Update: this action, now closed, ran in October 2017.
Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, was controversial from the get-go. Friedman, in a column he ran at the extremist right-wing Israeli publication Arutz 7, referred to our J Street colleagues as “far worse than kapos,” accused President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry of “blatant anti-Semitism” and called the two-state solution “a scam” and “an illusory solution in search of a non-existent problem.”
Then, at his confirmation hearing, he promised concerned senators that things will change once he enters the embassy in Tel Aviv.
That did not happen. In two recent interviews, one with the Jerusalem Post and one with Israel’s Walla news site, Friedman expressed views and positions that are a blatant departure from long-held US policy positions. In his September 28th Walla interview, referring to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Friedman said: “I think that the settlements are a part of Israel.”
Tell President Trump that this is not acceptable: he must fire David Friedman.
Friedman added that since the United Nations adopted Resolution 242 in 1967, “the expectation” was “that Israel would retain a meaningful portion of the West Bank, and it would return that which it didn’t need for peace and security.” Friedman further asserted that Israel is “only occupying two percent of the West Bank.”
On September 28th, APN issued a press release urging President Trump to call back his ambassador and replace him with a person who would better serve our national security interests in this sensitive and vital post.
Please join us and send your own message to the White House asking Trump to tell Friedman what he loves telling others: “You’re fired!”