Anti-Israeli staffers keep joining the Biden administration

Joe Biden is loading the State Department with officials who loathe Israel. Yesterday, I wrote about one of them, Hady Amr, the Hamas-supporting new Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel-Palestine. I wrote about another, Robert Malley, the new envoy to Iran and longtime foe of Israel, here.

The latest addition is expected to be Matt Duss, a former foreign-policy adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders. According to Jewish News Syndicate:

Duss has been accused of furthering anti-Semitic conspiracy theories during his tenure at the left-wing think-tank Center for American Progress.

He allegedly was part of an incident in 2012 where several staffers at the center’s ThinkProgress website were condemned for using anti-Semitic tropes of Jews dominating politics and money.

The staffers alleged “pro-Israel Jews and members of Congress of being ‘Israel firsters,’ a term implying that those who support the Jewish state have dual loyalties,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.

He also faced a backlash for publicizing Nazi-era propaganda posters in 2013.

(Emphasis added)

That’s not all:

In 2019, Duss also drew controversy for meeting with Hanan Ashrawi, a longtime aide to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting took place after Ashrawi was denied a travel visa to the United States by the Trump administration.

More recently, Duss called the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh “terrorism.” He also criticized American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris for his comparison between Rep. Marjorie Greene Taylor (R-Ga.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for their anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The Biden administration’s selection of people like Amr, Malley, and Duss is almost enough to make one think that Joe Biden doesn’t like Israel. In fact, that’s exactly what it makes me think.

It’s possible the Biden has no idea about the views of those being selected to staff his State Department. Biden doesn’t come across as being on top of things.

But Biden has yet to call Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. He has called the leaders of Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, NATO, Russia, and Japan, but not Israel.

Biden may be be running on close to empty, but surely he still knows which leaders he has called and which ones he hasn’t. If not, he can have someone look it up and remind him.

Biden’s snub of Israel’s leader and his selection of anti-Israeli staffers for key State Department jobs demonstrate Biden’s antipathy for the Jewish State and his preference for its enemies.

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