Ambassador David
Friedman has long stepped down from his duties as the 20th U.S.
Ambassador to Israel following President Biden’s defeat of President Donald Trump
in November 2020. However, Ambassador Friedman leaves an incredible legacy as
one of the most consequential U.S. ambassadors to Israel.
This year, Ambassador
Friedman published a memoir titled Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past
Brought Peace to the Middle East, which documents his experience as
Ambassador to Israel under President Trump and is quite a fascinating read. A
remarkable 10,000-plus copies were sold in its first week of publication. According
to Eric Nelson, Vice-President and Editorial Director of Broadside Books, the
publisher of Friedman’s memoir, “It was the biggest first week of
sales in Bookscan for a book about Israel in nearly 10 years.”
Ambassador
Friedman recently spoke to me in a wide-ranging interview for roughly 50 minutes
while he was in transit from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We covered a lot of ground.
Friedman offered his views on everything from Trump and Biden to Iran and the
Squad.
At the outset, I
asked a question of the Ambassador that he seems to get quite often. “How did
you get from being a successful bankruptcy lawyer to being U.S. Ambassador to
Israel, and how did you perform at such a high level with no prior diplomatic
experience? To what do you attribute your success?”
Friedman, being an
observant Jew, responded with a kind of a chuckle: “Whenever I am asked this
question, my first reaction is to say, ‘I thank G-d.’” Indeed, Friedman’s rise
to the ambassadorship is nothing short of divine intervention. How else do you
explain how David Friedman, a son of a Conservative rabbi in New York, grew up
with love for Israel and Jewish history, became a bankruptcy lawyer, and then,
in 2004, was hired to be Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer? He earned the
trust of Trump, who respected his passionate beliefs about Israel. Then,
when Trump ran for the presidency, he tapped Friedman to be one of his advisors
on Israel. When Trump shockingly won the presidency in 2016, Trump selected
Friedman to be his Ambassador to Israel in an atypical move.
After Friedman
became Ambassador, he unconventionally did not answer to the State Department as
most Ambassadors do. He had a direct line to the Oval Office because of his
close relationship with Trump, another notable break from the past that proved
incredibly important. Most, if not all, U.S. Ambassadors to countries with critical
relationships with the U.S., such as Israel, have prior diplomatic experience.
That was not the case for David Friedman. Yet, oddly enough, his lack of
diplomatic experience may have been his most significant advantage. He was not bound
by the State Department’s myopic and outdated rules for the Middle East. He
could explore new and bold ideas that had not been considered previously by a
State Department notorious for being hostile towards the Jewish State. Interestingly,
Friedman writes in his book that the “Sledgehammer is a book about
what happens when the United States stops listening to the diplomatic elite.”
When Friedman,
along with Trump, stopped listening to the repeatedly failed agenda of the
diplomatic elite, a new horizon ensued. Friedman, having 35 years under his
belt of being an accomplished litigator and negotiator, did not flinch or
deviate from his principles when challenged by his opponents and thereby
revolutionized the U.S.-Israel relationship. “We did something that no other
administration did before, and this was, I think, my greatest contribution. We
thought of Israel as a peer, as a mature, highly developed, capable and
competent country, with a robust democracy and a very strong government,”
Friedman explained to me. He further reflected on the underpinnings of Trump’s
Israel policy: “We are going to presume that Israel’s decisions are the right
decisions for their own people. And just as we wouldn’t expect Israel to
lecture America, we wouldn’t presume to do the same thing with regard to
Israel. That was really a sea change in approach when you go back and read the
history of other administrations.”
This
transformative mindset laid the groundwork for all of Trump’s successes in the
Middle East, including recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights,
the Abraham Accords, and acknowledging the legality of the settlements. It also
precipitated the U.S. Embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Friedman
says was Trump’s most significant accomplishment. Whenever Trump mentioned
moving the Embassy during his many speeches across the country, Friedman
recalls that it received the most applause, even in communities with very few
Jews. “It sent a signal, I think, that reverberated throughout the region
– and maybe
throughout the world – that
America would stand with its friends, America would respect its allies, and
America would not flinch from threats of rogue nations. It really set us on the
right path,” Friedman said.
