WASHINGTON (AP) — An Interior Department official Wednesday became the first Jewish political appointee to publicly resign in protest of U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza.
Interior Department chief of staff Lily Greenberg Kohl accused President Joe Biden of using Jews to justify U.S. policy in the conflict.
Cole worked on the presidential campaigns of both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and was a longtime Israel activist and advocate in Washington and elsewhere before joining government.
He is at least the fifth mid-level or senior administration official to announce his resignation in protest of the Biden administration's military and diplomatic support for Israel's now seven-month war against Hamas. She is the second political appointee to the position after a Palestinian-origin Education Ministry official resigned in January.
Her resignation letter described her excitement at joining an administration she believed shared many of her visions for the country. “However, I can no longer in good conscience continue to represent this administration,” she wrote.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Kohl pointed to Biden's comments at a Hanukkah event at the White House that “without Israel, no Jewish people would be safe in the world.” He said last week at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington that the October 7 Hamas-led attack that sparked the war was prompted by an “ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people.”
“He's making Jews the face of the American war machine. And that's very wrong,” she said, noting that her ancestors were killed by “state-sponsored violence.”
The October 7 Hamas-led attack killed around 1,200 people inside Israel. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Biden administration notes that it has repeatedly asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to target Hamas more precisely to save more civilians. The government recently suspended bomb shipments to Israel, saying it wanted to prevent Israeli forces from dropping bombs on the crowded southern city of Rafah in Gaza.
“I think the president should know that there are people in his administration who think this is a disaster,” Cole said of the war overall and U.S. aid. “Not just for Palestinians, but for Israelis, Jews, Americans and his electoral prospects.”
