US officials who quit last year over President Biden’s Gaza policy form new PAC

Two US officials who resigned last year in protest over President Joe Biden’s policy on the Gaza war have launched a lobbying organisation and a political action committee to advocate for a revamp of Washington’s long-standing stance on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.
Josh Paul, a former State Department official, and Tariq Habash, who used to work as a policy advisor at the US Department of Education, said the American public is no longer in favour of unconditionally sending US weapons to Israel but that elected officials have lagged behind.
Their PAC, called “A New Policy”, would support candidates whose position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict centres on aligning US policies with human rights and equality and would ensure US arms transfers to all countries in the Middle East, including Israel, comply with both US and international law.
Washington’s unwavering support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza and more recently in Lebanon has emerged as a key reason why Muslim and Arab voters, who had resoundingly backed Biden in 2020, may withhold their votes from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.
“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,” Habbash said.
Many Muslims and Arabs in the US have urged Biden to call for a permanent ceasefire. Harris faces Republican former President Donald Trump on November 5 in what polls show to be a tight presidential race.
The US is Israel’s largest weapons supplier and has provided it with billions of dollars in military aid since October 7, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s relentless retaliatory offensive in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, which was home to 2.3 million people, has reduced the enclave to a wasteland, with hundreds of thousands of people repeatedly displaced. More than 42,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.