WASHINGTON: Opposition to Israeli attacks in Gaza is growing in the United States where a State Department official has resigned over additional US military aid to Israel and a group of progressive lawmakers have introduced a ‘ceasefire now’ resolution in Congress.

Also, the US media reported on Thursday that Capitol police have arrested hundreds of Jewish peace activists for holding anti-war protests inside the Capitol building.

On Wednesday evening, Josh Paul, who was director of congressional and public affairs at the department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, posted his resignation letter online in a rare act of public dissent against the Biden administration’s pro-Israeli policies.

“Let me be clear: Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities,” Paul wrote. “But 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.”

The Biden administration’s war policies were “not in the long-term American interest” , wrote Paul as President Joe Biden announced plans to ask Congress for an unprecedented military aid package for Israel following his visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

Paul, who had been at the State Department for 11 years, called the response of the Biden administration “an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias” and “intellectual bankruptcy” and said he couldn’t work in support of a “shortsighted, destructive, unjust” policy.

“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 the letter posted to LinkedIn.

The United States has been “repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer,” he added.

Protests

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people signed on to a note, posted online, to seek support for a congressional resolution seeking an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Two members of the progressive caucus in the US House of Representatives — Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush — introduced the “Ceasefire Now” resolution earlier this week.

“As lawmakers, we have a moral responsibility to end this violence and save as many lives as possible,” Congresswoman Cori Bush wrote in a tweet. “I urge my colleagues to choose peace and join me in the call for a Ceasefire NOW,”

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, noted in a tweet that on Tuesday, Israel bombed a Baptist Hospital in Gaza, killing 500 Palestinians including “doctors, children, and patients) just like that.”

Addressing President Biden, she added: “This is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire and help de-escalate” tensions.

Congressman André Carson wrote in his tweet that he was “proud to lead the Ceasefire Now Resolution” with Representatives Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee, and Delia Ramirez.

The lawmakers also launched an online campaign to seek support for their move, reminding the American public: “We’re witnessing an active genocide in Gaza. We need a ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor to allow in aid.”

The US media reported on Thursday that at least 300 people were arrested near the US Capitol on Wednesday afternoon after a protest against the Israel-Hamas war. Most were arrested inside the Cannon House Office Building, where protests are not permitted. Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the group’s that organised the protest, claimed that about 500 Jews, rabbis, and descendants of Holocaust survivors chanted “Let Gaza live” inside the building. And “a crowd of 10k sang outside. We won’t stop until our demands of a ceasefire are met,” the group added in its tweet.

The demonstrators called on President Biden and Congress to push for a ceasefire in Gaza. Police closed streets around the Capitol complex and some of the protesters then occupied part of the Cannon House Office Building. Those inside wore black T-shirts that read “Jews say ceasefire now” and “Not in our name”.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2023