The process of moving
the Embassy was by no means guaranteed as the State Department, the Department
of Defense, and the National Security Council all vigorously opposed the move.
Ordinarily, that would have been sufficient to quash the Embassy move. But
Trump did not follow standard protocol. As Ambassador Friedman explained, “The
President said to me, ‘I know you for many years. I know you are a good
advocate. When we have this debate among all the people in the higher echelons
of government about whether to move our Embassy or not, you are going to make
the case. Others will make the opposite case and I will listen to everyone, and
make a decision.’” Ambassador Friedman’s rare, elevated status likely
saved the day in another wrinkle in this story of divine intervention.
Here is an excerpt
from the Sledgehammer documenting one of the many meetings held in
the Trump White House to discuss whether or not to move the Embassy:
As I was walking back to Jared’s office
for a “postgame” meeting, [Chief of Staff, John] Kelly pulled me aside for a
private conversation. “David, where will you be for the next two weeks?” he
asked. “I was planning to head back to Israel in two days.” “Well, don’t,” he
said. “I know how much you want to get this done, and here’s a secret: So do I.
But it won’t get done unless you are physically here…. David, you have the
President’s ear on this and you are not intimidated by Rex [Tillerson], HR
[McMaster], or [James] Mattis. This is on you.” (Sledgehammer,
p. 97-98)
After reading this
excerpt, it is hard to imagine there being any other individual who would
have had the same standing or the confidence to overcome the establishment’s
decades-long entrenchment in opposing the Embassy move. In the end, David
Friedman persuaded the President, not the echo chamber trio of Tillerson,
Mattis, and McMaster, which was a groundbreaking development.
Despite Friedman’s
close relationship with Trump, Friedman still worried about his job security. “I
went to work every single day being prepared to be fired.” He decided early on
that he would not play by the vast bureaucratic rules to keep his job. “I am
going to act on the principles that I think are important. As long as people
agree with me and they want to move in that direction, that’s great. And if
people don’t, I am not going to change. I am going to either advocate and
execute on what I think is important for America and Israel, or I am going to
let someone else take over,” Friedman reiterated.
Even if Friedman
managed to retain his position despite not conforming to bureaucratic norms, if
any of his initiatives failed, Trump could have easily blamed Friedman for
the fallout and replaced him with someone else. Because of this reality,
Friedman credits G-d’s assistance for why he remained unscathed and ultimately fared
better than some of his other colleagues in the Trump administration. “When we
began in December 2017 by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, we
did a lot of work. We checked the signals all across the Middle East, North
Africa, and Asia, from Morocco to Pakistan. We did not think there would be a
lot of violence or, G-d forbid, war. But you just never know. You make this
decision, and you think you analyzed it the best you can. One crazy person
throws a hand grenade into a crowd, and all of a sudden all of your plans are
now being questioned. That’s not something you can control.” The fact that the
Embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem without any violence is quite
miraculous and hugely impacted Friedman’s overall success as Ambassador.
David Friedman’s
Current Impact on the World
These days
Ambassador Friedman is the head of the Friedman Center for Peace through
Strength, a non-profit organization that works to advance the Abraham Accords.
In his spare time,
he is even getting involved in filmmaking. Recently, Ambassador Friedman
collaborated with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to create a documentary
called Route 60: The Biblical Highway, which will be featured on the TBN
channel in the fall and later on Netflix and Hulu. They filmed “the road that
goes from Nazareth to Jordan. It stops in places like Shechem, Shiloh, of
course, Jerusalem, and to the south, Kever Rochel, Beit Lechem, Chevron, and
ends in Beersheva.” The road is “really the biblical spine of the Jewish
people. So much of what happened in the Bible happened within a kilometer or
two of this road,” explained Friedman. The film’s goal, Friedman says is to
raise awareness of places on Route 60 that many people do not usually visit
when they travel to Israel and to educate the public about using the correct
terminology. “When people hear the name West Bank, they understand that it’s
probably not a good term. When they hear Judea and Samaria, it is probably a
better term for it.”
