David M. Friedman

David Melech Friedman (born August 8, 1958) is an American bankruptcy lawyer and the former United States Ambassador to Israel.

Since the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, the U.S. officially maintained that Jerusalem's final status should be decided by direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians; it did not recognize Jerusalem as Israeli territory.

The U.S. has opposed Israeli settlements in the West Bank since 1967.

The liberal advocacy organization J Street "vehemently opposed" Friedman's nomination.

He graduated from Hebrew Academy of Nassau County (HANC) high school in 1974, and earned his B.A. degree in anthropology from Columbia University, graduating in 1978, and his J.D. degree from New York University School of Law, graduating in 1981.

He has been a member of the New York State Bar Association since 1982.

He joined the law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman (then known as Kasowitz, Hoff, Benson & Torres) in 1994, where he met and represented Donald Trump, then chairman and president of The Trump Organization.

He was an advisor to Trump during his successful presidential campaign.

In 1994, he left the now-defunct law firm Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon to form the bankruptcy practice at Kasowitz, Hoff, Benson & Torres.

Friedman was promoted to name partner in 1995, and the firm was renamed Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman.

As the head of the creditors' rights and bankruptcy practice group, Friedman advised and represented Donald Trump and The Trump Organization in bankruptcies involving his Atlantic City casinos.

Friedman volunteered to head American Friends of Bet El Institutions, an organization that advocates against a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and provides around $2 million (~$ in ) per year to the Israeli settlement Bet El.

The organization also received donations from the family foundation of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.

In 1999, Friedman dedicated the Friedman Faculty House.

The settlement runs the Israeli news website Arutz Sheva, where Friedman was a columnist.

In his writings and statements, Friedman repeatedly argued in support of Israeli settlements, declaring them legal.

He has also contributed to United Hatzalah ("united rescue"), an Israeli organization that provides emergency medical services, and Aleh Negev, a village for disabled Bedouin and Jewish people in southern Israel.

Friedman advised Trump on Israel-related and Jewish issues during his presidential campaign, co-chairing Trump's Israel Advisory Committee along with Jason D. Greenblatt, an executive vice president for The Trump Organization.

During the presidential election, he donated a total of $50,000 to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Four days prior to the election, Friedman and Greenblatt released a joint statement promising to move the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, one of Trump's campaign promises.

Other presidential candidates, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton, had also promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem during their campaigns.

Moving the embassy would be a significant departure from U.S. policy.

Relocation would be in accordance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, passed by Congress in 1995, which required moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by May 31, 1999.

The executive branch has consistently waived implementation of the act, arguing it would have a negative impact on national security.

Friedman was one of four children born to Morris S. Friedman (d. 2005), a Temple Hillel rabbi and Addi Friedman, a high school English teacher.

He grew up in North Woodmere, New York.

His father was a rabbi at Temple Hillel, a Conservative synagogue in North Woodmere, and served as the head of the New York Board of Rabbis.

In December 2016, President-elect Trump's transition team announced that Friedman was Trump's nominee for ambassador.

He was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, officially sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on March 29 and presented his credentials on May 15.

On December 15, 2016, the transition team of President-elect Donald Trump announced that Friedman had been selected to be the nominee as the United States Ambassador to Israel.

Friedman's nomination was controversial; some American Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian individuals and advocacy groups argued against his nomination.

Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, said that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and annexing West Bank settlements would lead to the "destruction of the peace process" and send the region down a path of "chaos, lawlessness, and extremism".

Friedman had said in an interview for Haaretz during the campaign that Trump would be open to Israel annexing parts of the West Bank.

During the presidential campaign, Friedman had attacked J Street supporters, writing in Arutz Sheva in May 2016:

"Are J Street supporters really as bad as kapos? The answer, actually, is no. They are far worse than kapos—Jews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death camps. The kapos faced extraordinary cruelty and who knows what any of us would have done under those circumstances to save a loved one? But J Street? They are just smug advocates of Israel's destruction delivered from the comfort of their secure American sofas—it's hard to imagine anyone worse."

When asked about his comments on J Street at the Saban Forum in early December, Friedman had stood by his statements, saying that J Street supporters were "not Jewish, and they're not pro-Israel".

The advocacy organizations Americans for Peace Now, Ameinu, the Israel Policy Forum, and the New Israel Fund also opposed the nomination.

Six Democratic members of the House of Representatives, including Jewish representatives Jan Schakowsky, Jerrold Nadler, John Yarmuth, and Steve Cohen, urged their colleagues in the Senate to vote against Friedman.

On June 1, 2017, in accordance with his predecessors, President Trump signed an executive order keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv instead of relocating it to Jerusalem.

However, on December 6, 2017, President Trump reversed course and issued a "Presidential Proclamation Recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel and Relocating the United States Embassy to Israel to Jerusalem."