Biden Sends Anti-Israel Official, Hady Amr, to Israel to Encourage ‘De-escalation’

President Joe Biden has sent Hady Amr, a State Department official with a history of anti-Israel views, to Israel in an effort to encourage Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “de-escalate” the Israeli response to Palestinian terrorist rocket attacks.

The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday:

 The US dispatched Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr to Israel to push for de-escalation amid the most intense round of fighting between Israel and Hamas since 2014.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Amr’s visit in his press conference on Wednesday.

Amr planned to visit the region next week, and moved his trip up in light of the escalation. The US diplomat is expected to try to bolster Egypt in mediating an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, though Cairo has pulled back from those efforts somewhat, due to lack of interest.

As Breitbart News reported earlier this year, Amr has accused Israel (falsely) of “ethnic cleansing,” and appeared in the past to justify Palestinian violence against Israelis.

Moreover, as Daniel Greenfield of Front Page Magazine has noted, “one of Amr’s constant policy concerns in recent years was urging the United States to give Hamas a seat at the table in negotiations between Israel and Palestine.”

Hamas is the Palestinian terrorist organization that rules Gaza, and which has launched over 1,000 rockets against Israeli civilians this week.

Biden has urged both sides to “de-escalate,” rather than standing firmly on Israel’s side against Palestinian terrorism.

Several Biden administration officials have anti-Israel records. The president has not yet appointed a U.S. ambassador to Israel; former President Donald Trump had appointed and confirmed an ambassador by March of his first year in office.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new e-book, The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it). His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.