Even though he is
currently retired from diplomatic service, Ambassador Friedman’s perspectives
still carry a lot of weight as a keen observer of the Middle East and of
pressing issues within the Jewish community and the larger world.
How to Increase
Support for Israel in the U.S.
Ambassador Friedman
has spent considerable time thinking about how to increase bipartisan support
for Israel, particularly among left-wing nonreligious Jews, where it is
virtually nonexistent. Bridging the gap between the disparate views on the left
and the right when it comes to Israel is of critical importance, Friedman says.
“The problem runs very deep. You cannot get tenure on a college campus if you
are pro-Israel. It’s very hard for Israel to get a fair shake at universities.
All the smart people that we are sending off to universities around the country
are learning that Israel is an apartheid state. So, it is a huge challenge.”
While he is not
entirely sure that his solution is correct, Friedman believes the Jewish
community should be increasing opportunities for Jewish education. In
Ambassador Friedman’s estimation, encouraging more young people to enroll in
better Jewish schools will increase support for Israel within the United
States. “What I am noticing – and I think it is undeniable – is that the
better your Jewish education, the more likely you are to support Israel.
Instead of working hard to make people better Zionists, I think we should try
harder to make them better Jews. And if we make them better Jews, I think
Zionism will come along for the ride. At the end of the day, Zionism is deeply
embedded within Judaism. Most of G-d’s covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is
about being in the Land of Israel and about returning to the Land of Israel. And
most of the great prophecies from Isaiah to Yechezkel are about the restoration
of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
“If people become
better educated Jews –
I am not even saying they have to become Orthodox – they will better understand
the 4,000- year-old history of the Jewish people; they understand we are part
of a chain that goes back to Abraham. If they understand, one of the great
things about Israel is you can pray in the same language, the same prayers, in
the same place that we did 2,000 years ago. You really cannot be a
well-informed Jew and not have an appreciation for the State of Israel.”
The Lackluster
Response to the Squad’s Anti-Semitism
Ambassador
Friedman is no stranger to the anti-Israel congresswomen known as the Squad.
They routinely spew anti-Israel venom within the Halls of Congress without
oversight or fact-checking from the mainstream media.
In
2019, the Israeli government consulted Friedman on the American position regarding Israel, potentially
preventing Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering its borders. He supported
Israel’s decision to bar these BDS-supporting congresswomen under Israel’s BDS
law, which does not allow tourists to enter Israel who support the BDS movement
and have a malevolent agenda to demonize the Jewish state. This caused an
uproar from the progressive left, who excoriated Friedman for endorsing Israel’s
BDS policy. Many, including Friedman, believe that the Squad’s hatred for
Israel falls into the category of proliferating anti-Semitism. Unfortunately,
they are routinely given free rein to malign Israel with false charges, such as
accusing Israel of displacing Palestinians from their neighborhoods, without
any opposition from the Democrat Party.
What can American
Jews do to prevent the Squad from engaging in this blatant anti-Semitism other
than voting them out of office?
For one, Friedman
maintains that there needs to be “more pressure put on the mainstream Democrats
to condemn this crowd. This is not okay. I am aware that there have been three
or four Republicans who have said some really despicable things over the last
few years. And, when they have, they have been called out by the mainstream
Republican Party and by the Republican Jewish Coalition. You’ve got to expect
that from the Democrats as well. Look, we got the Senate Majority Leader, who
is a guy that claims he is the shomer Yisrael (Guardian of Israel), a
play of words of his own name. Go back and look at how often Chuck Schumer has
condemned Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar or AOC? Never. He gets away with it. And he
shouldn’t get away with it.”
Nonetheless,
Ambassador Friedman believes that Jews cannot depend on their elected officials
to stand up to the anti-Semites, whether it be the Squad or others. “The fight
against anti-Semitism must begin with the Jewish people,” Friedman emphatically
stated. “Don’t expect others to defend you if you do not defend yourself.
