Trump Chose the Least Diplomatic Person to be Ambassador to Israel

posted on: Dec 16, 2016

BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer

Every U.S. Ambassador to Israel has been a disappointment to Arab Americans, and no one expected the Trump Administration to alter that tradition. While the appointment of David Friedman to the position is not surprising, the news still feels like a massive defeat.

President-elect Trump won many votes from Palestinian Americans because he appeared the least biased when asked about Israeli-Palestinian relations, especially compared to Hillary Clinton. Trump assured voters that he was the best dealmaker, and guaranteed a solution that would put an end to the never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine.

On Friday, the new president let down every Arab American who hoped, even the slightest, that a vote for Trump would translate to a free and safe future for Palestinians by appointing David Friedman.

As a bankruptcy lawyer, Friedman, 57, has been working with Trump for 15 years. He represented Trump when his three casinos in Atlantic City went bankrupt in 2009, and served on Trump’s Middle East advisory team during the campaign. Friedman has zero diplomatic or government experience and once called President Obama an anti-Semite for referring to the conflict as a “cycle of violence”. Friedman would have preferred that Obama called all Palestinians “radical Islamic terrorists” instead.

The lawyer also admires Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to execute military operations and win his objectives of staying in power and avoiding democracy – a practice Israel claims to champion.

Yet, Friedman is set to terminate any shrivel of democracy left in the state of Israel. He is opposed to the two-state solution and has been hailed as “a true friend and partner of… the settlements”. Longstanding U.S. policy states that the settlements are illegitimate, while the rest of the world calls them illegal under international law.

Although Arab American politicos have come to terms with the idea that the two-state solution is no longer possible, Friedman takes this thought one step further to ensure that Palestinians have nothing. The appointed ambassador encourages and funds the construction of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. He was president of American Friends of Bet El Institutions, which supports a large illegal Israeli settlement just outside Ramallah. The appointment of Friedman brings the Zionist settler mentality into the White House, removing any last shred of neutralism found in the State Department.

Friedman believes Israel should receive more military aid and cooperation from the U.S., and wants to declare war on the BDS movement and pro-Palestinian activists. As a proponent of war, both physical and ideological, Friedman will probably not be using academic strategies to address the conflict – if he even addresses the conflict at all.

Moments after the appointment, Friedman declared his excitement to take up post in “the U.S. embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem”. Already, he is triggering anger and working in the best interest of the Israeli right, not those of the U.S. Friedman has no regard for the significance Jerusalem holds for Palestinians, as well as Christians and Muslims around the world.

But Jews aren’t safe from Friedman’s hardline stances and bullying, either. Friedman frequently persecutes American Jews who oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. He once suggested that the “liberal” Jewish Americans of J Street are worse than kapos (Jewish prisoners who worked as guards in Nazi camps). He refers to any Jewish advocate for peace as a dangerous, “lost soul” who hates Israel. Friedman even goes so far to say that supporters of J Street aren’t Jewish, as if he is the decider of Judaism.

Anyone who gets in the way of Friedman’s right-wing extremist agenda is seen as a traitor, making him the least diplomatic person to become an ambassador.

Although no American president has ever fulfilled each promise he made on the campaign trail, it appears “the ultimate deal” has been squashed before Trump’s presidency begins. Advisors around Trump assured the media that a Palestinian state would never exist, but those were just words.

Thus far, Friedman’s thoughts have not been able to threaten U.S. policy or determine the future of Palestinian lives. With his new position, though, it’s only a matter of time that Arab Americans will witness the true death of the Palestinian state.

Limitless destruction of Palestinian homes and land, increased imprisonment of Palestinian children held without trial, stricter occupation protocols, thousands more settlements, and shameless disregard for international law and human rights are ahead of us.

And where will Palestinians go when there’s nothing left for them to hold? It’s safe to assume that Friedman and friends won’t be welcoming homeless Palestinians into a newly incorporated state of Israel. The appointment of David Friedman has moved America and Palestine further away from a solution that it has ever been before.