The peace talks underway in Josh Paul’s classroom were doomed.
Israel was unyielding. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority traded accusations. Nobody paid attention to civic groups or tribal leaders. After two rounds of debate, the college students role-playing as negotiators were stuck with bleak prospects for the Gaza Strip.
The sole compromise was a watered-down rejection of “violence” that didn’t name perpetrators or victims.
“You’re the one group that got to some sort of agreement — by being so general that it was almost meaningless,” Paul said, to laughter from the students. “Congratulations, that’s how diplomacy works.”
That lesson in the frustration of Middle East policymaking came from bitter experience. Paul, 45, is a veteran civil servant who for more than a decade helped send weapons to foreign nations, including to Israel for the war it launched after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostage during an Oct. 7 attack.
But on Oct. 18, when the death toll in Gaza had climbed past 2,000, Paul hit his breaking point. He announced his resignation from the State Department in a public LinkedIn post outlining concerns about U.S. weapons being used against Palestinian civilians. He described “rushing more arms to one side of the conflict” and other policies as unjust and “contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.”
With those words, Paul had broken the ultimate taboo for a government official: publicly criticizing Israel, the top U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Four months later, he was on the wind-whipped plains of Iowa, leading a classroom simulation of the war that had cost him his State Department career.
Paul spent February teaching at Grinnell College, a tiny liberal arts school in the heart of Trump country, as his old life imploded and another took shape around his new identities as “dissident” and “whistleblower.” The brief exile gave him space to reflect on a question he’s wrestled with since his resignation: What, if any, was the impact?
Overnight, he had become radioactive in pro-Israel foreign policy circles. Prominent think tanks kept their distance. Some Senate staffers iced him out. Paul figured he’d have to look abroad for new work, maybe with defense firms in the Middle East or Europe.
“It is a third rail when you’re criticizing Israel and is, historically, career suicide,” Paul told The Washington Post during interviews in Iowa last month. “I thought I would get some expressions of support from friends and colleagues, and maybe a day or two of some sort of media coverage, and then I’d be looking for another job.”
The calculation changed, however, when Paul’s resignation letter went viral, boosted over several days by activist networks and social media.
Next came high-profile broadcast interviews — on CNN, “Democracy Now!” and “PBS NewsHour” — that racked up millions of views across platforms. A talk Paul gave at a D.C. restaurant known for supporting social-justice causes drew policy wonks and kaffiyeh-wearing activists who crammed into a main hall and two overflow rooms.
Strangers contacted him on LinkedIn — hundreds, then thousands, of messages that Paul categorizes by sender: government workers, veterans, Palestinians, Israelis, and people with no connection to the region who still felt compelled to write.
Paul allowed a Post reporter to skim through the messages, but asked that they not be quoted at length or the senders be identified out of privacy concerns. They contained unfiltered anger at Hamas and Israel, outrage and shame over the Biden administration’s response, and respect for Paul’s decision to take a stand when, as one person wrote, “the dialogue is uncomfortable and the stakes are immense.”
Accustomed to unseen, confidential work at the State Department, Paul said, he was overwhelmed by the response. His overflowing inbox signaled to him that “a conversation is bubbling up in America,” a nascent movement demanding a recalibration of U.S. policy as the death toll in Gaza soars past 32,000 — the majority of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The State Department did not respond to questions about Paul; previously, the department has declined to comment on the resignation, citing policy on discussing personnel matters.
Paul said he began to see a future where he remained in the United States, using his newfound platform in service of a lobbying effort to “rebalance” Middle East policy. He needed to hit pause and think strategically, he said, but that was difficult in the Washington fishbowl, where passersby had begun to recognize him from television.
When an invitation to visit Grinnell arrived, Paul said, it was the first — and, for weeks, the only — overture from a university as tensions over the war turned campuses into political battlegrounds.
He looked the school up on a map: an hour outside Des Moines. Perfect.
“It was a nice, out-of-the-way place where I could focus,” Paul said. “Theoretically.”
More than five months into the war, only one other government official, Tariq Habash in the Education Department, has quit in a similarly public way. Defenders of the Biden administration’s Israel policy underline this to suggest that reports of internal strife over Gaza are overblown; one right-wing pundit accused Paul of having a “martyr complex.”
Some officials who have considered resigning say privately that they’re staying because they can better influence policy from inside, or because they’re worried about being replaced by people who will quash dissent and maintain the status quo. Others simply can’t afford it, saying they have family obligations and little savings.
Paul is divorced, financially sound, with no children at home — all factors he weighed in his decision. He also notes that he’s White, which he said means he’s been spared the online vitriol received by Habash, a Palestinian American presidential appointee.
The idea wasn’t to be “a pied piper,” Paul said, but he admitted to some frustration that others haven’t felt similarly compelled to leave. In Gaza, tens of thousands are dead. Homes, schools and hospitals are destroyed. Children have begun dying of malnutrition as top humanitarian officials warn of impending famine in what they call the broadest and severest food crisis in the world.
“I have asked myself, ‘What would it take if this isn’t it?’” Paul said.
