Thursday on CNN, former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) sounded off on David Friedman, who is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Lieberman, who worked in the law firm Friedman founded after leaving the U.S. Senate, told CNN he saw him as “extremely capable,” but more importantly has the confidence of Trump.
“I like him a lot,” Lieberman said. “He’s extremely capable. I don’t agree with him on everything he’s ever said. But I think the most important thing is that President-elect Donald Trump wants David Friedman to be the ambassador to Israel. In other words, he has the confidence of the president-elect.”
Later in the segment, Lieberman sounded off on the possibility of the United States moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, a move that both Friedman and Lieberman support. According to Lieberman, such a move by the United States would not mean U.S. support for Israeli sole control of the city.
“I do and I don’t think it decides an issue that’s undecided, which is the status of Jerusalem,” Lieberman said. “And here’s why — the embassy, and incidentally, I co-sponsored the bill in the 1990s, along with Senator Trent Lott, which asked for our embassy to be moved to Jerusalem. Here’s why — Israel is the only country in the world, as far as I know, where we don’t have our embassy in the city the host country designates as its capital. And where are we going to put it? Everybody agrees it’s going to be in a part of Jerusalem that has been Israeli since the creation of the state in 1948. So it’s not in land on the periphery that’s in dispute in the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The only reason you wouldn’t — I mean you’d have to argue against moving the embassy to Jerusalem based on the fact that you don’t think there will be Jews in Jerusalem anymore. And you know, that’s just not an acceptable decision.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor