing as well as planned.
  1.   Another factor that is creating a tectonic geopolitical shift worldwide is the unstoppable grassroot factor of massive street protests that by now approximate the anti-Vietnam war resistance movement. Not even a budding backlash can equal the street tsunamis.
    And as Vijay Prashad and Zoe Alexandra reported on People’s Dispatch, the synch Oct. 27 timeline between the U.N. General Assembly adopting a toothless resolution for a sustainable humanitarian truce — with so many cowardly abstentions — and in real time just down the street the takeover of Grand Central Station by thousands from Jewish Voice for Peace is truly indicative of people’s power.
    As Angela Davis said Oct. 27: “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world.”
    Throughout the world, there are daily marches, rallies, sit-ins, direct actions, walkouts, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) actions and the shutting down of arms factories: Globally the trade union movement is becoming a cornerstone of this grassroot upsurge.  (tinyurl.com/4frt2xds)
    In some Middle Eastern countries like Jordan, U.S. brands like Starbucks, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are being boycotted. Calls to revive the BDS movement are resonating in Europe and the U.S.
  1. Until the ground invasion took place, the Western media blackout on Gaza was replaced by teams of on-the-spot independent journalists and civilians who became the journalists of their own ordeal by documenting the crimes against their humanity with their laptops, smartphones, makeshift mikes. The internet was weaponized, and the world was able to see the genocide unfold in real time, going digitally viral.
    For the third day now, to cover up any incriminating footage, the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) has plunged Gaza in darkness, cut internet and power lines on top of the fuel, water, food, medicine blockade. But it is too late. The world saw enough to get moving. What is left to imagination is always worse.
  1. As the Oct. 16 and 18 anti-humanitarian votes at the Security Council show, the United States is now clearly a rogue state in the eyes of the world. And the rogue votes also show that the U.S. will continue to hold the United Nations hostage unless the Security Council is not just reshuffled but radically restructured to reflect the rise of the collective Global South.
  1. Eighty percent of the world’s population — most of the Global South  — condemns the Israeli genocide.
  1. One-half to two-thirds of U.S. voters are now favorable to voting for independent parties.
  1. Sixty-six percent of U.S. voters agree the U.S. should call for a cease-fire.
  1. Only a minority of countries in the world recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization — essentially those in North America and Western Europe, as well as Australia, Egypt and Japan. See map at 24:16 in this video: tinyurl.com/4ntnj8kc
  1. The Oct. 27 United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a sustained humanitarian truce introduced by Jordan reveals increasing unity in the Arab world in favor of a free Palestine. Here again the pro-Palestinian pressure of the streets is a determining factor destabilizing those U.S. vassal Arab elites who increasingly would rather side with their people to stay in power. (tinyurl.com/24rtsyyh) 
  1. The Israelis — past world masters of public relations spin and mind control technology — are losing the war narrative. 
  1. The resistance of the people of Gaza against Apartheid is the resistance of all liberation movements against Apartheid and colonialism everywhere. As the late Nelson Mandela said, “South Africa will not be free until Palestine is free.”
  1. Alongside Angela Davis, the Critical Resistance movement has stated that abolition means no more war and that dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex is connected to the global movements against war, militarism and colonialism.
    Likewise, we in the Mumia coalition say that if Biden has the hypocrisy to claim he cares enough to send planes and bombs to free those taken hostage in Gaza, he should also look inwards to his own hostages — aging U.S. political prisoners, invisible and unrecognized, buried under decades of rubble of media blackout and cruel and inhumane treatment.
  1. Everywhere the youth, the students, and the campuses are moving with uplifting messages from the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM); they refuse to be seen as victims but would rather stand up as “agents of revolutionary change,” as noted in CounterPunch, Oct. 29. (tinyurl.com/p5wj4v39)
  2. Already radical scholars, academics and the Stop Cop City movement are connecting the militaristic dots whereby the cop cities of the U.S. are often heavily dependent on Israeli training.
  1. Following cracks in the armor of the U.S. government and divisions in the Israeli government, Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York Office of the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights, has just resigned over what he calls the U.N.’s failure to address “a textbook case of genocide.”  His principled and caring letter of resignation will find its way in all people’s history books on the liberation of Palestine.  Ben Norton, founder of Geopolitical Economy Report, analyzed the letter, available on video. (tinyurl.com/yka4n77a) 
  1. Chile and Colombia have recalled their ambassadors to Israel while Bolivia has cut diplomatic ties with Israel, citing crimes against humanity and a threat to international peace and security. This should be the beginning of a domino effect.
  1. China has started to delete the state of Israel from its online maps. 





AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Amidst growing international condemnation of Israel’s monthlong assault on Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in Israel today to meet with Israeli officials, where he continued to emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself following the October 7th Hamas attack. Meanwhile, the White House continues to dismiss calls for a full ceasefire, saying instead any pauses in fighting should be temporary and localized.

This comes as the independent news outlet In These Times reports the White House has requested an unprecedented loophole in arms spending to allow it to, quote, “be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public,” unquote, “even as experts say Israel has been using U.S.-supplied weapons to commit war crimes,” unquote.

Meanwhile, a new HuffPost report cites five current and one recently departed State Department official who say their, quote, “expertise and standard decision-making processes are being treated as largely irrelevant to President Joe Biden’s strategy on the war, which prioritizes support for Israel,” unquote. One official described, quote, “particular concern about the town hall for the department’s branch on human rights. Managers, who described the branch as ’State’s conscience,’ indicated that they aren’t sure if they are getting through to more senior officials.”

For more, we’re joined by Josh Paul, the State Department official who resigned last month in protest of Biden’s push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst its siege on Gaza, calling it “shortsighted,” “destructive” and “contradictory.” In his resignation letter, that went viral, Josh Paul wrote, quote, “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. … 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,” unquote. Josh Paul is former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, which oversees arms transfers to Israel and other foreign nations.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Josh Paul.

JOSH PAUL: Thank you very much for having me. I’m glad to join you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you elaborate on why you decided to resign — you’re a veteran State Department official — why you said no?

JOSH PAUL: Yes, thank you. I decided to resign for three reasons, the first and most pressing of which is the very, I believe, uncontroversial fact that U.S.-provided arms should not be used to massacre civilians, should not be used to result in massive civilian casualties. And that is what we are seeing in Gaza and what we were seeing, you know, very soon after the October 7th horrific attack by Hamas. I do not believe arms should be — U.S.-provided arms should be used to kill civilians. It is that simple.

Secondly, I also believe that, you know, as your previous guest identified, there is no military solution here. And we are providing arms to Israel on a path that has not led to peace, has not led to security, neither for Palestinians nor for Israelis. It is a moribund process and a dead-end policy.

And yet, when I tried to raise both of these concerns with State Department leadership, there was no appetite for discussion, no opportunity to look at any of the potential arms sales and raise concerns about them, simply a directive to move forward as quickly as possible. And so I felt I had to resign.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about that. Talk more about what kind of dialogue goes on at the State Department and if you, for example, have met with Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, not to mention President Biden, to voice your concerns. And what about other veteran State Department officials?

JOSH PAUL: So, typically, there is a very robust policy process in the State Department for arms transfers. And there are a lot of those, right? 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. And for each of those, there is a lengthy process, sometimes, that looks at, you know, what are the pros and cons of the sale, what are its human rights implications. That has not happened in this context for Israel. And as I say, when I raised those concerns against the existing laws, against the existing policies, there was no appetite for that discussion.

I have not personally spoken to Secretary Blinken about this, nor, certainly, to President Biden. But I know that in the time since I left, there has been increasing discussion within the State Department, but has not led to any change of policies. In fact, as you heard earlier on your show, Vice President Harris was just saying yesterday that we will not place any conditions whatsoever on our arms to Israel. And that is unlike any arms transfer decision I’ve ever been a part of. There’s always discussion about should we condition this to address human rights issues.

AMY GOODMAN: So, who is leading this, Josh Paul? Who is preventing this? Who is suppressing all of this discussion within the State Department?

JOSH PAUL: I honestly think, in some ways, that it’s coming from the very top of the U.S. government and from the Biden White House. You know, there are many in the State Department, and across government, who have reached out to me in recent weeks, since I left, to express their support, but also to say how difficult and how horrific they are finding U.S. policy, and yet are being told, when they try to raise these concerns, “Look, you can get emotional support if you’re finding this difficult. We’ll find you something else to work on. But don’t question the policy, because it’s coming from the top.”

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.

JOSH PAUL: So, whenever there is a crisis, as there is right now in Israel and Gaza, the department sets up a task forces or multiple task forces that are uniquely shaped to address that crisis. So, for example, in the context of an earthquake, they might bring in experts on refugee issues, on weather issues, on disease issues, you know, that sort of broad swath of people.

In the context of Gaza, they have set up a task force to look at this problem, but, according to the report you cite, it does not include the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, who are responsible for U.S. support to refugee issues. So, it is either a stunning oversight, or it is an intentional disregard for the humanity of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: At a meeting on October 26th, a State Department source told you they recalled a top official advising staff to shift their focus away from Israel-Palestine and seek to make a difference in other parts of the world?

JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t believe that that was a conversation that I had with someone, but that is in the same report in The Huffington Post that you cite, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: So, they’re directing them not even to make comments on this, just stop talking about Israel-Palestine.

JOSH PAUL: Yes, that’s right. And I think, look, I mean, that reflects a tension or a censorship — right? — that we are seeing not only in the U.S. government. I think what’s interesting here is this censorship that has existed and expanded to colleges and universities, where you talked about the doxing. I’ve also heard from many people across the American private sector, both from the Arab American community but also more broadly, from all sorts of diverse communities, who have said, “We are afraid to speak up on this, because we are in fear of our jobs.” It’s the same climate in government. And that is just not American.

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.

The language in the supplemental request that the Biden administration set up — sent up would remove the requirement to notify Congress of any arms sales conducted under that funding. Typically, there is a process where, for any major defense sale, Congress is notified of it. And there’s actually a process prior to the formal notification where Congress gets to ask questions, poke, prod, delay, and then, if it wishes to oppose the sale, can raise a joint resolution of disapproval on the floor. What this proposal would do is, essentially, destroy all of that, remove all of that, remove that congressional oversight, remove that congressional ability to object. It is unprecedented. I have never seen anything like it. And I cannot imagine that the committees of jurisdiction are viewing it very favorably, because it is just such a damaging approach that also sets horrible precedent for other countries with whom future administrations may decide they don’t want Congress to be involved.

AMY GOODMAN: Since you were in charge of arms sales, what does this $14 billion that — well, it looks like both houses want to send it to Israel.

JOSH PAUL: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s just that the House one is controversial because they want to take that $14 billion from the IRS, and also they want to sever the funding for Israel from the funding for Ukraine. And Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, says he won’t consider this bill. But it sounds like there is enough support in both houses for that extra — not the $3.8 billion or $3.3 billion yearly aid to Israel, but an extra $14 billion. You’re the expert on arms sales. What would it be used for?

JOSH PAUL: Yeah, and let me just say, I think there is, you know, almost or near-unanimous congressional support for this further military assistance to Israel. And I think what’s fascinating about that is also there’s a massive disconnect between where Congress is on these issues and where, I think, if you look at the polling, the American public are. And I think the current crisis is really crystallizing that difference. I don’t think it will make any difference in terms of the passage of this package, but it may do down the line.

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.

But on top of that, the package also provides further funding from the Defense Department side for air and missile defense for Israel, for Iron Dome. And let me be clear: My concern here is on lethal assistance to Israel. When it comes to protecting civilians from rocket attacks, I believe that they should be. I don’t believe anyone should have to live in fear of their homes — in their homes from rockets raining down on them, although I believe that’s the case whether they are in Israel under the Iron Dome or whether they are in Gaza, for example. And, of course, we never ask that question.

