Tariq Habash could not eat, and later he could not sleep. It was October 7, 2023, and like many Palestinian Americans, his horror at the violence committed by Hamas that day was quickly met by fear — frenetic and queasy — about Israel’s certain retaliation. Collective punishment had been the country’s de facto policy in Gaza for years; now it had suffered the greatest loss of civilian life since its founding, and its belligerent leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, had been humiliated. Habash kept asking himself, What is about to happen? But he knew.

On Monday, he went to work — at the United States Department of Education — the lone Palestinian appointee in the agency. He’d spent the previous three years working 12-hour days trying to make American education more affordable. Over the next few weeks, he watched as Israel bombed every university in Gaza and most of its schools. He checked in as often as he could with his extended family in the West Bank and scoured the names of the dead. “I saw countless Tariqs on that list,” he says. “I’d met like five Tariqs in my entire life.” He attended listening sessions hosted by the White House and asked whether any move by Israel could shift U.S. policy; in return, he was offered counseling. “No, I don’t need a counselor,” he recalls thinking. “I need my government to stop bombing my people.”

In January 2024, Habash became the second Biden official, and the first political appointee, to resign in protest over the administration’s Gaza policy. A year and a half later, as famine has gripped the enclave, top Biden officials have finally begun to acknowledge the catastrophe — but not their own role in its orchestration.

Some, such as former State Department spokesman Matt Miller, say they were previously hamstrung in what they could admit in public. “When you’re at the podium, you’re not expressing your personal opinion,” Miller said in June. He now says Israel has committed war crimes and in August blamed Netanyahu for sabotaging cease-fire negotiations.

While Miller acknowledges the Biden administration could have done more to ensure humane conditions in Gaza, most who........

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