'Stuff' the ambassador forgot

Image Source: Israel Hayom

The hyperbole surrounding former US Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman ["With ambassadors like this…"] and his tenure grows with every fresh interview he gives the media. 

And since reticent is not an adjective suited to the man, the interviews are accumulating. See for instance the recent items in the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post.

The latest one, in Israel Hayom ["'We left the Middle East in good shape'"], describes him as "the most influential US ambassador in the history of US-Israeli relations." It's unclear how that conclusion was reached. Perhaps Friedman himself contributed the assessment. He certainly seems enamored with his position and his accomplishments. As he said: "There are so many things that we've done that nobody really knows about." Adding, "I wish I could keep this job forever."

In fact, in his NY Times interview he revealed that he won't be making aliyah for four years, awaiting Trump's prospects in 2024. 

“I want to give myself every opportunity to return to government.”

In his Israel Hayom interview, he reiterates that hope. Asked whether there's any chance that Trump will run in 2024, Friedman responds: "I just don't know. It's too soon to be making predictions for 2024." 

And then segueing to self praise - his favorite mode: 

"During those four years, we had a lot to be proud of, we got a lot of stuff done." 

Well, there was one bit of "stuff" to which Mr. Friedman was entirely apathetic: Justice for the fifteen Jewish men, women and children who died in the Sbarro massacre of 2001. 

Image Source

My husband and I sought Mr. Friedman's attention throughout his tenure in that regard. We were, and still are, encountering silence from the State Department about Jordan's defiant refusal to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of that terror bombing, in which our child, Malki, was one of the eight children who perished. 

The US Department of Justice unsealed charges against Tamimi in 2017 and has since been demanding her extradition pursuant to the extradition treaty signed and ratified by the US and Jordan in 1995. The validity of that treaty was most recently affirmed as valid ("The United States regards the extradition treaty with Jordan as valid and in force") by the State Department in August 2020.

Given that Friedman was employed by the State Department, he was the logical address for assistance in the matter. Yet our numerous approaches to his office elicited no response from him. To this day, he has not commented on the matter in any shape or form. Mr. Friedman was obviously too pre-occupied with his other "stuff" to deign to communicate with us. 

I trust that interspersed with the hagiographies emanating from the Jewish public, in particular, the Orthodox sector, will be this truth: That justice doesn't rank on Mr. Friedman's list of significant goals. That he is unperturbed by the fact that Jordan's regime has been honoring, sheltering and celebrating a self-confessed, proud murderer of Jews since 2011. 

That he is unmoved by the fact that the administration he represented maintained a strong partnership with and channeled millions of dollars to the ruler responsible for this travesty of justice, King Abdullah II.

The Israel Hayom article about the ex-ambassador noted that Mr. Friedman's Jewish name is David Melech. And that he quipped at a Bnai Brith International ceremony shortly after his appointment to the Post: "If you were wondering about my middle name, Melech, it's not because my parents expected great things of me, but because my grandmother was named Malka [the feminine version of the name]" causing the audience to "double over with laughter".

I certainly didn't laugh to read that. 

Rather it was pathetic. Even the fact that our murdered child had the same name as his grandmother didn't spur him to respond to our entreaties. 

Admittedly, power and glory have been known to extinguish one's idealism. So Mr. Friedman has plenty of company.