This is a Mershon Center event.
Former State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned last year in protest of U.S. arms transfers to Israel, will speak at The Ohio State University's (OSU) Fawcett Center on March 28, 2024, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The event will be moderated by Christopher McKnight Nichols, a Professor of History and the Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies, Mershon Center for International Security Studies at OSU.
Paul will discuss U.S.-Israel policy and, in particular, the issue of weapons transfers and arms sales to Israel and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, given his 11 years spent at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
The State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs is responsible for U.S. defense diplomacy, security assistance, and arms transfers.
He previously worked on security sector reform in both Iraq and the West Bank, with additional roles in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Army Staff, and as a Congressional staffer for Representative Steve Israel (D-NY).
Paul resigned from the State Department in October 2023 in protest of the Biden administration's continued military support for Israel despite widely documented war crimes and crimes against humanity during its ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice determined was plausibly a genocide.
In his resignation letter from the State Department on October 18, 2023, Paul wrote, "I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse."
This event is free and open to the public. Free parking is available.
