By Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. officials who resigned last year in protest over President Joe Biden's policy on the Gaza war have launched a lobbying organization and a political action committee to advocate for a revamp of Washington's long-standing stance on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.
Josh Paul, a former State Department official and Tariq Habash, who used to work as a policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education, said the American public is no longer in favor of unconditionally sending U.S. weapons to Israel but that elected officials have lagged behind.
Their PAC, called "A New Policy", would support candidates whose position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict center on aligning U.S. policies with human rights and equality and would ensure U.S. arms transfers to all countries in the Middle East including Israel comply with both U.S. and international law.
Washington's unwavering support for Israel's military operations in Gaza and more recently in Lebanon has emerged as a key reason for why Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly had backed Biden in 2020, may withhold their votes from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.
"American voters are clear: they do not want to be complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe and a majority want an end to the transfer of lethal weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians," Habbash said.
Many Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. have urged Biden to call for a permanent ceasefire. Harris faces Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5 in what polls show to be a tight presidential race.
The U.S. is Israel's largest weapons supplier and has provided it with billions of dollars in military aid since Oct. 7, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's relentless retaliatory offensive of the densely-populated Gaza Strip, which was home to 2.3 million people, has reduced the enclave to a wasteland, with hundreds of thousands of people repeatedly displaced. More than 42,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.