Israel ‘Without a Doubt’ Committed War Crimes – Former US Dept Spokesperson

June 3, 2025 News
Former US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Miller is described as having been the voice and face of the US government’s foreign policy under former US President Joe Biden.

Former US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said he does not doubt that Israel has committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

Asked in an interview with Sky News’ Trump100 podcast whether Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, Miller said: “I don’t think it’s a genocide, but I think it is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes.”

The interviewer said to him, “You wouldn’t have said that from the podium,” to which Miller replied: “Yeah, look, because when you’re at the podium, you’re not expressing your personal opinion. You’re expressing the conclusions of the United States government.”

Miller, who often defended Israel’s actions at press briefings,  is described as having been the face and voice of the US government’s foreign policy under former US President Joe Biden.

State vs Soldiers

Attempting to qualify his statement, Miller said there were “two ways” to think about the commission of war crimes.

“One is if the state has pursued a policy to deliberately committing war crimes or is acting reckless in a way that aids and abets war crimes. If the state is committing war crimes,” he stated.

“I think what is almost certainly not an open question is that there have been individual incidents that have been war crimes where Israeli soldiers, members of the Israeli military have committed war crimes,” Miller continued.

He added that, “We do know that Israel has opened investigations, but look, we are many months into those investigations and we’re not seeing Israeli soldiers held accountable.”

Miller said, “The way you judge a democracy is whether they hold those people accountable” and it was “an open question” whether the soldiers would be called to account.

“We have not yet seen them hold sufficient numbers of the military accountable,” he noted.

Internal Disputes

Miller was also asked whether there were times when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “was frustrated” with Biden, who had “such a particular view of Israel” to the extent that he described himself “as a Zionist.”

“Look, it is true about every senior official in government that they don’t win every policy fight that they enter into. And what you do is you make your best case to the president, and the president decides,” the former spokesperson replied.

He added that “There were disagreements all along the way about how to handle policy. Some of those were big disagreements. Some of those were little disagreements.”

Asked what “the big ones” were, Miller said: “I don’t think it will be a secret to know that the administration did debate at times whether and when to cut off weapons to Israel.”

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He then referred to the spring of 2024 when the US stopped “the shipment of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel because we did not believe they would use those in a way that was appropriate in Gaza.”

Withholding of Weapons, Ceasefire

Miller noted that “it was clear to us in that period that there was a time when our publicly discussing withholding weapons from Israel, as well as the protests on college campuses in the United States, as well as the movement of some European countries to recognize the state of Palestine, all of which appropriate discussions, appropriate decisions, protests are appropriate.

The former spokesperson acknowledged “it was clear to us in that period that there was a time when our publicly discussing withholding weapons from Israel, as well as the protests on college campuses in the United States, as well as the movement of some European countries to recognize the state of Palestine” were “appropriate discussions.”

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However, he claimed that “all those things together were leading the leadership of Hamas to conclude that they didn’t need to agree to a ceasefire.”

“So that got us to one place where I think everyone in the administration was united. And that was on this question of a ceasefire and the proposal that the president put forward at the end of May of 2024 that ultimately became the ceasefire that was agreed to in January,” Miller said.

Pressure on Netanyahu

He also acknowledged that “at times there probably was” more that the US administration could have done to pressure the Israeli government to agree to the ceasefire at the time.

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“You saw Hamas repeatedly move the goalposts, but you saw (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu move the goalposts as well. And I do think there are times that we should have been tougher on him,” Miller stated.

He also said that the “war in gaza divided the American public and at times, I bore the brunt of it, but unfortunately, that’s just how these jobs go.”

Criticism

Many took to social media to criticize Miller following the interview.

@hipstergenius2 posted on X: “Matthew Miller doesn’t get to play hero now. You don’t get to call out Israeli war crimes after you helped cover them up at the State Department podium. You weren’t silent—you were complicit. Leaving office doesn’t cleanse the blood that’s on his hands.”

Journalist Rana Ayoub posted: “Zero respect for Matthew Miller. Day after day, he defended war crimes, gaslit the suffering of Gazans, and helped shape public opinion to justify atrocities — including the killing of journalists.”
Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi said, “Instead of resigning, he lied for well over a year and provided political cover for genocidal child killers.”

(The Palestine Chronicle)

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2 Comments

  1. What he’s really saying is, ” war crimes are ok, because what the Israeli Nazis have done still doesn’t match how many millions of innocent people all over the world that the USA has killed. You wanna talk about genocide?? ( smirking….. ) ”
    and by the way, genocide isn’t about
    ” numbers ” it’s about intent. Malicious intent; purposeful aggression against unarmed civilians, forced displacement under duress, forced starvation, purposefully forcing people to abandon Northern Gaza, enticing them with much needed food in Southern Gaza just to force them out. Then when they finally get to the ridiculous check-points there’s 1 box of food, or 8 pallets of food for thousands of starving people.

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