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U.S. NEWS Tuesday 27 december 2016
Trumps pick for ambas-

sador to Israel sparks hot

debate

JOSH LEDERMAN “worse than kapos,” a ref-
Associated Press erence to Jews who helped
NEW YORK (AP) — If the Nazis imprison fellow
President-elect Donald Jews during the Holocaust.
Trump wanted to show he For decades, the U.S. has
planned to obliterate Presi- opposed Israeli settlement-
dent Barack Obama’s ap- building in lands it seized
proach to Israel, he might in the 1967 Mideast war.
have found his man to de- Friedman runs a nonprofit
liver that message in David that raises millions of dol-
Friedman, his pick for U.S. lars for Beit El, a settlement
ambassador. of religious nationalists near
The bankruptcy lawyer and Ramallah. Beit El runs a
son of an Orthodox rabbi is right-wing news outlet and
everything Obama is not: a a yeshiva whose dean has
fervent supporter of Israeli provocatively urged Israeli
settlements, opponent of soldiers to refuse orders to
Palestinian statehood and uproot settlers from their
unrelenting defender of homes. So it’s unsurprising
Israel’s government. So that Friedman’s nomina- In this photo provided by Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP, David Friedman, President-
far to the right is Friedman tion has already sharpened elect Donald Trump’s choice for ambassador to Israel.
that many Israel support- a growing balkanization of Associated Press
ers worry he could push American Jews, between
Israel’s hawkish Prime Minis- those who want the U.S. to Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer, diplomatic experience. bates about Jewish issues
ter Benjamin Netanyahu to push Israel toward peace an advocate for far-right Cindy Grosz, who said she’s held in his family’s sukkah,
be more extreme, scuttling and those who believe policies on Israel, and now, known Friedman for nearly the outdoor hut Jews build
prospects for peace with Obama’s approach aban- Trump’s choice for ambas- 50 years, recalled big par- during the harvest festival
Palestinians in the process. doned America’s closest sador, despite having no ties with boisterous de- Sukkot.q
The heated debate over Mideast ally. It’s a debate
Friedman’s selection is playing out even at Temple
playing out just as fresh Hillel, near the Long Island-
tensions erupt between the Queens border, where
U.S. and Israel. Friedman’s father was rab-
In a stunning decision Fri- bi for almost half a century.
day, the Obama admin- “Clearly, David’s opinions
istration moved to allow do not appeal to every-
the U.N. Security Council body in the synagogue,
to pass a resolution con- and they appeal to others
demning Israeli settlements in the synagogue,” said
as illegal. The move to ab- Ken Fink, the synagogue’s
stain, rather than veto, de- president and longtime
fied years of U.S. tradition congregant. “But there’s a
of shielding Israel from such huge amount of pride for
resolutions, and elicited the hometown boy.”
condemnation from Israel, Thirty-two years before
lawmakers of both parties, Trump’s election, President
and especially Trump. Ronald Reagan donned a
“Things will be different af- yarmulke and noshed on
ter Jan. 20th,” when he’s chicken cutlets and noodle
sworn in, Trump vowed on pudding at Rabbi Morris
Twitter. Presidents of both Friedman’s home, after a
parties have long called speech at Temple Hillel af-
for a two-state solution that firming the separation be-
envisions eventual Pales- tween church and state.
tinian statehood, and Ne- Coming just two weeks
tanyahu says he agrees. before Reagan’s re-elec-
Friedman, who still must be tion, the attempt to woo
confirmed by the Senate, Jewish voters struck some
does not. He’s called the as opportunistic, and they
two-state solution a mere protested on the streets of
“narrative” that must end. the heavily Jewish town of
Under Obama, the U.S. North Woodmere.
has worked closely with J Seated at the Sabbath
Street, an Israel advocacy table with Reagan was Da-
group sharply critical of Ne- vid Melech Friedman — his
tanyahu. Friedman accus- middle name means “king”
es Obama of “blatant anti- in Hebrew. The rabbi’s
Semitism” and calls J Street son went on to become