Former Sen. Joe Lieberman urged his old colleagues on Thursday to support President Trump’s nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel.
“I believe David Friedman deserves the support of this committee and the full Senate,” Lieberman told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while introducing Friedman at his confirmation hearing. “I hope that support will be bipartisan because it would be a shame to have this committee and the Senate divide along party lines on a matter so central to America’s relationship with Israel, which has historically and importantly been a safe zone of nonpartisanship even when just about everything else was divided along party lines.”
Lieberman was one of the most hawkish Senate Democrats throughout his career, espousing foreign policy views that forced him out of step with liberal voters throughout George W. Bush’s presidency. He lost the Democratic primary in 2006, in part due to his support for the Iraq War, but retained the seat by winning the general election as an Independent.
Lieberman endorsed Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain in his 2008 presidential campaign.
Friedman’s nomination promises to be controversial, given some of his past statements and positions. He accused then-President Barack Obama of displaying “blatant anti-Semitism” and compared a liberal Jewish group to Nazi collaborators. “They far worse than kapos – Jews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death camps,” Friedman wrote in June.
Lieberman’s support for Friedman, whom he has come to know through working at Friedman’s law firm and staying at his house when visiting New York, may not bring the nominee any closer to liberal activists. Pro-Palestinian hecklers interrupted Friedman’s introductory comments repeatedly, calling him “a war criminal” and denouncing his support for Israeli settlements.
Lieberman asked the senators to keep “an open mind” about Friedman.
“The David Friedman I have seen described sometimes in the media in the last several weeks is not the thoughtful, capable, personable, and even funny David Friedman I know,” he said. “So I ask you to listen to what he has to say today with an open mind. If he has said something in the past that bothers you, ask him about it, but please put it in the larger context of his life, his character, his capability, and his deep desire to serve our country.”
