US President Joe Biden is expected to choose his country's next ambassador to Israel in the coming days, after he concludes consultations on the matter with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior aides tasked with senior administration appointments.
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Two candidates for the posting, Thomas R. Nides and Robert Wexler, have reportedly reached the finish line.
Nides, 60, is the managing director and vice-chairman of Morgan Stanley and has served in multiple financial institutions, including Credit Suisse and Burson-Marsteller. He is also a former senior State Department official under Hillary Clinton.
From 2011 to 2013 he served as deputy secretary of state for management and resources under former US president Barack Obama, and he has served in a variety of other government positions.
Nides, born to a Jewish family in Duluth, Minnesota, played a key role in the Obama administration's approval of an extension on loan guarantees for Israel worth billions of dollars.
He also helped carry out Obama's policy against Congressional efforts to limit US support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNWRA) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Nides was reportedly considered by Hillary Clinton as White House chief of staff had she won the 2016 election.
The ambassadorship to Israel has been vacant since David Friedman left in January 2021. Friedman was the first US ambassador to serve at the newly dedicated embassy in Jerusalem, following former US President Donald Trump's historic decision to recognize the city as Israel's capital.
The other candidate, Wexler, is a former Florida congressman. He recently received support from at least three top Jewish Democrats in the US House of Representatives and prominent Jewish groups in the US, who have argued that Wexler is well-versed in Israeli affairs and the challenges facing the country.
He was the first Jewish member of Congress to back then-Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid in 2007. He left Congress in 2010 to lead the Center for Middle East Peace, a group that works behind the scenes to advance the two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The former congressman has been a longtime advocate for the two-state solution. He has spoken in favor of allowing Israel to build within the so-called large settlement "blocs" near the Green Line that most Israelis envision will remain part of the country in a future peace deal.
In 2017, Wexler told Congress that the Obama administration's decision to abstain on a UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements had been "a clumsy attempt to restate America's long-standing bipartisan policy of opposing unilateral steps by any party."
As part of his work with the Abraham Center, Wexler has sought to include religious voices in conflict resolution efforts, bringing delegations of Orthodox rabbis to Israel where they met with Palestinians.
Rabbi Kenneth Brander, president of the Ohr Torah Stone network of institutions, said, "I don't know anyone who cares as much about America and Israel as him. He's a true Zionist whose love for America and Israel will make him a good representative. I saw that he has respect for the Right, the center and the Left within the Jewish community. I don't know any other person who can speak with all the streams comprising the Jewish community and his appointment, in my opinion, would be in the interest of Israel and the US alike."
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