Transcript
Speaker: If you are working as a civil servant in the US government, you also have to be modest in what you can hope to achieve in terms of shifting the course of what is the vast ship of US state, of US s policy. Now, are you seeing any more insiders willing to speak out or has the system still remained pretty closed? A lot of pushback from the inside.
Speaker: And also seen some other symptoms of that recently concerning you know the espionage threat that Israel poses to the United States. I think it's clear there are still plenty of people who think that we need to really make break with the past.
Speaker: How unusual is it for the US to, through legislation, legally align defense planning with another country? but There are several factors that are unique here. so The most sensitive US technology with other countries is with the yeah UK and Australia and to an extent Canada through a program called AUKUS. These bills go well beyond AUKUS, well beyond any of those other frameworks, are much more aggressive as well in how they try to ensure that there is implementation. Whenever Palestine comes up, it's the first domino and we need to stop letting it be an exception because it is never an exception.
Speaker: As-salamu alaykum. Welcome to CARE On The Air, the official podcast for the Council on American Islamic Relations. I'm Robert McCaw, the Government Affairs Director at CARE. I'm in today because our regular host, CARE National Deputy Director Edward Mitchell, is traveling. So today we are joined by Josh Paul. and he is a former official at the US State Department who resigned in 2023 in protests over the Biden administration's decision to rapidly expand lethal military assistance to Israel at the outset of the Gaza war.
Speaker: Josh has spent over 11 years as a director in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs, where he worked on US defense diplomacy, arms transfers, and security assistance. His career also includes Robert R. R.
Speaker: um in the security sector reform in iraq and the west bank holds a master's degree from georgetown university and the University of St. Andrews and has been recognized for his integrity, his courage, and including receiving the 2023 Callaway Award for Civic Courage and the 2024 Med Global Award for Courage. He is now the co-founder of New Policy, a new initiative focused on reshaping US foreign policy. Josh, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker: Thank you, Robert. Really good to join you. Thank you for that very kind introduction. ah We are really excited to have you here. i have to say, i don't get excited when I see movie stars, but when I see political rock stars like you, i get a little giddy. So thank you for just joining us. When I'm on the Hill, I'm always seeing new policy staff at hearings. You have an incredible team.
Speaker: so we're going to dive into all the issues. But first, I just want to ask, and I'm sure everyone does, you've spent over a decade inside the system in the federal government. What did you believe about U.S. policy before you left?
Speaker: What changed for you in October 2023?
Speaker: So I don't think anything actually changed for me. I heard, as you mentioned in your introduction, I'd worked in the West Bank 2008-2009, so I was very clear-eyed about U.S. policy towards Israel and towards Palestine and what it looked like.
Speaker: ah However, at the same time, I think that if you are working as a civil servant in the US s government, you also have to be modest in what you can hope to achieve in terms of shifting the course of what is the vast ship of US state, of US s policy.
Speaker: um I did feel that for as long as I was working in my position in in State Department working on security systems and arms transfers, I was in a place where I could nudge things in the right direction, you know where I could work to create better bureaucratic processes, to play a role in the debates and discussions about arms transfers, including but not uniquely to Israel.
Speaker: um and you know could could do, I think, more good than harm by by being a part of that process up until October of 2023. And what happened then was that essentially the Biden administration at the most senior levels made a decision that we were going to just absolutely open the barn doors, unleash Israel, give it everything it wanted. And that's where that space for making any sort of an impact really went away.
Speaker: And, you know, once you just become another cog in a machine, and particularly a machine that is doing ARM, what is the point in remaining? And so that's that's the point at which I left. Now, are you seeing any more insiders willing to speak out or has the system still remained pretty closed?
Speaker: So during the course of the Biden administration, certainly there were at the end of the day, I think 15 of us who publicly resigned over Gaza. And I would estimate two or three times that amount who left quietly for the same reason.
Speaker: ah Under the Trump administration, I think the the entire government sector is feeling the pressure a lot more. That it's not just a unique pressure as it was under Biden when it comes to US policy on Israel-Palestine, but really is is an all-consuming pressure to align with Trump's agenda.
