{"id":33426,"date":"2017-03-24T11:02:26","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T11:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/david-friedman-approved-as-us-ambassador-to\/"},"modified":"2017-03-24T11:02:22","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T11:02:22","slug":"david-friedman-approved-as-us-ambassador-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/david-friedman-approved-as-us-ambassador-to\/","title":{"rendered":"David Friedman approved as US ambassador to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

{David Friedman, a known donor to illegal settlements on Palestinian land, confirmed as ambassador to Israel.}<\/p>\n

The US Senate has approved the appointment of President Donald Trump’s former bankruptcy lawyer, a supporter of Israeli settlement building, as Washington’s ambassador to Israel.<\/p>\n

Trump’s nomination of David Friedman had raised concerns about America’s commitment to a two-state Middle East peace deal.<\/p>\n

But Friedman apologised to lawmakers for his past harsh language at a confirmation hearing last month, and the Senate approved him on Thursday by a margin of 52 to 46.<\/p>\n

Two of the chamber’s 52 Republicans did not vote and two of the 48 Democrats voted against their camp to approve Friedman.<\/p>\n

Trump’s administration has been slow to appoint new ambassadors to replace those who stepped down at the end of former president Barack Obama’s term, and more than 70 posts lie open.<\/p>\n

But the Israel job was seen as a key bellwether of the new administration’s attitude to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Friedman’s nomination was welcomed by the Israeli right.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Twitter that Friedman “will be warmly welcomed as President Trump’s representative and as a close friend of Israel”.<\/p>\n

An Orthodox Jew and the son of a New York rabbi, Friedman is a bankruptcy lawyer who has worked on Trump’s behalf for the past 15 years. He joined the presidential election campaign last year as Trump’s adviser on Israel.<\/p>\n

Before becoming the ambassadorial nominee, Friedman was known as a vocal supporter of Israeli causes, including the building of illegal settlements on Palestinian land in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

Israeli daily Haaretz revealed recently that he was a donor to the American branch of Ateret Cohanim, a far-right Israeli group that settles Jews in key locations in East Jerusalem, and especially around al-Aqsa, the most sensitive Islamic site in the region.<\/p>\n

He is also the president of American Friends of Beit El Institutions, which raises millions of dollars each year for a settlement close to the Palestinian city of Ramallah.<\/p>\n

He has clashed with American Jewish progressive groups, notably dubbing liberals “worse than kapos,” a reference to Jewish collaborators who worked as guards in Nazi prison camps.<\/p>\n

He has also dismissed the two-state solution – the vision of an end to the conflict in which Israel and a future Palestine live side-by-side within agreed borders.<\/p>\n

Trump’s administration insists it might support this idea if Israel comes to a deal, but has clearly softened the Obama administration’s tough criticism of Israeli settlements.<\/p>\n

Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein voted against Friedman and dubbed him “too divisive to serve in one of our nation’s most sensitive diplomatic positions”.<\/p>\n

And liberal Jewish lobby group J Street said it was “heartened” that the level of opposition to Friedman’s confirmation showed that his views were outside the US mainstream.<\/p>\n

But the Republican Jewish Coalition welcomed the vote, arguing “there is no question that the relationship between the US and Israel will grow stronger”.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/figure>\n

Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{David Friedman, a known donor to illegal settlements on Palestinian land, confirmed as ambassador to Israel.} The US Senate has approved the appointment of President Donald Trump’s former bankruptcy lawyer, a supporter of Israeli settlement building, as Washington’s ambassador to Israel. Trump’s nomination of David Friedman had raised concerns about America’s commitment to a two-state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33426"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33426"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}