President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next US ambassador to Israel is undergoing a Senate confirmation hearing a day after Trump backed off the long-held US and international position that the key to Mideast peace lies in a two-state solution.
That shift, which Trump revealed Wednesday at a White House news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu, is just one reason the confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to be contentious and heated.
David Friedman, a New York bankruptcy attorney, has backed Israeli settlements, which are seen as illegal under international law and as an impediment to a peace deal by Palestinians. He has opposed the idea of Palestinian statehood, raised millions of dollars for a settlement near the Palestinian city of Ramallah, and referred to a liberal Jewish group as “kapos,” the word for Jews who cooperated with Nazis during the Holocaust.
Lawmakers from both parties are expected to quiz the ambassador-designate on Trump’s remarks on statehood. In answer to a question Wednesday, Trump said that he was “looking at two-state and one-state and I like the one that both parties like.”
He added that, “I can live with either one. I thought for a while that two-state looked like it might be the easier of the two, but … if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I’m happy with the one they like the best.”
Immediately after those comments, Sen. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the panel Friedman is appearing before, told MSNBC, “There needs to be two states living side by side, and that’s the view of the international committee and the view from the Israelis and Palestinians, and that’s the way to move forward with peace. To change that and to say there’s another option is not possible.”
Senators will also almost certainly ask Friedman about Trump’s announcement that he would move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a highly sensitive issue traditionally left for final status negotiations as both Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their capital.
That announcement was originally folded into Trump’s statement that the New York lawyer was his pick for ambassador to Israel. The President has since walked it back, saying Wednesday that, “I’d love to see that happen. We’re looking at it very, very strongly. We’re looking at it with great care, great care, believe me, and we’ll see what happens.”