Resigned Official Criticizes US’s Gaza Policy: “No Concern for Palestinian Suffering”

Washington (Quds News Network)- Mike Casey, the former U.S. State Department Deputy Political Counsellor for Palestinian Affairs, described his experience as a diplomat as “embarrassing” due to the U.S. policy in Gaza.

“It’s frankly embarrassing … to see just the way we give in to the demands of the Israeli government and continue to support what the Israeli government is doing even though we know it’s wrong,” Casey said on Saturday in an interview with Al Jazeera.

“And I’ve not seen that in any other country that I’ve served in.”

Casey, a US Army veteran who served in Iraq and one of two individuals in the entire government explicitly focused on Gaza, told The Guardian in an interview on Wednesday that he quietly submitted his resignation in July after four years at the State Department over the administration’s policy toward Israel’s assault in Gaza, stating he was “tired of writing about dead kids in Gaza.”

Casey reflected on how he became an “unwilling chronicler of a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“I got so tired of writing about dead kids,” he said.

“Just constantly having to prove to Washington that these children actually died and then watching nothing happen.”

By the time Casey left in July, Palestinians had received around $674m in total US assistance, compared with the White House’s record-breaking green light of $17.9bn in military aid to Israel over the course of the year by October. At one point, Biden signed into law a one-year ban on funding UNRWA, which supports Palestinian refugees in the region as part of this year’s $1.2tn federal appropriations package.

Casey is not the first US official to resign since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. There were high-profile resignations from the state department over the last year, including the political-military affairs director Josh Paul, the deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, Andrew Miller, the foreign affairs officer Annelle Sheline and the diplomat Hala Rharrit.

Casey told Al Jazeera that his job in Jerusalem was primarily focused on writing about the situation in Gaza, from humanitarian concerns to economic and political issues.

He said the US government is aware of the dire conditions in the territory, including the widespread casualties and lack of humanitarian assistance. “And yet we continue to pursue these policies and support what the Israeli military is doing there,” he said.

“They receive all of our reporting, they have everything we write, and they just disregard it.”

Asked why US government policy is what it is, Casey said he believes part of the reason is that “there’s no concern for Palestinian suffering”.

“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,” he told Al Jazeera.

“And that was what pushed me out the door at the end.”