Even one of the most seemingly confident voices of the Biden administration did not believe what he was telling the public on whether Israel was committing war crimes.
Former US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller recently admitted that he personally viewed Israel’s actions in Gaza as having entailed war crimes, yet affirmed he still upheld the Biden administration’s talking points. This may appear as if it is nothing new, but it is evidence suggesting that the US government was willingly engaging in disinformation.
In an interview with Sky News’ Mark Stone this week, the spokesperson working for US President Joe Biden’s State Department made a stunning admission.
“Without a doubt,” Israel has committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip, said Matthew Miller, adding a confirmation that this was his privately held assessment during his time in office.
While refusing to acknowledge that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, Miller publicly accused Israel of war crimes and made it clear that his personal view differed from the official State Department line, which he repeated anyway, is a major development. In other words, he was telling the American public what he would day-in-day out avoid stating when questioned by journalists, that the evidence for war crimes is crystal clear.
Yet, Miller is far from the only employee of the Biden administration to hold these views, despite being the most prominent who continued to mislead on behalf of the government.
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Only ten days after the beginning of the Gaza genocide in October of 2023, senior State Department official Josh Paul handed in his resignation over the Biden administration’s blind support for Israel.
“The response Israel is taking, and with it the American support for both that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and Palestinian people—and is not in the long-term American interest”, he said at the time.
In January 2024, Tariq Habash, a political appointee to the Ministry of Education, left his position after stressing that he and other colleagues had been ignored when repeatedly raising concerns internally over what Habash said was a “genocidal campaign by the Israeli government.” He qualified his stance by stating that the US Biden administration “does not value all human life equally”.
In March 2024, Annelle Sheline, a State Department official, resigned from her position and openly accused the Biden administration of breaking US law by continuing to supply weapons to Israel, as the atrocities being committed were so clear. ‘
Then, in April of 2024, Anna Del Castillo became the first White House official to resign in protest of her government’s Gaza policy. Castillo held the position of deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
In May 2024, veteran State Department official Stacy Gilbert resigned following the release of a joint Department of Defence/State Department report that then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken used to claim Israel was not blocking aid from entering Gaza. Gilbert labelled the report “patently, demonstrably false” and explained how the report contradicted the US’s own experts’ reports and those of human rights groups.
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That report did serve as the first document that formally recognised that Israel was using US weapons in a way that was inconsistent with International Humanitarian Law. Later, the Biden administration was caught acknowledging that Israel had been blocking aid into Gaza.
Also, that same month, Lily Greenberg Call, who served as a Special Assistant to the State Department of the Interior’s Chief of Staff, quit in protest of Washington’s support for Israel’s war crimes.
In June 2024, the assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, Andrew Miller, resigned due to the Biden administration’s “bear hug” approach to Israel, which he expressed his stark disapproval of.
In July, US State Department official Mike Casey resigned and told Al-Jazeera in an interview that “We ignore Palestinian suffering. We accept the Israeli government narrative of events even if we know it’s not true, and we really pursue Israel’s interests. We don’t pursue our own interests.”
In October 2024, a leaked document calling upon a top aide to the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to allow aid into Gaza exposed that the US had full knowledge that aid was being blocked from entering the besieged territory. The US also did nothing when its alleged deadline for aid entry was violated.
Leaks periodically emerged that exposed the Biden administration’s knowledge and support of the war crimes being carried out in the Gaza Strip, or at least the internal discontent amongst its staffers. In November of 2023, an internal 5-page dissent memo that was signed by 100 State Department and USAID officials, accused Israel of “war crimes” and said the US was “complicit in genocide”.
Another US State Department memo was leaked in April of 2024, which warned that the Israelis were in breach of a White House directive by persisting in blocking humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
This was proof that the US had knowledge that Israel was violating international law, meaning that under the Leahy Law the Biden administration was breaching US human rights legislation by continuing to supply Tel Aviv with weapons.
This takes us back to Matthew Miller, who stood up at the podium week in and week out, telling the American public falsehoods that he himself personally disagreed with. Miller did so with a smug smile, as the human rights reports flooded in, accusing the Israeli leadership of every crime imaginable.
In other words, even one of the most seemingly confident voices of the Biden administration did not believe what he was telling the public on whether Israel was committing war crimes. A stunning admission that will undoubtedly go down in history.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Yes but this can also be considered disinformation. Disinfo is 90% lie, 10% truth. We should wonder why he made this public admission as opposed to keeping it to himself. It’s too obvious, blatant, to admit it now. Even if it’s only to make
” Israel ” look bad, it also incriminates the US government. They love to keep us guessing. Double Speak 101…