US appoints ‘friend’ of Israel as new ambassador  

The US Senate has confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee for ambassador to Israel and appointed former banking executive Thomas Nides as the top envoy to its closest ally in the Middle East. Nides, has been described as a “friend” of Israel.

He said in his confirmation hearing at the Senate Foreign Relation Committee that replenishing Tel Aviv’s Iron Dome missile-defence system is in the best interest of America’s national security. He also vowed to support the so-called Abraham Accords and to oppose the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The new ambassador has received the backing of the anti-Palestine lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “We congratulate Thomas Nides on his confirmation as US Ambassador to Israel. We wish him great success in this critical position.”

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Although it’s too early to tell, Nides is unlikely to be as belligerent as his predecessor David Friedman was on Palestine. The former envoy was an ardent backer of Israel’s illegal settlements and backed the far-right agenda of the Israeli government at every turn.

Speaking fondly of his time as US ambassador, Friedman said recently that he and others in the US administration of Donald Trump were able to smash precedents and deliver for Israel several policy objectives which it had long sought. He was instrumental, for example, in having the US Embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 in defiance of international law, as well as normalisation of relations with parts of the Arab world.

Moreover, Friedman was involved in pulling the US out of the Iran nuclear deal; recognising Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights; threatening the International Criminal Court over a war crimes investigation into Israel; declaring that Israel’s West Bank settlements do not violate international law (they do; very much so); and calling the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement “a manifestation of anti-Semitism”.

Though expected to be a safe pair of hands and more polished than Friedman, observers will be looking to see Nides’ response to Israel’s turn towards authoritarianism and its practice of apartheid within the state itself as well as in the occupied Palestinian territories.