Speaker: That said, we have seen some notable resignations on this same issue set, right? Joe Kent director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigning. Probably the biggest. Yep, exactly.
Speaker: um So, so that there is still, I think it's very clear, ah lot of pushback from the inside. And we've also seen some other symptoms of that recently, for example, with reports based on leaks concerning, you know, the espionage threat that Israel poses to the United States.
Speaker: I think it's you know clear there are still plenty of people, not only in the State Department, but in the US military, in the intelligence community as well, who think that we need to really make a break with the past.
Speaker: But I think it is very hard these days for people to actually speak up and stick their neck out. So now you've founded New Policy, co-founded it. So what is it and what is the gap that you're trying to fill?
Speaker: Yeah, so a new policy and you can find us on the web at a new policy.org. As I was resigning, i sat down with the one of the other people to resign publicly from the Biden administration, Tarek Khabar, a Palestinian American.
Speaker: from Ohio. ah And he was at the Department of Education. i was the Department of State, you know, different upbringings, different perspectives, different areas of focus. But we realized very quickly, having despite having never met, that we had a very, very similar understanding of the problem, which is that at the end of the day, the problem America faces when it comes to policy towards Israel and also policy inherently towards Palestine. is that it's not actually a policy problem, it's a political problem.
Speaker: That the deck has been stacked, that the system essentially has been corralled and structured with political incentives that reward any sort of praise for Israel's support, for Israel unconditional support, and punish even the mildest sort of criticism or questioning of that approach.
Speaker: And so we founded a new policy essentially to get at that reward and punishment system, to restructure the incentives in American politics ah so that we can have the same sort of open and free discussion about the policies that we would have about any other country in the world.
Speaker: And I'm confident that if we can shift the politics, if we can break that sort of political logjam, then we will get inherently and and by but by nature of the facts, radically different policies. And so that's what a new policy is doing as a nonprofit lobbying organization and separately as a new policy PAC through our direct support to candidates and incumbents who are like-minded and aligned through the campaign and election process.
Speaker: I think the entire Washington established, it's no longer a secret, it's just a known reality. It's geared towards Israel's benefit, especially over the Palestinians as we try to find a pathway forward for peaceful coexistence.
Speaker: There are a number of measures in Congress right now, especially with the and NDA, National Defense Authorization Act, and the Annual Intelligence Authorization Act that seem to be expanding the United States' working relationship, if you would, with the Israeli military at the height of it carrying out war crimes. So, you know,
Speaker: As people are discussing, they're calling calling this a merger bill. There's actually two separate bills. No new policy is working on it, CARE is working on it, so a lot of other civil rights organizations in DC. But it seems that ah in Congress, there's an attempt to embed Israel directly into the US military intelligence architecture in a way that could outlast any administration And frankly, when you look at the language of these provisions, it really restricts any administration from not sharing this technology or intelligence unless they're willing to sacrifice a lot of political capital.
Speaker: I think these measures are coming at a time where Americans are saying we shouldn't give Israel three billion or more a year in arms and services.
Speaker: And in reality, these bills could open the pathway for Israeli military contractors ah to bid on equal terms with U.S. contractors. And, you know, we're sharing technology with Israel that normally they would have to spy on us to get, which they do and they do.
Speaker: So with that all said, Section 224, the NDA in the House, Section 622 in the Senate with the Intelligence Authorization Act,
Speaker: I'd love to dive into this because I think new policy has some of the most cutting edge research on these issues and how it's being framed. What does military or intelligence integration mean in actual practice? What's being proposed?
Speaker: Yeah, I think actually I just want to pull the thread on something you just said before we dive into the details here, because you you mentioned that this is happening at a time when more and more Americans, in fact, the majority of Americans are opposed to this sort of, you know, open blank checkbook and open sort of unconditional support to Israel that has been the standard for for certainly the last couple of decades or longer.
Speaker: And I think timing is a really important question here, because as as you'll see when we discuss these laws or these these pieces of legislation, not yet laws, ah none of them are actually things that have to be done in law by Congress.
