Top US official on Israel-Palestine issues resigns
Last Updated on June 24, 2024 11:43 am
A top US State Department official resigned this week. He was an expert on Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Al Jazeera reported this information in a report on Saturday (June 22).
The Washington Post newspaper reported that the resigned official’s name is Andrew Miller. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs at the US State Department. Andrew Miller cited personal reasons for his decision to quit.
Miller told his colleagues he wanted to spend more time with his family. Because the current war, which started in October last year, has become the ‘most time-consuming’.
The Washington Post also reported that he was skeptical of US President Joe Biden’s “strong and aggressive support” for the Israeli government. Basically, this influential American media was the first to bring forward the news of Miller’s resignation.
It is reported that Washington’s continued support for Israel has led to the resignation of several US government officials one after the other. Among them, Miller resigned last.
According to the Washington Post, Miller told his colleagues that he would have preferred to stay at his job if he had not had to leave because of personal responsibilities.
Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett from Washington, D.C., said the spate of resignations underscored growing frustration within the Biden administration over the president’s strong support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Already, several high-profile officials have resigned, saying the president (Joe Biden) is in some cases distorting the truth or even turning a blind eye to the massive loss of life in Gaza,” Halkett said.
Another US media outlet, CNN, reported that the recently resigned Miller played a key role in issuing the executive order against Israel in February this year. And that order imposed sanctions against several Israeli settlers for attacks on Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.
Andrew Miller was previously a senior policy advisor to the US ambassador to the United Nations and served as director of military affairs for Egypt and Israel on the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration.
Earlier last May, a US State Department official resigned in protest of Biden’s Israel policy. Her name is Stacey Gilbert. He worked for a long time in the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. He was an expert working on the Biden administration’s report to Congress.
Earlier in mid-May, another staffer in President Joe Biden’s administration publicly resigned in protest of continued US support for Israel. The resigned official’s name is Lily Greenberg Call.