Antisemitism group calls on Biden to fire official who posted, deleted anti-Israel tweets: 'just horrifying'
A group that tracks antisemitism is calling for the Biden administration to fire a White House official whose anti-Israel social media posts resurfaced this week.
An antisemitism watchdog group is calling for the Biden administration to fire a recently promoted White House official whose anti-Israel social media posts resurfaced this week.
StopAntisemitism said Tyler Cherry, who was promoted earlier this month as an associate communications director at the White House, called for the elimination of Israel and promoted anti-Israel viewpoints on social media going back years, as well as anti-police commentary.
"We're hoping this is the quickest hire and fire scenario in President Biden's administration to date," Stop Antisemitism founder Liora Rez told Fox News Digital. "For the Biden administration to either A, not vet properly, or B, to vet and then approve an inner circle appointee like this… is just horrifying."
Cherry, who spent three years at the Department of Interior working for Secretary Deb Haaland, deleted almost 2,500 posts on X between Sunday night and Monday morning, according to the Social Blade analytics website.
White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the White House was "very proud to have Tyler on the team." Fox News Digital reached out to the White House again on Monday.
On Sunday, Cherry responded to the backlash following his promotion and his past tweets.
"Past social media posts from when I was younger do not reflect my current views," Cherry, who was in his 20s when he made the posts, wrote on X. "Period. I support this Administration's agenda – and will continue my communications work focused on our climate and environmental policies."
Some of his social media posts include a 2014 anti-Israel post that went viral and echoes a lot of the rhetoric currently heard on college campuses.
"Cheersing in bars to ending the occupation of Palestine – no shame and f--- your glares #ISupportGaza #FreePalestine," Cherry wrote on July 25, 2014.
"Praying for #Baltimore, but praying even harder for an end to a capitalistic police state motivated by explicit and implicit racial biases," Cherry posted in 2015 amid riots that were sparked following the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man, in police custody in Baltimore.
In 2018, Cherry called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished.
Anti-Israel rhetoric has increased following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli communities. The Biden administration has supplied Israel with military aid but has also been criticized for trying to dictate its military response in Gaza.
"The Biden administration is forgetting that it took 10 years for us to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden, so it is highly, highly unappealing and misfortunate that President Biden is pressuring Israel after just nine months to get out of Gaza and stop Israel's attempt to remove Hamas terrorists from power," Rez said. "Talk about not being proportional. Ten years, we took our sweet time versus nine months. It doesn't make sense to us."
UN BODY ISSUES ‘ANTISEMITIC REPORT’ AGAINST ISRAEL, CRITICS CHARGE
Rez noted that the Biden administration has appointed people with anti-Israel views to prominent positions. She cited Maher Bitar, who serves as the special assistant to the senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council (NSC).
Bitar has been accused of spreading hatred of Israel in the past and promoting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestments, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
"We're kind of moving from the point of scratching our heads and asking ‘What’s going on?' to asking if this is a deliberate attempt to give antisemites a seat at the White House table," she said.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.