US President-elect Joe Biden announces his national security nominees and appointees, at his transition headquarters, in Wilmington, Delaware, Nov. 24, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Joshua Roberts.

JNS.org – Reema Dodin, announced on Monday as a deputy director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs for the incoming Biden administration, once praised suicide bombers during the Second Intifada.

In 2002, Dodin, then a student at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with residents of Lodi, Calif., saying that “suicide bombers were the last resort of a desperate people,” according to the Lodi News-Sentinel.

The Biden transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dodin, who was named to her new position alongside Shuwanza Goff, will be the first Palestinian-American to serve as a White House staffer, according to Palestinian media. She currently serves as deputy chief of staff and floor director to Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).