The funding, finally, would also include research and development funding for equipment, such as there is an experimental laser project called Iron Beam, which the U.S. and Israel are working together on, an air and missile defense system. If this is an emergency request, why are we looking at research and development for projects that have not even materialized yet? That doesn’t sound like an emergency to me. So, as with the arms transfers I saw when I was departing from the department, I think there is just a rush to push everything they can while they feel there is a window of political opportunity here where there will be no significant opposition.

AMY GOODMAN: What kind of response was there to your resignation?

JOSH PAUL: So, to my resignation, I would say there has been an overwhelming response that I have heard from folks or from colleagues inside not only in the State Department, but across the U.S. government, actually, on the Hill, in the Defense Department, in the uniformed military services, including in combatant commands around the world. People have reached out to me to say, you know, “We fully agree with you.” You know, obviously, everyone has their own personal circumstances. You know, I think if we had universal healthcare, it would make it a bit easier for people to stand up on principle. I myself am, you know, trying to figure out what I do next on healthcare. But the point is that so many people have reached out to say, “We hear you. We agree with you.”

And I think, you know, one of the things I found is that a lot of people can be in individual offices and say, “There is no — I can’t speak up, because I will lose my job. I will put my career in jeopardy. And there’s no one else here I can talk to.” And yet I’m hearing from someone else just a few desks over who is saying the same thing. So I think there really is a communications crisis, a transparency crisis within the U.S. government, and a policy crisis, because when you can’t talk about foreign policy, when you can’t debate, when you can’t criticize, you don’t end up with good policy.

AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, why was this the last straw for you? I mean, for example, if you were in charge of weapons sales, presumably you were dealing with Saudi Arabia, notoriously authoritarian. U.S. agencies concluded, even in just one case, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for this. You oversaw arms sales to them, presumably. Why Israel?

JOSH PAUL: So, let me just be clear: I was one of multiple people involved in the arms sales process. Arms sales themselves are a presidential authority that is delegated to the secretary of state, and then, through the secretary of state, to the undersecretary, who is actually responsible for approving them, for the most part. But you’re right. And as I said in my resignation letter, in my time in the department, I dealt with many morally challenging, controversial arms sales.

I think what made the difference for me here is that for all of those previous instances, even under the Trump administration, mind you, there was always room for discussion and debate and the ability to mitigate some of the worst possible outcomes, to delay sales until crises had passed, so that they weren’t contributing immediately into a humanitarian crisis, to work with Congress and be confident that once the policy debate had ended in the State Department, there would be a congressional piece to it, too. 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.

AMY GOODMAN: There’s going to be a major march in Washington tomorrow. Three hundred fifty people were arrested in Philly. We’re going to play some clips of a major protest in Boston that happened last night. How much does grassroots protest like this, the thousands of people who are protesting around the country, the shutdown of Grand Central by Jewish groups just last Friday night, have on the State Department, on the White House?

JOSH PAUL: So, I don’t think it has much impact on the State Department. And that’s OK, because I think policy processes are meant to happen within a policy framework, [inaudible] and the problem is they’re not happening.

I think it does have an impact on the White House. I think we’ve seen a significant change in tone in the last few weeks, not because there is a sudden deep care, frankly, for Palestinian civilian casualties on their own merits, but because there is a sense that there is a political crisis here developing for the Biden administration, that many people are saying, you know, “We’re just going to sit out the next election. We have lost faith in this White House, in this administration.” So, I think that does have an impact.

And let me also say I have found it incredibly moving, as well, to watch these protests. You know, I was up on the Hill for meetings this week and last week and came across, in one office, a sit-in that was happening, where there was a group of Jewish students singing peace songs and holding up signs that said “Save Gaza.” I found that incredibly moving. And I think it also tells Congress and it tells this administration that they are not in line with much of American public opinion. I think it’s a much-needed message.

AMY GOODMAN: Josh Paul, veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned last month in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amidst the attack on Gaza, thanks so much for joining us.

JOSH PAUL: Thank you very much for having me.




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