Former Biden Officials Launch Group To Shift Israel Policy

Two of the many Biden administration officials who have resigned in protest over the U.S. government’s current policy on Israel and the Palestinian people are taking matters into their own hands by launching a lobbying group and political action committee to help change Washington’s approach to the Middle East in a way that supports Palestinian freedom and Israeli and American accountability.

The former officials, Josh Paul and Tariq Habash, launched A New Policy and A New Policy PAC on Wednesday, just a week after the first anniversary of Hamas militants’ deadly attack on Israel, which triggered Israel’s ongoing U.S.-funded retaliation in Gaza that could soon turn into a regional war. HuffPost spoke with both officials on Tuesday about the group, which they said is nonpartisan.

“I think it’s very clear that the policies that the United States has been pursuing, certainly for the last year and frankly before that, have been deeply harmful to the Palestinian people ― but also to American interests where we are seeing ourselves, our credibility around the world shattered, the stability of the Middle East cast into doubt, and civil rights at home also increasingly damaged by the debate around this issue,” said Paul, who was director of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs before becoming the first Biden administration official to publicly resign over the government’s Gaza policy.

A New Policy plans to tackle U.S. policy reform on the Middle East, specifically regarding Israel and the Palestinians, by attempting to reshape the politics around the issue. This means the group will focus on advocating for foreign and domestic policy changes, such as putting conditions on arm sales to Israel, supporting an end to Israeli occupation, ensuring that any U.S. role in the diplomatic process does not incentivize using violence, and strengthening civil rights protections for Americans critical of the current U.S.-Israeli relationship.

“We’ve been talking about this for a long time, but there’s been a lot of support from the community, from partner organizations, from the now-growing number of resignees who’ve been very interested in finding ways to really be supportive of this effort,” said Habash, a Palestinian American who was appointed to the Department of Education before quitting in January.

“And so we don’t see this as just our project,” he added. “We see this as, like, an institution for all Americans to be part of this.”

Paul and Habash were part of a July letter signed by a dozen departing Biden administration staffers and obtained exclusively by HuffPost. The letter called President Joe Biden’s policy on Gaza a “threat to U.S. national security” on top of the tens of thousands of Palestinians whom Israel killed using American weaponry. The ex-officials urged remaining government officials to challenge the status quo.

Habash said that while he was at the Department of Education, it became “very clear” that there was “no appetite” from the government to actually address U.S. policy that was enabling the destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure in Gaza and that the White House’s inability to allow for dissenting opinions on the matter resulted in a “chilling effect on political appointees across the administration, in a way that made it impossible to actually improve the circumstances that Americans were feeling.”

The decision to launch A New Policy just weeks before the U.S. election is not lost on the former officials, who said they felt it was important to avoid appearing as if they formed the group in response to whoever wins the presidential race.

“Our effort, I think, transcends this one election, right? It is more than just what’s happening in November. This is an issue that continues to undermine our own national interests and our American values in a way that is dangerous in the long term,” Habash said, with Paul echoing that the issue will persist regardless of who becomes president.

A New Policy’s PAC arm is meant to help finance candidates whose platforms include support for Palestinian liberation and for the U.S. to abide by American and international law, and Paul said that the group will make some contributions ahead of Nov. 5 before focusing on future election cycles. The contributions will mostly go toward national congressional candidates, though Habash stressed that they hope to work with regional and grassroots partners to support state and local races as well.

“We are part of a broader ecosystem, and that is a real strength,” Paul said. “And if we can contribute the strategic engagement on the policy side, on the political side, and then link up and build together across the political spectrum of those organizations, I think that is a great part of the theory of change here.”