Biden Considers Appointing To State Dept. BDS Supporter Who Accused Israel Of ‘Terrorism’ After Iran Assassination

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Joe Biden is considering appointing to the State Department Matt Duss, a top advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders who is a staunch anti-Israel activist and  supporter of BDS and who recently termed Israels’ assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist “terrorism”.

Duss’s woeful record on Israel includes supporting cutting aid to Israel, opposition to settlements and calls to remove the Gaza blockade as well as longtime support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Multiple human rights organizations have denounced Duss as an anti-Semite, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. The Wiesenthal Center called Duss’s writings “infected with Jew-hatred.” Even the Obama administration found the antisemitic policies of the Center for American Progress (CAP) where Duss was a senior member to be “troubling” and disassociated from its policies.

In the wake of Israel’s recent assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who led the Islamic Republic’s nuclear research, including its work on an atomic weapon, Duss tweeted that “Responding to the Fakhrizadeh assassination by reaffirming the commitment to rejoin the JCPOA[Iranian nuclear deal] would be a good way to send the message that terrorism doesn’t work.” Duss was criticized at the time by administration officials including Richard Goldberg, a former White House National Security Council member who worked on Iran issues. “Mr. Duss’s comments reflect a deeply disturbing worldview that calls it terrorism for a democracy to defend itself by eliminating a genocidal military-nuclear terrorist,” Goldberg said.

Duss was also behind the support expressed by Sanders for Cuban leader Fidel Castro. During the 2020 presidential race, Sanders praised the late Cuban dictator for instituting a literacy program and at the same time publicly called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “racist”.

Nikki Haley wrote regarding the possible appointment of Duss to a position in the State Department that “hiring someone who praises Fidel Castro and defames Israel’s prime minister is another indication that the only unity in Biden’s foreign policy is between the far left and the extreme left.”

Duss is not the only one in his family with extremist anti-Israel views. His father Serge Duss serves as a top official at Kairos USA, the American affiliate of church groups that have pushed for boycotts of the Jewish state and accused it of “war crimes.”

Kairos’ Canadian affiliate had a $7 million government grant revoked in 2009 due to what officials said was the group’s anti-Israel activism and support of Jewish boycotts. Kairos USA has taken similarly controversial positions, decrying “injustice in Palestine” in a 2012 “Call to Action” that Christian critics said unfairly demonized Israel.

“Kairos USA’s 2012 ‘Call to Action’ is deeply troubling,” said David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel . “By failing to mention—let alone condemn—Palestinian terror, Kairos USA forfeits any claim to moderation.”