President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate David Friedman, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer with highly conservative views on Israel, as the next U.S. ambassador to the tiny Jewish-majority state.
Friedman helped advise Trump during the campaign and has assisted him in bankruptcy proceedings in the past. He is considered a key force behind the incoming president’s relatively hard-line pro-Israel positions, including supporting moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“The bond between Israel and the United States runs deep, and I will ensure there is no daylight between us when I’m President,” Trump said in a statement Thursday evening. “As the United States’ ambassador to Israel, David Friedman will maintain the special relationship between our two countries. He has been a longtime friend and trusted adviser to me.”
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JUST IN: Donald Trump picks campaign adviser David Friedman as US ambassador to Israel https://t.co/VpNIPtrfdD pic.twitter.com/gdIOtYzav7
— CNN (@CNN) December 16, 2016
Our Statement on the Selection of David Friedman as United States Ambassador to Israel pic.twitter.com/hm60bhPsSC
— RJC (@RJC) December 16, 2016
Well, I don’t know Mr. Friedman, but if what has been said about him is true, he sounds like a good choice. Obama all but destroyed our relationship with our only true friend in the Middle East and we need someone strong and competent enough to repair the damage. If the snowflakes on the left don’t like it, too bad.
EXCELLENT TRUMP: His new ambassador to Israel is terrific https://t.co/Zy9ZbNGqWR
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 16, 2016
The Trump administration has now announced its ambassador to Israel: David Friedman, a serious conservative on Israel who has said he will be a “rock-solid partner” for the Benjamin Netanyahu administration. He is not in favor the idiotic and counterproductive “two-state solution” requiring negotiations with terrorists, and said that he would be excited to work from the US embassy in “Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.” He has also said that Israel should have the right to build “settlements,” explaining, “This is land that Israel has held for almost 50 years. The population of Judea and Samaria is 400,00 people. You add in East Jerusalem you have almost a million people. These people aren’t going anywhere and Israel’s not going to make the same mistake that it made in connection with the evacuation of Gaza.”
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Friedman, though, is a signal that Trump will stand with Israel. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a hard-right figure in Israeli politics, called Friedman “a great friend to Israel,” and Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said, “His positions reflect the desire to strengthen the standing of Israel’s capital Jerusalem at this time and to underscore that the settlements have never been the true problem in the area.” And in the best possible indicator that Friedman’s an excellent pick, the disgusting anti-Israel front group J Street condemned the pick as “someone who has been a leading American friend of the settlement movement.”If Israel is okay with it so am I.
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