‘Tired of writing about dead children’: US official resigns over Israel-Gaza policy

Mike Casey, the deputy political counsellor for Gaza in the US State Department, resigned due to the administration’s policy towards Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with The Guardian on Wednesday, December 18, Casey revealed that he discreetly resigned from the State Department in July, after four years.

“I got tired of writing about dead children,” Casey was quoted by The Guardian. “I had to constantly prove to Washington that these children were really dead and then watch nothing happen.”

Casey’s role entailed documenting the humanitarian and political situation via classified reports and research, but his disillusionment grew over time. It was a gradual realisation of bureaucratic betrayal, with reports ignored and humanitarian concerns pushed aside in favour of political priorities.

“We don’t have a policy on Palestine. We just do what the Israelis want us to do. Every idea we came up with, (the Biden administration) would just say, ‘Well, the Israelis have another idea,” he said.

Casey expressed embarrassment about continuing as an American diplomat, stating that he knew she couldn’t attend another assignment and function.

Casey’s resignation is not the first by a US official since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

US officials who resigned amid war on Gaza

• Maryam Hassanein resigned from her role as a special assistant at the US Department of the Interior in July.

• Mohammed Abu Hashem, a Palestinian American who ended a 22-year career in the US Air Force in June.

• Riley Livermore, who was a US Air Force engineer, left his post in mid-June.

• Stacey Gilbert, who worked in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, left her post in late May.

• Alexander Smith, a contractor for USAID, resigned from his private sector position in May.

• Hala Rharrit, an Arabic language spokesperson for the State Department, resigned from her position in April.

• Tariq Habash, a special assistant in the Planning Office of the Education Department, resigned in January.

• Harrison Mann, a US Army major and Defense Intelligence Agency official, resigned in November 2023.