Israel was unyielding. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority traded accusations. Nobody paid attention to civic groups or tribal leaders. After two rounds of debate, the college students role-playing as negotiators were stuck with bleak prospects for the Gaza Strip.
The sole compromise was a watered-down rejection of “violence” that didn’t name perpetrators or victims.
“You’re the one group that got to some sort of agreement — by being so general that it was almost meaningless,” Paul said, to laughter from the students. “Congratulations, that’s how diplomacy works.”
That lesson in the frustration of Middle East policymaking came from bitter experience. Paul, 45, is a veteran civil servant who for more than a decade helped send weapons to foreign nations, including to Israel for the war it launched after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostage during an Oct. 7 attack.
But on Oct. 18, when the death toll in Gaza had climbed past 2,000, Paul hit his breaking point. He announced his resignation from the State Department in a public LinkedIn post outlining concerns about U.S. weapons being used against Palestinian civilians. He described “rushing more arms to one side of the conflict” and other policies as unjust and “contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.”
With those words, Paul had broken the ultimate taboo for a government official: publicly criticizing Israel, the top U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Four months later, he was on the wind-whipped plains of Iowa, leading a classroom simulation of the war that had cost him his State Department career.
Paul spent February teaching at Grinnell College, a tiny liberal arts school in the heart of Trump country, as his old life imploded and another took shape around his new identities as “dissident” and “whistleblower.” The brief exile gave him space to reflect on a question he’s wrestled with since his resignation: What, if any, was the impact?
Overnight, he had become radioactive in pro-Israel foreign policy circles. Prominent think tanks kept their distance. Some Senate staffers iced him out. Paul figured he’d have to look abroad for new work, maybe with defense firms in the Middle East or Europe.
“It is a third rail when you’re criticizing Israel and is, historically, career suicide,” Paul told The Washington Post during interviews in Iowa last month. “I thought I would get some expressions of support from friends and colleagues, and maybe a day or two of some sort of media coverage, and then I’d be looking for another job.”
The calculation changed, however, when Paul’s resignation letter went viral, boosted over several days by activist networks and social media.
Next came high-profile broadcast interviews — on CNN, “Democracy Now!” and “PBS NewsHour” — that racked up millions of views across platforms. A talk Paul gave at a D.C. restaurant known for supporting social-justice causes drew policy wonks and kaffiyeh-wearing activists who crammed into a main hall and two overflow rooms.
Strangers contacted him on LinkedIn — hundreds, then thousands, of messages that Paul categorizes by sender: government workers, veterans, Palestinians, Israelis, and people with no connection to the region who still felt compelled to write.
Paul allowed a Post reporter to skim through the messages, but asked that they not be quoted at length or the senders be identified out of privacy concerns. They contained unfiltered anger at Hamas and Israel, outrage and shame over the Biden administration’s response, and respect for Paul’s decision to take a stand when, as one person wrote, “the dialogue is uncomfortable and the stakes are immense.”
Accustomed to unseen, confidential work at the State Department, Paul said, he was overwhelmed by the response. His overflowing inbox signaled to him that “a conversation is bubbling up in America,” a nascent movement demanding a recalibration of U.S. policy as the death toll in Gaza soars past 32,000 — the majority of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The State Department did not respond to questions about Paul; previously, the department has declined to comment on the resignation, citing policy on discussing personnel matters.
Paul said he began to see a future where he remained in the United States, using his newfound platform in service of a lobbying effort to “rebalance” Middle East policy. He needed to hit pause and think strategically, he said, but that was difficult in the Washington fishbowl, where passersby had begun to recognize him from television.
When an invitation to visit Grinnell arrived, Paul said, it was the first — and, for weeks, the only — overture from a university as tensions over the war turned campuses into political battlegrounds.
He looked the school up on a map: an hour outside Des Moines. Perfect.
“It was a nice, out-of-the-way place where I could focus,” Paul said. “Theoretically.”
Rumbles of dissent
For all the grass-roots support, Paul’s resignation did not spark a chain reaction.More than five months into the war, only one other government official, Tariq Habash in the Education Department, has quit in a similarly public way. Defenders of the Biden administration’s Israel policy underline this to suggest that reports of internal strife over Gaza are overblown; one right-wing pundit accused Paul of having a “martyr complex.”
Some officials who have considered resigning say privately that they’re staying because they can better influence policy from inside, or because they’re worried about being replaced by people who will quash dissent and maintain the status quo. Others simply can’t afford it, saying they have family obligations and little savings.
Paul is divorced, financially sound, with no children at home — all factors he weighed in his decision. He also notes that he’s White, which he said means he’s been spared the online vitriol received by Habash, a Palestinian American presidential appointee.
The idea wasn’t to be “a pied piper,” Paul said, but he admitted to some frustration that others haven’t felt similarly compelled to leave. In Gaza, tens of thousands are dead. Homes, schools and hospitals are destroyed. Children have begun dying of malnutrition as top humanitarian officials warn of impending famine in what they call the broadest and severest food crisis in the world.
“I have asked myself, ‘What would it take if this isn’t it?’” Paul said.
