Israel has "never had a home" in the US State Department and American envoys sent to the Jewish state fail to understand the Jewish state's complexities and needs, former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told the far-right Breitbart news website in a recent interview.
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"The State Department has historically not been hospitable to the state of Israel or its supporters," Friedman blasted, saying that most diplomats sent to Israel reflect the State Department's traditional Arabist mindset.
Friedman, who served as Washington's ambassador to Jerusalem from May 2017 until January 2021 under the Trump administration, further said that as the Israel portfolio falls under the purview of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which handles foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa region, the Jewish State "finds itself in a bureau in a state department with other countries that historically have been anti-Israel."
He explained that many diplomats who serve in Syria or North African countries are later posted in Israel but being "Arabists" they "don't really take the time to understand or appreciate" the fact that the environment in Israel is different from what they are used to.
In his memoir, Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East, Friedman says that the State Department instructed him to "tone down his Jewishness" and reveals that he was at loggerheads with some of then-President Donald Trump's senior advisers about pro-Israel measures.
Friedman told Breitbart that the State Department remains stuck in his culture of being antagonistic toward Israel.
He said that after revealing he wanted to visit the Western Wall, a State Department official told him, "Don't be so Jewish. You represent the United States of America. Tone down the Judaism in your work."
Friedman recalled his response, saying, "Do you think I am under any disillusion as to who I represent? I'm not a politically correct person but I have to ask you, why do the laws of political correctness not apply to Jews?"
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