People watch, and they do not see Jews standing up.” He recalled last summer,
when there was a rally in Washington led by Elisha Weisel to protest anti-Semitism.
Barely a few thousand people showed up for that rally. Over 40 years ago,
Friedman recalls a time when Jewish activism was very different from today. As
a teenager, he would get bussed to attend rallies in Manhattan with 20,000
people in attendance to protest the Soviet Union’s treatment of the Refuseniks.
“It was a big part of our lives,” Friedman says. “It’s time to turn that back
on again. Jewish activism is bad in America. There needs to be more Jewish
activism. I am watching these videos of Jews walking the streets in Borough Park,
Williamsburg and Manhattan. They just get attacked. This is unacceptable.”
Critiquing Israel’s
Public Relations Department
When the
Palestinians and their supporters in Congress level blood libels against
Israel, it puts Israel at a disadvantage because the international media sides
with the Palestinian narrative, causing hatred for Israel to metastasize. “It’s
very hard to get CNN or MSNBC or BBC to put out anything pro-Israel. I gave an
interview once to Christiane Amanpour at CNN, and she began her questions with
a bunch of assumed facts that were all fake,” stated Ambassador Friedman,
emphasizing Israel’s predicament with the biased media.
This past May,
Israel encountered a public relations nightmare when an Al-Jazeera journalist
was killed in a crossfire while covering a battle in Jenin between the IDF and
Jihadist terrorists. Immediately, the Palestinians blamed Israel for her death
without evidence, and that blood libel spread like wildfire, with the
international media acting as their accomplices. How does Israel prevent this
very sophisticated Palestinian propaganda machine from demonizing Israel or
mitigate its harmful effects?
Friedman advises
Israel to recruit more skilled spokespeople to represent Israel on the main
shows. “I remember when my friend, Ron Dermer, was the Israel Ambassador to the
U.S. If there was a problem, he would go on the news that night, six or seven
times, and he would make the case. He was excellent.”
Ambassador
Friedman offers his critique of how Israel should have responded to the
malicious accusation that Israel killed this journalist. “Somebody should have
gotten on early and demanded, give us the bullet! We want to find out just as
much as you do. We cannot find out unless we have the bullet. They did not push
hard enough. The second thing would have been to say, look, we do not know
right now how she was killed. If it was our bullet, it was an accident. We are
certain of that without question. The third thing, which is probably worth
mentioning, is that something like between 2,000 and 3,000 journalists have
been killed over the past decade in battle zones. At least three American
journalists have already been killed in the Ukraine. There has been zero focus
on blaming anyone else for any of the other journalists who were killed.”
The Israeli
Deterrent to the Iranian Nuclear Threat
President Trump
kept his campaign promise and pulled out of the Iran deal, while the Biden
administration has worked towards returning to the controversial agreement. At
this point, it appears that the prospect of resuming the Iran deal is out of
reach after Iran reportedly removed 27 surveillance cameras from its nuclear
facilities. “I hope there is no deal,” Friedman says. “I look at this very
simply but, I think, accurately, which is that the Iranians are going to build
a nuclear weapon regardless of what the papers happen to say. So, I think the
Iranians are playing all of us. The question is, do we give them the money to
do so or not?” In Friedman’s view, the United States must make the Iranians as
financially bankrupt as possible if there is any possibility of Iran entering
into a real deal that is both effective and enforceable.
According to
Friedman, the Iranians are not intimidated by the United States under Biden. “Biden
announces in advance who he is going to attack and who he is not going to
attack. There is zero deterrence. He has made it very clear he is not going to
go to war with Russia. The telegraphing of every move that we make has
completely eliminated any sense of surprise. Biden says he is only going to
risk U.S. troops if a NATO treaty is involved, which obviously does not include
Israel.”
