Dodin, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, said in 2002 that "suicide bombers were the last resort of a desperate people," according to the Lodi News-Sentinel.
According to the newspaper, Dodin, then a student at the University of California, Berkeley, "described a place where Palestinians are not given fair rights."
"A place where water is so scarce that the Israeli government will cut off the supply to coerce the Palestinian population," Dodin is cited as saying.
The Second Intifada was a Palestinian uprising from 2000 — 2005, characterized by a wave of suicide bombings and other acts of terror that killed more than 1,100 Israelis.
Dodin, who was named to her new position alongside Shuwanza Goff, will be the first Palestinian-American to serve as a White House staffer.
In 2001, Dodin took part in a demonstration at the University of California Berkeley that called for the university to divest from Israel. Demonstrators compared Israel to apartheid South Africa.