CALL TO ACTION: Urge your senators to reject Friedman as U.S. Ambassador to the State of Israel
TAKE ACTION: Call your senators and urge them to reject Friedman. Call (202) 224-3121 to be connected directly to your senators' office.
YOU CAN USE THE FOLLOWING SCRIPT AS A GUIDE FOR YOUR CALL:
I am calling to urge you as a member of the U.S. Senate to stand against the appointment of David Friedman as U.S. Ambassador to the State of Israel.
He represents the most extreme factions within Israel and their supporters in the U.S., rather than the wide spectrum of views on Israeli politics. Furthermore, his appointment would be to the detriment of a two state solution.
We need an ambassador to Israel who will prioritize a two-state solution and re-invigorate the peace process, not one who will further impede it through support for the expansion of settlements and outposts beyond the Green Line. As a supporter of a two-state negotiated solution, I am calling to say that David Friedman will not further the peace process -- and I urge you to reject his appointment.
JLC Opposes the Nomination of David M. Friedman to be the U.S. Ambassador to the State of Israel
The Jewish Labor Committee opposes the nomination of David M. Friedman to be the United States Ambassador to the State of Israel, proposed by President Trump. His many statements and actions over the years make it clear that he will not help, but rather impede, any meaningful progress towards a fair and just negotiated resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Friedman has no experience in foreign policy or in diplomacy, and he doesn't even seem to believe in diplomacy. He is an active supporter of the West Bank settlement movement and has stated in very clear terms that he does not believe in a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian people. The Jewish Daily Forward has reported that he is president of American Friends of Beit El Institutions, which raises over $1 million in tax-deductible donations each year from supporters of the settlement movement in the U.S. for institutions in and associated with Beit El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, one of the oldest West Bank settlements.
Last fall, we learned that he described the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as "morons," as reported in The Forward, "for raising questions about a pre-election ad in which Trump spoke about secretive international banking conspiracies while featuring images of Jews that Trump associated with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. He has slandered the liberal J Street and its supporters, and other groups that believe in a two-state solution and even went so far as to condemn them as "worse than kapos" (Jews who were forced to collaborate with the Nazis in concentration camps.)
These positions are a departure for U.S. ambassadors to Israel, who have represented the U.S. policy in favor of a two-state solution and who have traditionally been open to meeting with a wide spectrum of the American Jewish community. Indeed, five former U.S. ambassadors to Israel -- Thomas Pickering, William Harrop, Edward Walker, Daniel Kurtzer and James Cunningham -- have stated that Mr. Friedman is unqualified for the position.