Matthew Miller — who served as the US State Department spokesman from 2023 until the end of Joe Biden's presidency — has said Israel "without a doubt" committed war crimes in Gaza, marking a significant departure from his previous official position during the Biden administration.

In a candid and wide-ranging interview on a Sky News podcast that aired on Monday, Miller pulled back the curtain on deep divisions within the Biden administration over US policy on the Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Now out of office, Miller's reflections paint a stark picture of moral and political challenges faced at the highest levels of US foreign policy during one of the region's most violent periods.

"It is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes," Miller told the podcast. But while the former spokesperson was constrained by official government messaging at the time, his personal convictions have grown sharper since leaving office.

"Look, one of the things about being a spokesperson is you’re not a spokesperson for yourself. You are a spokesperson for the president, the administration, and you espouse the positions of the administration," he explained.

"And when you’re not in the administration, you can just give your own opinions."

The interview laid bare the tensions and disagreements over how the Biden administration handled the Gaza crisis — a conflict that has pitted America's "unconditional" defence of its closest ally against the mounting civilian toll in Gaza, where tens of thousands have been killed in relentless Israeli military bombing.

"There were disagreements all along the way about how to handle policy. Some of those were big disagreements, some of those were little disagreements," Miller said, confirming long-suspected internal disputes.

When pressed on reports of friction between then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Biden over Gaza, Miller declined to comment directly but acknowledged the realities of policy clashes in government.

"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."

The Biden administration's balancing act reached a breaking point in spring 2024 when it halted shipments of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel amid concerns over their use in Gaza. Yet the effort to rein in the flow of weapons was piecemeal and fraught.

"There were debates about whether to suspend other arms deliveries, and you saw at times us hold back certain arms while we negotiated the use of those arms," Miller said.

"But we found ourselves in this really tough position, especially in that time period when it really came to a head."

'An open question'

The former spokesman offered a revealing glimpse into Washington's intelligence on Hamas as the genocide continued. "The decisions and the thinking of Hamas leadership were not always secret to the United States and to our partners," he said.

Miller pointed to the public debate in the US about cutting aid to Israel, widespread protests, and diplomatic moves by European nations to recognise Palestine.

"In that intervening period between the end of May and the middle of January [2025], when thousands of Palestinians were killed, innocent civilians who didn’t want this war, had nothing to do with it, was there more that we could, could have done to pressure the Israeli government to agree to that ceasefire? I think at times there probably was."

Miller distinguished two forms of war crimes, offering a nuanced view of Israel's conduct.

"There are two ways to think about the commission of war crimes," he said. "One is if the state has pursued a policy of deliberately committing war crimes or is acting recklessly in a way that aids and abets war crimes. Is the state committing war crimes?"

Though Miller stopped short of asserting that Israel's leadership deliberately ordered war crimes, he raised serious questions about reckless conduct that may have enabled them.

He criticised Israel's accountability measures, saying, "We have not yet seen them hold sufficient numbers of the military accountable." He added it is "an open question" whether they will ever do that.

Miller also spoke about internal political calculations, revealing he "would have wanted to have a better candidate" than Biden for the 2024 election, further illustrating the turbulent atmosphere that defined his tenure.

Miller's press briefings

In office, Miller was known for robust press briefings, often defending US ally Israel.

In one briefing, he was called out for "creepy smirking" over mounting Gaza death toll.

In another instance, when asked by journalists about a strike on a facility where about 6,000 displaced people had sought shelter in Gaza, he said, "Israel has a right to try and target those civilians."

Commented on a report released by the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, which stated that Israel's actions against Palestinians in Gaza have "crossed the threshold of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," Miller employed anti-Semitic tropes to target Albanese.

In a November 2024 briefing, a journalist challenged the US as an outlier in global consensus on Palestinian rights. Miller in reaction urged people to "look at the work" of US diplomacy, that was in turn labelled by critics as "gaslighting" on social media.