Speaker: They are all things that the president of the United States could do tomorrow if he wanted to. or could have done a decade ago if he wanted to. So I think a really important question is why now?
Speaker: And actually, i think the answer is is a rare but increasingly common piece of good news. um I think that the answer is that Israel and its allies in the US, including its allies in Congress,
Speaker: like Lindsey Graham, or its allies in the Israel First Lobby, like AIPAC, can read the writing on the wall. They can see that America is changing and that it is inconceivable that in 10 years time, maybe even in five years time, Congress will still just be writing blank checks for billions of dollars every year to Israel.
Speaker: um and And to add to that urgency on their part, right, They're also looking down the barrel of the midterms where it is quite feasible that the Democratic Party will flip at least one, you know, chamber of Congress.
Speaker: um And if that happens in these midterms, everything for them becomes harder. And so really they are up against a longer term political decline as well as a short term political challenge.
Speaker: And that is why we are now looking at these pieces of legislation popping up. It is because this is essentially, you know, if if you think of the tide of American politics, you know, the tide is turning right now. They are essentially the peak of their power and influence. It is all downhill from here from them for them. And so this is really an attempt to lock in Israeli influence and Israeli access, particularly in our military technology and our intelligence sector in a way that makes it really hard to unpick even as the tide recedes, even as the politics and the popularity of Israel here shift.
Speaker: And so, you know, now that's not to say that we don't have a heck of a fight on our hands, but but I do want to start by noting that the reason we have that fight on our hands is because the tide is turning and because we are going to start winning going forward. um So what what do these two pieces of legislation actually do? and And actually we're talking about two pieces, I think we'll end up seeing them wrapped into one. So on the one hand, you have what started as Section 224 in the House National Defense Authorization Act. It's now become Section 219, but same exact thing.
Speaker: And also, by the way, the Senate just passed through the Senate Armed Services Committee. It hasn't gone through the full Senate yet. Very, very similar provision, which is Section 1217 of the Senate National Defense Authorization Act. ah This, so well, we'll talk about the House text. So what it does is it... first of all, directs the Secretary of Defense essentially to prioritize identifying Israeli technology to integrate into the US military supply chain.
Speaker: And then it creates a ah significant expansion of areas for technological technological research collaboration, ah particularly in emerging tech and some of the most sensitive areas of military technology between the US and Israel.
Speaker: In the case of the House bill, it then appoints an executive agent at the Pentagon, essentially to to ride forward on that program and to make sure that it's implemented. The Senate text doesn't have an executive agent, but it does say that the Secretary of Defense has to consult with the Israeli Minister of Defense, including on what Israeli technologies should be integrated into the US s military supply chain, which is just frankly bizarre and and I think also is something that a lot of people in the US tech security community will be you know pretty aghast at. So that's that bill and we can we can come back to the implications. Separately, ah you have in the Senate the Intelligence Authorization Act, which expands the information, the intelligence sharing of America's most sensitive
Speaker: you know, intelligence with Israel, but but not only with Israel, it also sort of offers out American intelligence or access to American intelligence, essentially as a sweetener for any country that wants to normalize ties with Israel, um which again is bizarre, right? I mean, sharing intelligence is something that should be done at the discretion of the president or or the director of national intelligence in the interest of the US. It's not some kind of a a candy to be given out to people for improving their relations with another country. ah And then it says that essentially the president cannot restrict ah you know any of that intelligence sharing absent a sort of immediate counterintelligence threat and and has to continuously provide reporting to Congress on the flow of intelligence. So that's what those two provisions do. They would really embed um you know Israel and Israel's defense sector, Israel's intelligence capabilities or community
Speaker: really in the fabric of America's own national defense and intelligence infrastructure. It's pretty scary. You know, it's absolutely frightening. And i just point out, you know the U.S., we have other military intelligence sharing programs. We have Five Eyes, where we partner with Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. being the fifth member, you know, Anglo-speaking countries.
