With Israel at war with Hamas, the Senate is moving urgently to fill key U.S. diplomatic posts throughout the Middle East — many of which have been sitting empty for months.

Most glaringly, the U.S. does not currently have an ambassador in Israel. That vacancy hobbles the Biden administration’s ability to pursue a number of goals, from negotiating the release of U.S. hostages held by Hamas to easing the violence and preventing it from blossoming into a wider conflict.

It is “unprecedented” to have so many U.S. ambassador posts sit vacant for as long as they have this year, Farah Pandith, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told NPR. …