US ambassador: Jerusalem made Israel's capital 'under God's direction' 3,000 years ago

US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has praised President Donald Trump’s administration for putting US-Israeli relations on “more solid [ground] than ever before”, reported the Jerusalem Post.

Speaking at a pre-Rosh Hashanah reception in his Herzliya residence, Friedman singled out for praise the US decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem.

“Now, the United States did not make Jerusalem the capital of Israel. That was done by King David some 3,000 years ago under God’s direction,” Friedman declared.

But, he added, “it feels awfully good” that “the most powerful and moral nation on earth has made this important recognition of the primacy of Jerusalem to the State of Israel and the Jewish People.”

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Friedman also said that the Trump administration has “slayed the sacred cow of the calcified thinking that has held back progress on the Palestinian front”.

“Since 1994, the United States has thrown more than $10 billion in humanitarian aid to Palestinians,” he said, adding: “we found that these expenditures were bringing the region no closer to peace or stability, not even by a millimetre.”

“To spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund stipends to terrorists and their families, to expend funds to perpetuate rather than mitigate refugee status, and to finance hate-filled textbooks – I ask you, how does that provide value to the United States or the region?”

The US, Friedman stated, is “not in the business of, as they say, throwing good money after bad”.