On the other hand,
Ambassador Friedman believes that, out of all the countries in the world, Iran
is only afraid of Israel. “If you really want to deter Iran, the only country
that has the power of deterrence right now is Israel. So, I would suggest that
what America should do is provide Israel with whatever weaponry, whatever
technology, whatever refueling needs, whatever bomb needs. Whatever they need
to counter Iran, America should provide.”
Assessing the
U.S.-Israel Relationship under Biden
Ahead of President
Biden’s first trip to Israel since becoming president on July 13, Ambassador
Friedman contends that Biden has made some serious blunders regarding the
U.S.-Israel relationship.
“First of all, I
think that whether or not Israel builds a home in a Jewish community in Judea
and Samaria has zero effect on whether or not Israel ever makes peace with the
Palestinians. I think that the United States should get out of the business of
being a zoning board for Judea and Samaria. It’s just not relevant. It’s not
going to make a difference. Anybody who visits Judea and Samaria knows that all
that will ever be in play right now is the 50% of Area C where Israel is not
building. Israel made clear to us that if Israel can obtain sovereignty over
the Jewish communities in Area C with room to grow, they are perfectly happy to
let that area stay idle for at least a few years if discussions were to
proceed. This whole friction with the building of the settlements is a waste of
time.”
Secondly, says
Friedman, “Giving the Palestinians money without accountability is exactly the
wrong message, which is what they are doing as well. Giving them money is not
asking them to stop any terrorists, is not asking them to control the
incitement.”
Thirdly, “The
United States has to make it clear to the Arab world – because it’s completely
true – that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not under threat. This has been a 100-year-old
blood libel that just gets the Arab street angry. The Hebron massacre in 1929
began with the same thing, that Israel is taking over the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israel is not taking over the Al-Aqsa Mosque! By the way, do you know how we
know that? Because if Israel wanted to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it would
take them about an hour to do it. Instead of [the Americans] constantly sitting
down with the Israelis and saying, we are concerned about the violence, the
right thing to do is to say to Hamas and the PA, ‘Guys, knock it off.’ Your
freedom to worship on the mosque is pristine. No one is touching it. But your
guys cannot go into the mosque and throw stones, or worse, and then complain
when Israel responds.”
He continued: “We
were very clear about this. I remember going back to Washington in 2017 after
there was a huge outbreak of violence. I told the President, ‘Look, they are
playing us with this Al-Aqsa issue. It’s not real. They are using it as a way
to incite violence against Israel and we cannot fall into this trap.’ We would
never publicly say to Israel, reduce your presence on the mosque or tone down
the violence because it was not their fault.”
The U.S.-Israel Agenda
under a Future GOP Administration
After the midterm elections in
November, the road to the 2024 presidential elections begins, and candidates
will be announcing their intention to run, including, possibly, Trump. Ambassador Friedman will no doubt be
closely following the 2024 race for the White House. If a Republican wins the
White House in 2024, he has indicated that he would be honored to serve again.
The Ambassador has
already set a robust agenda within the U.S.-Israel arena for a potential new
Republican administration. Aside from repairing any damage that he maintains
was caused by the Biden administration, Friedman would like to see the Abraham
Accords extended to include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Indonesia. He also would
like the United States to assist Israel in finalizing its eastern border. “You
talk to people about the eastern border, some people say it’s the Jordan river.
Some people say it’s the armistice line of 1949, some people say it’s the
settlement blocs without even knowing what the settlement blocs mean. Some
people say it’s a little bit of this or that. So, that will be on the agenda as
well.”
In the meantime,
Ambassador Friedman summarizes his whole philosophy on the U.S.-Israel
relationship with a message for successive U.S. ambassadors to Israel: “Respect
Israel. Don’t feel the need to lecture them or replace their judgment with
America’s judgment. Israel has been around now for 74 years. It’s older than
more than half of the countries in the United Nations. Presume that Israel
knows what is best for Israel.”
Brad E. Kauffman
is an attorney and partner at Kauffman & Forman, PA in Towson, Maryland. He
is a pro-Israel activist and a freelance writer and has written extensively on
Israel and U.S. politics.
