President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will nominate New York bankruptcy attorney David Friedman as his ambassador to Israel, saying in a statement issued by his transition office that Friedman’s “strong relationships in Israel will form the foundation of his diplomatic mission.” Friedman said in the statement that he would work “tirelessly to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two countries . . . and look forward to doing this from the U.S. embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.” Trump has indicated that he would overturn more than two decades of presidential waivers overriding the 1995 law mandating the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move weighted with heavy religious and political significance. Jerusalem’s status is contested by Palestinians and most of the world’s nations, which recognize lines drawn after the 1967 war. A senior Trump adviser on Israel during the campaign, Friedman has been outspoken in describing as “legal” Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which every U.S. administration since 1967 has considered illegitimate. In an interview last summer with Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, he said Trump would support Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. He has called liberal Jews supporting a two-state solution with the Palestinians “worse than kapos,” a reference to Jews in World War II concentration camps who were assigned by Nazi guards to supervise for
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