David Friedman on What He Learned as U.S. Ambassador to Israel
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2022
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Donald Trump improbably became president in 2016, few knew what his foreign-policy agenda would look like. Having spent little time on such issues during his campaign and having no previous electoral experience, Trump’s inclinations were mysterious. But despite this, it’s clear now, looking back, that some of his administration’s greatest successes were in the Middle East.
This week’s podcast guest, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman, was at the center of it all, a story that he tells in a new memoir. In this conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Friedman brings listeners inside his tenure, which included the Abraham Accords, the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and America's recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Friedman also reflects on his Jewish formation, and his assessment of American Jewry today.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | David Friedman was working as a lawyer in the private sector when, almost 30 years ago, |
| 0:14.0 | he met the man who improbably would go on to become the 45th president, Donald Trump. |
| 0:20.9 | In his rise to the presidency, Trump would defeat, first, the establishment of the Republican Party, |
| 0:26.7 | and then the prestige media and mainstream news outlets, along with his Democratic opponent. |
| 0:32.3 | His victory in 2016 surprised many, and it quite possibly surprised even President Trump himself. Now, throughout the |
| 0:39.9 | campaign, Trump's focus was on immigration and the great controversies and disorders of |
| 0:45.5 | American domestic culture. Foreign policy was not the highest priority for his supporters or for him. |
| 0:52.4 | And yet, looking back now from the vantage of 2022, |
| 0:56.4 | I think we can see that there were some real foreign policy successes that the Trump administration |
| 1:01.4 | can claim. And when it comes to the U.S. Israel relationship, the Trump administration oversaw a |
| 1:06.9 | revolution in the geopolitics of the Middle East, strengthening America's allies in the region, |
| 1:12.6 | Israel, perhaps most of all. |
| 1:15.1 | Today, we talked to the man at the center of the U.S. Israel relationship during the historic |
| 1:19.6 | years when that relationship was perhaps at its strongest. |
| 1:24.0 | Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. |
| 1:28.9 | My guest this week is the former American Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. Ambassador Friedman relays much of his story in a new |
| 1:35.0 | memoir, Sledgehammer, how breaking with the past brought peace to the Middle East. And since leaving |
| 1:41.1 | office, Ambassador Friedman has now established his own center, the Friedman |
| 1:45.9 | Center, dedicated to pursuing peace through strength. |
| 1:50.0 | At Tikva, we are proud to be partnering with the Ambassador and his center as a sponsor |
| 1:55.0 | of our Israeli conservatism conference, a major gathering of thinkers, writers, and political |
| 2:00.1 | and cultural figures |
... |
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