Citing Joe Biden's support of Israel, a senior State Department official has resigned. Joshua Paul, director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for over 11 years, protested the White House's decision to send arms and ammunition to Israel while it is at war with Hamas. According to Paul, “blind support for one side” was leading to policy decisions that were “shortsighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory to the very values we publicly espouse.”

In a New York Times interview, Paul gave us a masterclass in the morally imbecilic master-of-the-universe hubris that anyone following American foreign policy since Jimmy Carter's unfortunate reign will instantly recognize as the State Department's stock-in-trade.

“On all of them there’s a moment where you can say, OK, well, you know, it’s out of my hands, but I know Congress is going to push back,” he said, by issuing a hold on the transfer or grilling officials in hearings at the Capitol. “But in this instance, there isn’t any significant pushback likely from Congress, there isn’t any other oversight mechanism, there isn’t any other forum for debate, and that’s part of what got into my decision making.”

Continuing to give Israel what he described as carte blanche to kill a generation of enemies, only to create a new one, does not ultimately serve the United States’ interests, Mr. Paul said.

“What it leads to is this desire to sort of impose security at any cost, including in cost to the Palestinian civilian population,” he said. “And that doesn’t ultimately lead to security.”

“This administration, I think, knows better and understands some of the complexity but brought very little of that nuance to the policy decisions that are being made.”

If you read the letter Paul sent to colleagues explaining his decision, and I encourage you to do so, you begin to understand why the "deep state" is a real thing. Paul is a career civil servant. His job is literally to execute the foreign policy of the United States as determined by the President and Congress. He is under the misapprehension that his role is to shape policy. 

“When I came to this bureau ... I knew it was not without its moral complexity and moral compromises, and I made myself a promise that I would stay for as long as I felt … the harm I might do could be outweighed by the good I could do,” Paul wrote on LinkedIn. “In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact. 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 described Hamas’ assault on Israel ― which killed more than 1,400 people ― as “a monstrosity of monstrosities.”

“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,” he continued.

Sorry, chief, saying you've morally compromised yourself for a decade, but this is too much sounds as convincing as a hooker saying, "I won't do that." What you're calling a moral issue is, in reality, a political one. You don't get to virtue signaling by quitting.

Of course, his colleagues loved it. 

Since posting his resignation letter online Wednesday, Mr. Paul said he had received an outpouring of support from State Department colleagues and congressional staff members.

“A lot of people are wrestling with this being the current policy and are finding it to be deeply problematic,” he said. “I’ve really been quite moved by some of the folks who have reached out to say that they understand where I’m coming from. They respect my decision. It’s been very supportive.”

Don’t let the door hit you on your way out. I hope more follow. The State Department is unduly staffed by people inimical to our national interest. They make Biden’s feckless foreign policy even worse. https://t.co/IIJIrEwv3s

— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) October 19, 2023

More troubling than Paul's resignation over not getting his way was this.

Sources with direct knowledge confirm many high ranking Muslim appointees are strongly considering resigning. The Biden Admin isn't listening to them during this crisis, their communities are frustrated w/ them, & Islamophobes are targeting them & questioning their loyalties.

— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) October 18, 2023

This is what a disloyal Fifth Column looks like. These people are putting their group identity before the interests of the United States or the policy of the government they purport to serve. The real hoot is complaining about having their loyalty questioned when they want to intervene in US policy on behalf of a terrorist group because they share the same religion. For some reason, Japanese, German, and Italian Americans could get beyond this racial/religious/ethnic identity and loyally serve the nation during World War II. But Muslim appointees can't do that. Amazing. Yep, anyone who would question their loyalties is just bonkers.

This points to a massive problem within the federal government. There are thousands of guys, like Paul, who believe they have the right to shape US policy without having been elected or holding a presidential appointment. Hundreds of Muslim appointees believe the fact that they share a religion with a terrorist group gives them some special right to be consulted. If we are fortunate enough to get another Republican president, and I'm not holding my breath, there needs to be a major housecleaning. The people in the civil service must not only be loyal to the nation, they must understand they implement policy, they don't make it.