Speaker: And even then, there's still limits on what type of technology we're transferring or intelligence that we're sharing. It seems that Israel would be getting a sweetheart deal when,
Speaker: public support for israel is collapsing so they're just trying to bake something into the process to tie our hands on this how unusual is it for the u.s to you know through legislation legally aligned defense planning with another country um so there are certainly other countries with whom the u.s s has close defense relationships right and you've just listed several of them and close intelligence relationships ah There are several factors that are unique here. So the first we've really gone on sharing the most sensitive US technology with other countries is with the UK and Australia and to an extent Canada ah through a program called AUKUS. You don't have to worry about too much about the details of that, except to say that it is a much narrower range of technologies.
Speaker: um And there is no direction to the Defense Department to you know go out looking for Australian technologies to bring into US supply chains, nor is there any sort of direction to appoint someone to make sure this happens.
Speaker: um At the same time, I think we also have to note that the UK and Australia are fundamentally different to Israel, not only in the way they behave, but also in their approach to to the United States. you know ah The UK and Australia, to the best of my knowledge, certainly do not have active espionage programs directed against the United States. um And also are are pretty well aligned when it comes to national interest, not always.
Speaker: um And one of the things that's striking about this this text in Congress is that essentially asserts that America's and Israel's national security interests and national interests are synonymous, are the same.
Speaker: And, you know, you just have to look out right now at the situation with Iran to see how very clearly Israel's interests and America's interests are not the same. ah ah So so the answer is that these bills go well beyond AUKUS, well beyond any of those other frameworks, are much more aggressive as well, not only more expansive, but also more aggressive in how they try to ensure that there is implementation.
Speaker: ah Very different as well in binding the president's hands so he can't get out of them. ah And also then, an addition to all of that, apply to a country that has no regard for international law and does not see eye to eye, I would argue, shoot it almost at all, not only in interest but in values with the United States.
Speaker: So it is it is very, very different to anything that we've done with any other country. you know, does this effectively blur the line in any way between the U.S. military, ah U.S. and Israeli military decision making, or would this lead to the U.S. being entangled in further decisions or actions it doesn't control?
Speaker: So i think we have to be careful here to to draw the distinction between the very smart technical way this is being done in terms of entangling our defense industrial base.
Speaker: and And I think when you do that, sure, you do sort of create some certain commonalities of interest when it comes to, for example, protecting supply chains and access to rare earth minerals and all that sort of thing, and actual operational entanglement. What this doesn't do is merge essentially the command of control or the actual forces of the United States and Israel. You know, even on the intelligence side, sure, there is intelligence sharing, and and that too leads to deeper collaboration on the operational side, also deeper understanding. And I think it's important to note that there is as well a significant push on joint Israel-US training. So, you know, you train together to fight together, et cetera, et cetera. um But this doesn't mandate any sort of future operations, any sort of future military, you know, essentially mergers. What it does is is in some ways much more sinister, because what it does is take a relationship that is today very much out in the open.
Speaker: You know, we we may not like the fact that Congress appropriates billions of dollars a year for Israel, for the IDF, but we can see that it's doing it. um and And it takes that and essentially buries it deep within the machinery and, you know, the the networks of the U.S. defense sector, the U.S. defense industry and the U.S. intelligence community.
Speaker: so that there will continue to be the same sort of flow, in fact, almost a reverse of the flow, so that essentially instead of the money, well, the money will still be in great part coming from the US, but instead of going through a public appropriations process, it will be flowing through contract vehicles that don't have to come before Congress, that are much harder to disentangle or to cancel once they are agreed upon, once they are signed and sealed.
Speaker: And then at the same time, and for me this is perhaps the most concerning aspect, and and maybe it gets a bit more to your question of entanglement, also reverses the flow of influence between our two countries.
Speaker: Right now, if you think about it, the US has all the cards, basically. We don't play them ah for you know domestic political reasons we can we can discuss. But you know we provide the funding, we provide the weapons, we provide the diplomatic shield from any sort of accountability.
Speaker: We can stop any of those things at any time if we wanted to. Once you wind Israel into our defense supply chain, guess what? They now have the influence because they can now essentially cut off the weapons, right? Whether it's an entire system or just key components of a future US military system where they can say, well, wait a second, you need to keep protecting us from the ICC. You need to keep denying the Palestinian statehood, whatever it might be. And if you don't, guess what?
