A staunchly pro-Israel U.S. group just condemned President Joe Biden's appointment of two openly anti-Israel individuals to serve on the governing council of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Breitbart reported.

The Zionist Organization of America firmly rebuked Biden's choices of attorney Kimberly Marteau Emerson and former U.S. ambassador to Spain Alan D. Solomont to serve on the council due to their prior leadership of or involvement with virulently anti-Israel organizations.

The complaint was centered on the fact that, by law, a foundational tenet of the Holocaust Memorial Museum is to always and forever express U.S. "support for a Jewish homeland."

Biden's appointees

It was on May 17 that President Biden announced his intent to appoint 10 individuals to serve as members on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which is essentially the "governing board of trustees of the Museum, an independent establishment of the United States government operating as a public-private partnership that receives some federal funding to support operations of the Museum building."

Included on that list of appointees was Kimberly Marteau Emerson, a "lawyer, civic leader, and human rights advocate," and former Ambassador Alan D. Solomont, who was former President Barack Obama's chief diplomatic envoy to Spain and Andorra.

Those two appointments from Biden were decried as "horrific and frightening" by the ZOA in recognition of the fact that both are prominent board members of "hostile-to-Israel non-governmental organizations."

Holocaust Museum required by law to celebrate "support for a Jewish homeland"

A June 13 press release from ZOA President Morton Klein stated that he, "as a child of Holocaust survivors who lost most of my family to Hitler’s Holocaust, condemn and urge rescission of President Biden’s recent horrific and frightening appointment to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council (the governing board of trustees of the Museum) of two board members of hostile-to-Israel non-governmental organizations: Kimberly Marteau Emerson and Alan D. Solomont."

Klein first pointed to the federal statute that authorized and established the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and required it to "carry out the recommendations of the President's Commission on the Holocaust in its report to the President of September 27, 1979," which included among its varied foundational guidelines a recognition of the nation's "support for a Jewish homeland."

"Thus, the Holocaust Memorial Museum -- which by law is mandated to carry out 'support for the Jewish homeland' -- should never have board members of anti-Israel organizations on the Museum’s governing board," he asserted.

Open espousement of anti-Israel viewpoints

Klein then turned his attention to Emerson, who since 2012 has been an "active member" of the notoriously anti-American and anti-Israel Human Rights Watch organization, which has falsely labeled Israel as an "apartheid" state that persecutes and oppresses Arabs and Palestinians.

He further linked Emerson to a 2017 HRW World Report that called for the International Criminal Court to investigate and rule against Israeli settlements and promoted anti-Semitic boycotts and divestments from Israeli businesses that allegedly discriminate against and violate the rights of Palestinians.

"Someone who puts her name on reports espousing such views cannot run a Museum memorializing the murder of six million Jews that began with the Nazis enacting boycotts against Jews," Klein wrote.

As for former Ambassador Solomont, the ZOA president took issue with his board membership with the New Israel Fund, which supports anti-Israel boycotts and the international prosecution of Israeli soldiers, as well as Israel Policy Forum, which opposed the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, along with the J Street group, which supports a variety of different anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian organizations and policies.

"The anti-Jewish, anti-Israel affiliations, statements, contributions and positions of Kimberly Marteau Emerson and Alan D. Solomont are antithetical to service on the Holocaust Memorial Museum Council," Klein concluded. "ZOA accordingly calls upon President Biden to rescind these horrific and frightening appointments."