David Friedman

David Friedman served as the United States Ambassador to Israel from February 2017 to January 2021, the most consequential American ambassadorial appointment to Israel in the country's history by virtue of what he presided over: the formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018 (the 70th anniversary of Israel's founding), the U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the articulation of the Friedman-supported position that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not necessarily illegal under international law — reversing a legal interpretation that had governed State Department guidance since 1978. Born June 8, 1958, in Woodmere, New York, Friedman earned his law degree from New York University School of Law and built a career as a bankruptcy attorney, which is how he met Donald Trump — he was Trump's principal bankruptcy attorney for two decades before being appointed ambassador.

Friedman is an Orthodox Jew with a deep personal and religious connection to the Land of Israel. He is co-chair of American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva, the educational institution in the Bet El settlement north of Ramallah that embodies his conviction that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are not obstacles to peace but expressions of the Jewish people's legitimate historical claim to their land. His ambassadorship was not the work of a diplomat trying to balance competing claims: Friedman made clear from the beginning that he understood his role as advancing Israel's security and legitimacy, not as a neutral broker. He has said in interviews that he was not trying to make peace — he was trying to change the terms on which American Middle East policy operated.

Post-ambassadorship, Friedman has remained active as an author ("Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East," 2022), a speaker, and an advisor to the Trump political orbit. He has been a consistent and specific voice on the illegitimacy of Palestinian Authority governance, the Jewish historical connection to the Land of Israel, and the necessity of American recognition of those facts. At Rank 37, Friedman is the ambassador who arrived with convictions rather than instructions and left having made the most significant changes to American policy toward Israel of any individual in the diplomatic role.