Speaker: Your next generation fighter jet, let's say, for example, is not going to be able to fly. your Your critical software upgrades are not going to come. So we are really handing the keys over here in some pretty dangerous ways.
Speaker: Thank you for that. So you know I was on the Hill this week. I've been talking to some staffers about it. They say because this is in the House committee and Senate committee past NDAs, that it's going to be really hard to get out.
Speaker: ah of the the final legislation. So they were saying it would be a long shot to remove. ah So why does public pressure still matter? And what can people do right now to create an off ramp situation where this doesn't become our new reality?
Speaker: Yeah, so so public pressure does still matter. This is not yet law. It is true that it has gone through both the armed services committees of the House and the Senate. It has not yet gone through the House and the Senate. So in the House side, there is likely going to be amendments and votes coming up in the next couple of weeks. On the Senate side, probably a week or two after that, so into July.
Speaker: into july um Let's be clear, I think that it is most likely going to go through both the House or each of the House and the Senate. But the way the process works, because there are differences between the bills that these these this legislation is part of, in fact, there are differences, as we were just discussing, even in these specific provisions, it still then has to go to something called conference.
Speaker: which will likely happen, out if I'm guessing, in this sort of October, November timeframe, where the House and the Senate iron out the differences between their bills. And I think there is a real opportunity between now and then to build a head of steam on a ah cross-partisan basis that makes it very clear that the American people do not want this.
Speaker: I think we are making some real progress with the Democrats on this. Also, if you if you go on to social media now and like look up Section 224, you'll see there's a lot of angry Republicans, a lot of the MAGA base that does not like this either.
Speaker: I think we have to keep building that pressure. this This can't be something, this isn't going to be something that is resolved in the next day, the next couple of weeks. We have to make sure, though, that once these bills come to conference, Congress knows just how deeply unpopular this is and and ideally pulls this out before it can move forward.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that we're seeing a real gap right now between public opinion, even on the right, yeah and policymaking in Congress. And i think that's been like that for years. It's growing exponentially right now, as the world can see in live time. Israel committing acts of genocide, expanding its apartheid, expanding illegal occupation in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and the West Bank.
Speaker: From your perspective, ay this is like the last hurrah with the NDA and the intelligence sharing bills. Is U.S. policy starting to now shift?
Speaker: um Are we seeing cracks? Yeah, I think cracks is probably the right word. I don't think that we have yet seen a real shift in U.S. policy. You know, let's also be realistic that U.S. policy. is Right. So who Congress doesn't set policy. The the executive branch does.
Speaker: And the executive branch, you know, led by the president really only changes once every four years. And we're not yet through year two. of the current administration, if you can believe that. um So, you know, I wouldn't expect necessarily to see a dramatic shift, you know, even within the next couple of years. But I think that particularly after the midterms, once President Trump becomes a lame duck, you will start to see more and more cracks, including in Congress,
Speaker: but potentially also in the legislative branch. And look, I mean, we can see right now that President Trump himself does not appear to be too happy with where Prime Minister Netanyahu has led him in the Middle East in terms of the the war with Iran. And he's actually been more blunt than, let's be honest, ah Joe Biden or Barack Obama ever were just in the last couple of weeks, last couple of days in terms of critiquing, you know, Netanyahu's willingness to kill civilians in Lebanon, for example.
Speaker: um So, but, you know, first of all i don't want to read too much into that. You know, a few sort of offhand remarks by President Trump, particularly in the context of a negotiation where he's trying to persuade Iran that that he can control or contain Israel, you know, don't indicate a real shift in policy.
Speaker: um But, you know, there there are certainly cracks, as you said. You know, we saw in reporting that in the Situation Room when Netanyahu was trying to ca control the President Trump into attacking Iran unprovoked, that his cabinet warned him against it, and yet he still proceeded.
