A senior US State Department official and expert on Israel-Palestine resigns amid the Gaza war
The American newspaper The Washington Post confirmed today, Friday, citing three informed people, that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs Andrew Miller resigned from his position, with growing frustration within the Biden administration regarding the large number of civilian deaths in the Israeli war on Gaza, to be Andrew Miller. The most senior American official to resign from his position since the start of the Gaza war.
According to the newspaper, Miller told his colleagues that he decided to leave his job due to family matters, noting that the war on Gaza that has been ongoing for more than eight months made him rarely see his family, adding that if it were not for those responsibilities, he would have preferred to stay in his job and work for what he believes in. Including those areas in which he disagrees with the Biden administration’s policy. Officials confirmed to the newspaper that Miller resigned in protest against the Biden administration’s policy toward the war.
Andrew Miller’s resignation, which was not previously reported, is part of a series of resignations in the US administration. Still, Miller is the highest-ranking American official to resign since the start of the war. He was preceded by Officer Harrison Mann from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the Ministry of Defense (Pentagon), in protest against his country’s “unconditional” support for the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, Hala Harriet, the Arabic-speaking spokeswoman for the US State Department, and Anil Shilin from the Human Rights Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
State Department, Josh Powell, former director of the department’s Office of Political-Military Affairs, and US State Department official Stacy Gilbert. Biden had announced his full support for Israel since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and provided Israel with the weapons it needed in the war, as well as diplomatic cover, despite Netanyahu repeatedly ignoring US demands to take a more precise approach in the war to avoid causing many civilian casualties, and not to withhold revenues: taxes, and the use of inflammatory rhetoric against the Palestinians.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: “Andrew Miller brought deep experience and a sharp perspective to the table every day… Everyone is sorry to see him go, but we wish him well in his next endeavors,” while Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution Susan Maloney told Washington Post: Andrew Miller’s departure will be a loss for the US administration in general and the State Department in particular.
Miller had warned, according to the American newspaper, of what he called a “bear hug” about Biden’s embrace of Netanyahu during the former’s visit to Tel Aviv, shortly after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and the start of the war on Gaza on the seventh of last October.
An American official who knows Andrew Miller said that he realized the dangers of Biden’s policy towards Israel, and he believed that the United States could influence Israel, as its largest military, economic, and political supporter, more effectively, noting that Miller was constantly urging the United States of America to support Palestinian rights. The establishment of a Palestinian state had an impact on this matter during his time in the government in general.
