MEI/FMEP 2024 Congressional Briefing Series: The Gaza Catastrophe

The U.S. Role & Responsibility

Listen to this webinar as a podcast

Recorded on April 26, 2024

Featuring: Josh Paul (former official at the U.S. Department of State), Zaha Hassan (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Tess McEnery (Middle East Democracy Center)

This session reviewed and analyzed the role Congress & the Executive have played vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine in general, and Gaza in particular, both before and since 10/7/23.

For more information on the 2024 Congressional Briefing Series, including additional webinars, please visit: https://fmep.org/the-gaza-catastrophe-a-private-briefing-for-congress/

Resources

• You can follow today’s panelists on X at:
  • Zaha Hassan: https://twitter.com/zahahassan
  • Tess McEnery: https://twitter.com/TessMcEnery
• From Zaha Hassan:
  • “The outside world must walk Israel back from the abyss. It cannot be part of the choir of incitement,” October 14, 2023
  • Foreign Policy: “Palestinians Need a Path to Sovereignty,” December 7, 2023. 
  • “For Palestinians, the “Day After” Starts With a Plan for Ending Israel’s Occupation,” December 22, 2023. 
  • “The ICJ ruling on Gaza is a wake-up call for Washington – Biden has to take note,” January 28, 2024. 
  • “Governing Gaza After the War: Palestinian Debates,” February 9, 2024.
  • “Why the United States Can’t Ignore the ICJ Case Against Israel,” April 25, 2024. 
• From Tess McEnery
  • “Democracy Over Autocracy: The Missing Middle East,” November 11, 2022. 
  •  “Advancing Democracy Overseas – Not Isolationism – Protects American Interests,” February 23, 2024.
  • “Does (Should) the U.S. Care about Democracy in the Middle East? A Conversation with Tess McEnery,” January 27, 2023.
• From/About Josh Paul
  • “RESIGNED: The Former Biden Admin Officials Who Left Their Jobs Over Gaza,” FMEP Webinar – April 12, 2024.
  • “State Dept. official Josh Paul resigns, citing objection to Israel arms transfers,” October 18, 2023. 
  • “Opinion: Here are seven ways the U.S. can push Israel toward a cease-fire in Gaza,” November 28, 2023. 
  • Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, “With no end in sight to Netanyahu’s war in Gaza, will Biden ever say ‘enough’?” January 19, 2024. 
  • Article for DAWN, “Competing Against Ourselves: How a Narrow Focus on ‘Strategic Competition’ Undermines U.S. Middle East Policy,” February 29, 2024. 
  • Interview on Democracy Now!, “State Dept. Whistleblower: Biden Is Skirting U.S. Law by Rushing More Bombs & Warplanes to Israel,” April 2, 2024. 
  • Op-Ed in the Washington Post, “This is not the State Department I know. That’s why I left my job,” October 23, 2023. 
  • Q&A in Responsible Statecraft, “Whistleblower Josh Paul: ‘Political pressure’ helps Israel skirt US arms rules,” October 24, 2023. 

Participant Biographies

Zaha Hassan is a human rights lawyer and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focus is on Palestine-Israel peace, the use of international legal mechanisms by political movements, and U.S. foreign policy in the region. Previously, she was the coordinator and senior legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for UN membership, and was a member of the Palestinian delegation to Quartet-sponsored exploratory talks between 2011 and 2012. She regularly participates in track II peace efforts and is a contributor to The Hill and Haaretz. Her commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, Salon, Al Jazeera English, CNN, and others.

Tess McEnery is Executive Director of the Middle East Democracy Center. 

Josh Paul is the former Director of Congressional & Public Affairs in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the U.S. Department of State, a position from which he resigned in October 2023 due to his disagreement with the U.S. policy of providing lethal arms to Israel in the context of the conflict in Gaza. He previously served in roles including as the desk officer for Iraqi Internal Security Forces in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; as a National Security Consultant to the Government of Iraq on behalf of the United States; as Security Sector Governance Advisor to the Palestinian Authority on behalf of the U.S. Security Coordinator, as a Military Legislative Assistant to a Member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the organization Democracy Now for the Arab World (DAWN) and a recipient of the 2023 Callaway Award for Civic Courage.