A Biden judicial nominee was unable to provide a statement on the situation in Gaza.
Judicial nominee Edward Sunyol Kiel attempted to move past questions about Hamas during a Senate hearing, noting that “it’s a terrible situation over there.”
Kiel “hasn’t studied the situation” enough to issue a statement.
The nominee was responding to questions from Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), who asked about Kiel’s thoughts on chants such as, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Kiel is also linked to the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which published a toolkit to help students stage protests to stand with Palestine.
“As a judge and the role that I would be playing, my personal views would not come into consideration, certainly Senator, and I would keep an open mind for all matters that come before me,” Kiel told Hawley.
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked the nominee, “Do you believe that Hamas is solely to blame for this unconscionable violence in Israel?”
When Blackburn posed another question to Kiel, asking if he believes both Israel and Hamas are to blame, Kiel said that he “doesn’t believe it’s a yes or no issue.”
Reporting from Free Beacon:
Only after nearly five minutes of repeated questioning from Hawley did Kiel eventually agree that "any violence against the Jewish people should be condemned." But Kiel’s initial reluctance to unequivocally distance himself from the far-left, which has been responsible for a number of anti-Semitic incidents since Hamas’s terror attacks on Israel, speaks to the influence of the Democratic Party’s most radical elements. ... "I would condemn the genocide of Jewish people," Kiel, who currently serves as a magistrate judge for the district of New Jersey, said when pressed further.