Speaker: We now hear reports that while maybe half to a quarter of his cabinet are not exactly happy with the Iran deal, that is being worked out at MOU. I wouldn't call this ah a full deal yet or a ceasefire, but you know it's it's getting progressively better. yeah um you know we We see the president splitting with Nanyahu, and you just mentioned that a minute a minute ago that he has criticized Israel, saying you don't take down a whole apartment building in Lebanon just to get one ah ranking officer with Hezbollah.
Speaker: Well, they tore down nearly every apartment in Gaza. They did that tens of thousands of times with U.S. weapons. And so it it is i I think Trump could flip on that within a minute, you know, within that same 24-hour period. He said that he'd also flatten Iran if they didn't, ah you know, agree with his...
Speaker: MOU and you know what he's trying to get out of this situation. So I think there is progress in seeing the Trump administration split more publicly with Netanyahu.
Speaker: I think Netanyahu is probably his own worst enemy as his base ah celebrates even when our own B2s crash after we publicly criticize ah Israel. So I think if anyone could be affected by criticism and lashing back at Israel and changing U.S. s policy, it might be Trump right now.
Speaker: But he's also very much beholden to a lot of pro-Israel interests, especially in the form of receiving campaign donations. So where do you see the U.S. right now with this negotiation with Iran?
Speaker: Do you see Israel attempting to sabotage this deal? Do you think this could accelerate any conflict of opinions, differences with Israel and policy?
Speaker: Yeah, um great set of questions. I mean, I think certainly where President Trump is, and i do think the vast majority of the American people, is that they want to get out of this conflict. And as as President Trump has also said in the last few hours or last 24 hours, um you know, the that the world is on the was on the verge of a depression. You know, were this to continue, were the Strait of Hormuz to remain closed and and the impacts on trade and resources.
Speaker: um And also, I think, you know, there's there's political consequences here for President Trump and the Republicans. I think he is very eager to get out of this. This is exactly though the problem we were talking about before, where U.S. interests and Israeli interests clearly don't align because Israel would still like to see regime collapse in Iran, right? It's not enough to have really done a significant amount of damage to Iran's military to have wiped out the the top previous top leaders of its regime. They want to see the country collapse, you know, into a Syria like sort of, you know, quagmire or mess. um
Speaker: And, you know, that's not in America's interest. And that's also very unlikely to actually happen, ah you know, certainly on on this timeline. um And so, you know, Israel's really only two points of leverage here.
Speaker: are A, through American politics and through its influence in American politics, you know through AIPAC and other organizations like that, Democratic Majority for Israel, and through aligned politicians. And you can you know spot a lot of them right now because they're the ones, including Democrats, who seem to be saying, this isn't a good deal.
Speaker: Well, okay, but you know what? It wasn't a good war. ah you know The choices aren't a good deal or a better a bad deal or a good deal. The choices are a bad deal or no deal and back to war. And then Israel's other point of and influence, as you say, is being a spoiler ah and you know just upsetting the apple cart and doing things that that turn the conflict back on, which I think would have repercussions. So I think they have put themselves in a bit of a tight spot, but I wouldn't underestimate their ability or their willingness ah to sort of let that, you know to to to put their finger on the scale again.
Speaker: and to you know create more havoc. I think it's it's one of the things, particularly Netanyahu, although we shouldn't you know overemphasize his role because there's a much bigger problem here than one man. But Netanyahu, particularly as Israeli a elections approach in the fall, is has had a proven track record of being willing to do.
Speaker: The U.S., when we attacked Iran, it was unprovoked. It was not, you know, a war was not declared by Congress. Trump was operating in a limited 60 90 day military window where he has that type of authority. That's passed.
Speaker: Congress in the House and Senate passed two separate War Powers Acts, ah which would, know, you know, claw back the president's authority or ability to operate in Iran. They were different bills, so they would have to be compromised and voted on again.
Speaker: But it was an incredibly sharp signal to this administration that their time in Iran is winding down. If the conflict heated back up again, how outside of his authority is the president operating?
