As Caroline Glick’s guest on the Caroline Glick Show this week, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman blamed the American Jewish leadership for “koshering” President Joe Biden’s refusal to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Friedman warned that the American Jewish leadership is playing with the future of the community by delegitimizing Israel’s democratically elected leaders.
“Anybody who thinks you can save Judaism while putting Israel at risk is deluding themselves. There is no Judaism, both quantitatively and qualitatively anymore without Israel,” he said.
Glick and Friedman began their conversation by comparing the latest Department of Justice indictment of former President Donald Trump with the prosecution’s prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In both cases, the perception that the law is being enforced in a prejudicial and politicized fashion undermines democracy and the rule of law.
“Weaponizing the judiciary to go against political actors is right out of the game plan of banana republics and dictators. That’s sort of the worst thing you can do to a democracy,” Friedman said.
Friedman and Glick had an in-depth discussion of the Abraham Accords, which he was instrumental in forging during his tenure. Friedman explained that if you view the accords as a triangle, Israel and the Arab states are the base, and the United States is the apex. They came together to come closer to the United States. While Friedman assessed that the Accords will survive the Biden presidency, they will not expand during Biden’s tenure in office.
Friedman and Glick discussed how America’s turn against Saudi Arabia and Israel and under the administration, and Biden’s peripatetic efforts to appease Iran are impacting the region, destroying the U.S.’s credibility as an ally and leaving its spurned allies with difficult choices for coping with the rising specter of a nuclear-armed Iran.
They turned to the Palestinians, whom the administration is seeking to turn into the center of attention in the Abraham Accords in an effort to restore the Palestinian veto over Arab-Israel peace.
“The one thing that the Abraham Accords demonstrated, which was helpful, was that the Palestinians don’t have a veto on progress in the Middle East. And why is that important? Because the Palestinian leadership has been running essentially a shakedown for the last 50 years or so. I mean, they make their money by, by going to these wealthy countries and saying we’re going to rile up your street if you don’t give us money. And it’s, it’s not that these countries care so much about, about the Palestinians.
“We finally kind of broke that and it’s essential to break that. It’s if you’re ever going to get into a discussion based upon how to improve the lives of the people that live in this area, you got to get over this. You got to get rid of the mafia and insert responsible people,” Friedman said.
By bringing the Palestinians into the Abraham Accords, he explained that the Biden administration is “empowering the mafia. You’re empowering the same folks who’ve been doing this for the last 30 years. It’s just going back to a failed game plan where people will continuously threaten violence and, in fact, incite violence. And in fact create violence, murder people, and do so with impunity now, because no one’s even pretending within the Palestinian Authority to be against terrorism anymore. By bringing the Palestinians as an equal player into this discussion, you’re telling them, ‘Hey, guys, you’re back in business.’”
