A former U.S. State Department official told an audience in Doheny Memorial Library on Tuesday “there was no space for discussion” within the Department on the appropriate level of U.S. military assistance to Israel following Hamas’ October 7 attacks.
Formerly a director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Josh Paul resigned last October in protest of the U.S.’s military policy regarding Israel’s war in Gaza. He has since traveled across the country for dozens of speaking engagements, discussing his decision to leave and the history and direction of U.S. foreign policy in Israel.
In his 11 years working in the role, Paul was often in charge of approving arms transfers to foreign allies. While most transactions involved verifying a country’s human rights record before providing security assistance, investigations into credible allegations against Israel were typically delayed.
“It’s not that [U.S. officials] don’t know, it’s that they haven’t been asking their lawyers, ‘have there been violations of international humanitarian law using U.S. weapons?’ Paul said. “They don’t know formally, and they don’t want to know formally, because that would then compel certain actions.”
Paul added it is untrue that Israel would be left “defenseless” if the U.S. stopped supplying military aid.
“What it would do is force them to make some hard choices about where the priority actually is,” Paul said. “Is the priority continuing to rain down as many munitions as you possibly can on Gaza, or is it retaining that strategic stockpile in order to defend yourself against the more significant threat of Hezbollah in the north?”
Paul noted that the issue of the U.S.’s role in Gaza has become one of heightened domestic importance.
“When you see people having job offers recanted, when you see certain forms of speech being shut down, peaceful forms of speech being shut down, there are now genuine domestic questions about civil rights, about freedom of speech, about freedom of association.”
Allison Hartnett, an assistant professor of political science and international relations and Middle East studies, said she faced some pushback when organizing the event.
“I wouldn’t say that this [event] has been popular … It’s down to individual professors and institutes to bring in speakers that they find compelling, and the amount of support varies,” she noted.
Hartnett added that given the tense political climate surrounding the war in Gaza, event organizers prioritized creating a space for civil dialogue amongst a small audience.
“I think in an ideal world, it would have been a bigger event,” she said. “I think we’re living in a moment where everyone’s concerned about things like doxxing … It takes a bit of bravery in this moment to have these types of conversations.”
Saim Hasan, a sophomore computer engineering major, called the discussion “insightful.”
“It was a perspective that I just wasn’t exposed to before,” Hasan said. “It sounds like to me that there is a lot of policy in place that should be preventing a lot of these international humanitarian law violations, but what it really boils down to is … a system that allows for what’s happened to take place.”
Speaking to Annenberg Media after the event, Paul noted how unlike when dealing with other world conflicts in his career, there was little discussion of the long term consequences of “[opening] the taps” on weapons to Israel following Hamas’ October 7 attacks.
“I think confronted by the scale of the harm and the inability to do anything whatsoever within the system to shift it, resignation was really the only option,” he said. “About a month ago, I went back and I reread the resignation statement I put out when I left, and I think, unfortunately, it still stands. Nothing in the broader context has changed.”
While policy within the State Department may remain largely the same since his departure, Paul said he has “a lot of confidence” in today’s youth.
“I think that they are less willing to compromise on their values than previous generations,” he said. “At the same time, they are more willing to listen and to ask questions about their own place in the world … there’s an incredible amount of talent and passion and energy in today’s students, and I think it’s going to make a difference.”