Speaker: I mean, I think we're we're talking now about a much broader problem, right, which is sort of the this creeping growth of the the imperial executive, of of a president who essentially you know sets their own boundaries. And I'm not just talking about Trump. I'm talking about a process that has been going on now for 100 years in American politics, where the presidency has become more and more powerful and Congress's ability, but let's be frank, also willingness to constrain the president and to take tough decisions has become more and more limited.
Speaker: And so I think that raises a much broader question about executive overreach and executive powers. um You know, you can certainly make the argument that the president would be ahead of his skis or certainly outside of the the law in resuming or extending or continuing a conflict that has not been authorized by Congress.
Speaker: At the same time, at the end of the day, that is a political problem, not really one that is, you know, effectively or has a route to be tested through law unless Congress is really willing to do things that they have not shown themselves willing to do in the past. And of course, you know, at a veto proof majority, which which doesn't exist. So I think we have a much deeper structural problem here when it comes to the constraints around the modern presidency.
Speaker: but But we do need to recognize the political signal here, which is that Americans don't want this war. And in pushing back against what you would call an imperial presidency, have you been surprised by how hard this administration has cracked down on dissent regarding this issue, how Americans and their rights are being treated?
Speaker: ah No, right, because this didn't start with his administration. This certainly, i would say, started under a Democratic administration, under the Biden administration, ah with the treatment of, you know, speech that was critical of Israel or pro-Palestinian.
Speaker: You know, we saw, going back to the Biden administration, this repression of campus free speech, the shutting down the encampments, the arrests, you know, and that has only continued now and expanded as a tool by the Trump administration.
Speaker: But as on many things, it was, you know, Palestine that opened the door for something that then, what do you know, turns out to have consequences for communities across America, you know, regardless of their ethnic or religious makeup.
Speaker: if they are you know on the wrong side of the executive. I think that's always one of the things that we have to keep in mind whenever Palestine comes up, is that essentially it's it's always the canary in the coal mine. It's always you know the testing ground, whether it's for American free speech or whether it's for compliance with an international rules-based order, you know whatever it might be, it's the first domino and we we need to stop letting it be an exception because it is never an exception, is always a precedent.
Speaker: Well, to close out, what would you say to Americans who feel like they just don't have enough influence over decisions like these? What can they do? So I would say, um first of all, recognize again, you know, it's an unfortunate fact that these things don't always turn on a dime.
Speaker: That, you know just because we do not succeed today, it does not mean that we stop building power because we will succeed, if not tomorrow, then the day after, that there is that change coming. And part of the way you build that power is by using it, right? I mean, we've talked a little about bit about, you know, political you know credit and and are you burning your political capital? i actually think its political capital isn't something you accumulate and just sit there. You you don't accumulate it if it's this. Political capital is something you build by using it.
Speaker: And we need to use that political capital, whether it is in midterms around the country, to show up and vote for candidates who want to see a change in the current policy, to hold accountable the politicians who are going to be back in their districts this summer holding town halls by raising these issues.
Speaker: And by doing what you can now to make sure that this current Congress knows how we feel about provisions like the National Defense Authorization Act and the Intelligence Authorization Act that would entrench Israel's influence. And you can do that. You know, certainly know CARE has a project to do this, a new policy. Also, if you go to our advocacy web page, anewpolicy.org forward slash advocacy, you will find actions you can take to reach out to Congress right now and let them know how we feel. And we have to keep doing that.
Speaker: So I'll just ask again, please repeat that. How can people get in touch with new policy? What might be some campaigns they can get involved with? Yeah, so we have a congressional action network. It's our sort of advocacy network. It meets every couple of weeks to talk about what is happening on the Hill in pretty granular detail and to ensure that every time we talk, we're also identifying an action that people can take. And you can sign up for it at anewpolicy.org forward slash advocacy.
Speaker: Well, Josh Paul, thank you for joining us. You are the co-founder of a New Policy and you are an incredible activist on Capitol Hill and on the scene of Washington, D.C. So we are always privileged to have you join us and we look forward to you joining us again in the future.
Speaker: Great to be with you. Thanks a lot, Robert. And thanks to everyone at CARE in these tough times for keeping that light and that hope going. Thank you. We feel the solidarity. And to our audience, assalamu alaikum.
