State Department official resigns over Biden's support of Israel's response to Hamas attack

President Biden pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel on Wednesday. (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)

A veteran State Department official resigned Tuesday over policy disagreements with President Biden’s support of Israel amid its response to the deadly attacks committed by Hamas.

Josh Paul, who spent 11 years in the agency’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which overseas the provisions of arms to U.S. partners and allies, said Israel’s response will “only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and Palestinian people.”

“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 wrote in a two-page letter posted to LinkedIn.

He said he fears the U.S. is repeating the same mistakes “we have made these past three decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer.

”He called the deadly attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas a “monstrosity of monstrosities.” Israel has pummeled the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in the days following the Oct. 7 attack, in which children were also killed and kidnapped by terrorist fighters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told Biden on Wednesday that Israel will continue to not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicines from our territory to the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas still has captives.

Paul concluded his letter by wishing his former colleagues well.

“And I wish all of us ― peace,” he said. 

The State Department said it declined to comment on Paul's resignation.