The self-hating Jewish group is calling on supporters and non-supporters alike to appeal to senators to oppose Friedman’s confirmation, charging that his appointment should alarm all Americans, including those who tend to disagree with J Street.
“David Friedman is a friend of the settlement movement who backs unlimited settlement expansion, has accused [former] president [Barack] Obama of being an anti-semite and says that liberal Zionists are ‘worse than kapos,’” the advocacy group stated. Anti-Jewish J Street supporters were the targets of the latter insult, while members of the Anti-Defamation League were branded by Friedman as “morons.”
“The contempt Mr. Friedman has shown toward liberal American Jews – labeling them worse than Nazi collaborators – makes him a horrible choice to be our representative in Israel,” reads a letter drafted by the anti-Semitic J Street for Friedman opponents to send to their senators.
The letter also accuses Friedman of posing “a threat to longstanding US policies in the Middle East that have been supported by Democratic and Republican presidents alike.” Friedman – who has a long personal history of supporting the settler enterprise – has referred to the two-state solution as a “scam” and “an illusory solution in search of a nonexistent problem.”
Friedman served as one of Trump’s two advisers on Israel throughout his presidential campaign. A bankruptcy lawyer, he has no prior experience in diplomacy or governance, another point highlighted by J Street.
Following Friedman’s nomination in December, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus responded to questions about his politics by asserting that Friedman would not dictate the direction of the administration’s policy on Israel. At the time, Priebus told Fox News that US ambassadors “represent the views of President-elect Trump, and not their own views when they get elected and appointed to these positions.”
