U.S. Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman says he’s convinced that President Donald Trump will keep his promise to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel.
Speaking at this weekend’s annual gala of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) in New York, Friedman said “It is not a question of ‘if’ — it is a question of ‘when’ — and I take the president at his word and I am personally committed to do all that I can to advocate for this move.”
He went on to say, “The United States government treats Israel the way it deserves to be treated, as a critical, strategic and trusted ally in one of the world’s toughest neighborhoods.”
The ambassador also said that although the president is dedicated to finding a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian Authority conflict, it would never be “in a way that ever jeopardizes the security of the State of Israel.
“The president recognizes the critical importance that Judea and Samaria never become a failed experiment like we saw in the Gaza Strip,” Friedman said.
“The president knows that Judea and Samaria are not situated next to Finland or Costa Rica — and perhaps most importantly, you will never hear the president make the case as his predecessor did, that there is some symmetrical relationship between, let’s say, building a house in the Samarian village of Halamish, and the brutal murder of a father, a son and a daughter in Halamish at a Shabbat table.
“There is no equivalence. None whatsoever.”
But Friedman’s description of how he sees himself in his role as America’s ambassador to the Jewish State told the most about how the Trump Administration views its own relationship with Israel.
“The United States, the nation of my birth, the nation of my citizenship, is simply the greatest, the most successful experiment in self-governance that the world has ever seen.
And for the Jewish people, with very rare and unfortunate exceptions, the United States has offered safe haven and boundless opportunity like nowhere else in the history of the Diaspora.
“Israel is the nation of my faith. It is the land of the holy Bible. It is where Jewish history began and where Jewish history continues to be made each and every day as the only democracy in America’s closest ally in the Middle East.
“No loyal American need ever apologize for loving Israel and urging our government to support it.
“Support for Israel is a quintessential American value, and so having the mandate from the president to strengthen the relationship between Israel and the United States is simply the opportunity of a lifetime, and a day does not go by where I do not thank God and seek His Guidance regarding this extraordinary mission….
“I have been committed to the safety, security, and prosperity of the State of Israel all of my adult life. President Trump was well aware of that commitment when he formally nominated me on the day of his inauguration, the earliest possible date that my nomination could be submitted, and he did all that he could to ensure that I was the first bilateral ambassador approved by the Senate — and I was.
“The Prime Minister of Israel and I both agree that we have turned the page on the relationship between Israel and the United States. It is a change decidedly for the better.”