Vedant Patel, who spent much of the Biden administration defending Israel’s military actions in Gaza as a State Department spokesperson, has landed a new job: senior vice president at SKDK, a Democratic consulting firm that is also a registered foreign agent for Israel. During his time at the State Department, Patel effectively served as a public defender of Israeli policy as the administration stood firmly behind Israel despite mounting casualties and global condemnation. Now, at SKDK, he joins a company explicitly hired to do the same, conducting press outreach and protecting Israel’s image, only this time on Israel’s payroll.
As principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, Patel was a key communicator for the administration on U.S. foreign policy regarding Israel’s Gaza campaign, which has flattened much of the Palestinian territory and killed more than 50,000 people according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Patel consistently defended the administration’s support for Israel and its reluctance to place conditions on military aid despite the humanitarian crisis. In January 2024, when pressed by a reporter about whether the State Department would use tools besides "conversation" to influence Israel, Patel said, “I have no new policy or new assessment to offer, but we'll continue to have our conversations with the Israeli government.” In a November 2024 briefing, he pushed back on Human Rights Watch’s accusations that Israel had committed crimes against humanity through forcibly displacing 1.9 million Palestinians, stating, "We have not seen any kind of specific forced displacement.” In December 2024, he rejected Amnesty International’s conclusion that Israel had been committing genocide in Gaza, calling it “unfounded.”
