Trump’s Israel envoy pick sparks Palestinian outcry

By Anees Barghouti

JERUSALEM (AA) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel has invited a storm of Palestinian condemnation.

On Thursday, Trump nominated his longtime bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman as the new ambassador to Israel.

Friedman is a staunch supporter of the Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. He chairs the American Friends of Bet El Institutions, an organization that supports a large illegal West Bank settlement just outside Ramallah.

Friedman has accused President Barack Obama of “anti-Semitism” and U.S. Jews who oppose the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as worse than kapos, Nazi-era prisoners who served as concentration camp guards.

He also opposes the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and has reiterated support for an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Following his nomination as the new U.S. envoy to Israel, Radio Israel quoted Friedman as saying he looked forward to carrying out his duties from “the U.S. embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem."

The U.S. embassy is currently located in Tel Aviv.

Friedman’s nomination as the new U.S. ambassador has drawn praise inside Israel.

"The Prime Minister knows that the president-elect has full confidence in Friedman and that he expects to work with him closely and tightly," Radio Israel quoted sources close to Premier Benjamin Netanyahu as saying.

Israeli Education Minister and leader of Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett also welcomed Friedman’s nomination.

"Friedman is a great friend of Israel and I wish him success," Bennett wrote on twitter.

-Dangerous message

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti said Friedman’s nomination sends a “dangerous message” to the Palestinians and the world about the intentions of the new U.S. administration.

"Friedman calls for the annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank to Israel,” Barghouti told Anadolu Agency on Sunday.

“He has also contributed through his organization to support the settlement of Bet El and strongly vowed to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem," he said.

Roughly 500,000 Israelis now live in more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built since Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.

The Palestinians want these areas -- along with the Gaza Strip -- for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.

Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, an NGO, warned that Friedman’s views would undermine U.S. efforts to reach a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel.

"The Palestinians need to adopt an alternative national strategy based on popular resistance,” he said.

-Undermining peace

Veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem will torpedo the peace process and send the entire region into chaos.

"Jerusalem is a final-status issue that will be negotiated between Palestinians and Israel,” Erekat, the Secretary-General of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said.

“Making a decision on Jerusalem now would be devastating for the peace process," he warned.

Erekat went on to warn of changing the longstanding U.S. position regarding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

"I look to Mr. Trump and Mr. Friedman in the eye and tell them, if you take steps to move the embassy to Jerusalem and annex settlements in the West Bank, you are sending this region down to chaos and extremism," he said.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity on the land as illegal.

Honaida Ghanim, director of the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies, said former U.S. presidents had always talked about relocating the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during their election campaigns.

"They, however, refrained from taking such a dangerous step, due its effect on the U.S. role in the peace process," she told Anadolu Agency.

Ghanim warned that relocating the U.S. embassy would tarnish the U.S. image in the world and show its bias for Israel.

"By moving the embassy to Jerusalem, the new U.S. administration will completely destroy any chance for the two-state solution," she said.