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Jack Lew, Orthodox Jew who led US Treasury, is Biden’s pick for Israel ambassador
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Under President Barack Obama, Jack Lew gained praise for fulfilling both his duties as secretary of the treasury and his obligations as an Orthodox Jew.
Now, President Joe Biden is asking Lew to complete a challenge that could be even harder: helping establish diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Lew, 68, will succeed Tom Nides, who left the post in July, the White House announced Monday morning.
Lew declined a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment last week, as his name solidified among a pack of people in contention.
Lew’s appointment must be confirmed by the Senate, which is led by a Democratic majority. He would be the fourth Jewish man in a row to serve in the role, following Nides, David Friedman and Dan Shapiro.
Lew, who also served as Obama’s chief of staff before leading the Treasury Department, has drawn words of support from Jewish leaders in Washington who pointed to his experience in public office, his skills as a negotiator, his involvement in Jewish life and his close relationship with Jewish organizations.
“He’s a very thoughtful person, and has always been open and accessible,” said Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union. “He has an encyclopedic knowledge of policy issues, starting with budgetary policy issues.”
As Lew’s anticipated nomination neared, he also drew criticism from right-wing activists. Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed that Lew’s appointment would be “deeply concerning” because of his involvement in what Klein calls “the Obama administration’s hostility to the Jewish state and the Jewish people.”
If he is confirmed, Lew will take up the post at a time of instability in Israel, which is contending with mass protests of the right-wing government’s actions to weaken the Supreme Court, in addition to a surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Alongside those issues, the Biden administration is pursuing an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia that, if reached, would mark a major foreign policy breakthrough in the region. U.S.-brokered negotiations over a potential accord are reportedly underway.
Here’s what you need to know about Lew, his career so far and the challenges he could face in the ambassador role.
He’s a negotiator who could bring his skills to diplomacy.
Lew earned a reputation for resolving complex negotiations during his two stints as director of the Office of Management and Budget, under Obama as well as President Bill Clinton. The OMB director oversees funding for the vast federal bureaucracy and negotiates budgets with Congress.
As OMB director in the last two years of Clinton’s presidency, Lew negotiated a balanced budget with the same Republican leadership that was seeking Clinton’s ouster for the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The talks succeeded: Clinton left office with a budget surplus.
As ambassador to Israel, Lew could use that experience in making a Saudi-Israel deal happen. The treaty would follow the agreements Israel signed in 2020 with several Arab countries, known as the Abraham Accords — but it would also be more complex.
As described by Biden in July to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, the deal would involve stemming Saudi Arabia’s growing trade ties with China; a pledge that the United States will guarantee Saudi Arabia’s security; and the establishment of a Saudi civilian nuclear program along with the sale of advanced weapons systems. The status of Palestinians is also shaping up to take increased prominence in the negotiations.
That’s a lot of moving parts, and the ambassador to Israel would be key to reassuring the United States’ closest ally in the region that a deal would not endanger Israel.
“He really knows the issues inside and out,” Diament said. “You’re not going to pull the wool over his eyes, which is generally a good thing. But it also means you can come in and make the right kinds of arguments based on the facts and based on the situation, hopefully, you have a chance at having him on your side.”
Lew is also devoted to his bosses and knows when to stand firm. As OMB director under Obama, before he became the president’s chief of staff, he stood firm on protecting entitlement programs — Obama’s top priority — during talks with Republicans in 2011. Lew was furious with Republicans for what he believed was their lack of respect for the president, and in turn, earned the scorn of Republicans who called him the man who “can’t get to yes.”
Biden, who grew close to Lew during Obama’s second term — when Biden was vice president and Lew was Treasury secretary — could expect the same loyalty.
He’s used to defending controversial stances to the Jewish community.
As Treasury secretary, Lew was tapped as Obama’s point man to explain — and defend — the Iran nuclear deal in the Jewish community. The deal, which curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, was bitterly opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A range of large Jewish organizations, along with Republicans in Congress, advocated against it.
Lew had been involved in the issue for years. He oversaw the enforcement of sanctions that helped bring Iran to the negotiating table and used his knowledge of the deal’s particulars — as well as his intimate knowledge of the Jewish community — to pitch the deal to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and others who were deeply skeptical.
He was booed that year at the annual Jerusalem Post conference in New York when he defended the deal. A year after leaving office, and a year before President Donald Trump scuppered the deal, Lew was still defending it to a Jewish audience.
“The idea that somehow the Iran deal was not in Israel’s interest is something I disagree with,” Lew said in 2017 at a conference at Columbia University’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. “I think Israel is safer today than it was before the deal when Iran was genuinely approaching having a nuclear weapon.”
His continued defense of the agreement especially irks Klein’s ZOA, which accuses him of “shilling” for the deal. Lew “stuck to and trotted out every Obama administration line (and lie) to try to sell the Iran deal to the American-Jewish public,” Klein wrote in his op-ed.
William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Lew’s helpfulness to the Jewish community straddled multiple disciplines and that he “was always very attentive to the Jewish communal agenda.” He praised Lew for stanching funding to terrorists as treasury secretary, as well as for his efforts to aid Holocaust survivors or combat efforts to amend tax laws on charitable contributions.
Lew did not always see eye to eye with his Obama administration colleagues on Israel-related matters. In the administration’s final days in late 2016, Lew and Biden recommended vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning settlement building. In the end, the United States abstained, and the resolution went through.
At the 2017 Columbia University conference, Lew said he understood the rationale behind the decision not to veto. Obama administration officials, he said, used the abstention to leverage a less toxic resolution — but he still regretted it.
“Personally, I wish the resolution hadn’t been there at all. I’m not happy that there was a resolution,” he said. “I’m also happy it wasn’t in its original form where we would have had to veto it, but then the rest of the world would have been voting for this even harsher condemnation.”
He’s an Orthodox Jew who doesn’t place his observance at the center of his public identity.
Unlike Joe Lieberman, the Jewish former senator from Connecticut who was the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2000, Lew has not placed his Orthodoxy front and center in his political identity.
But he has not been shy about it either, and in 2012, he stumped for Obama among Orthodox Jews and routinely briefed Orthodox Jewish groups about administration policies.
Obama, nominating Lew in 2013 to be Treasury secretary, said he was drawn to Lew in part because of his faith. “Maybe most importantly, as the son of a Polish immigrant, a man of deep and devout faith, Jack knows that every number on a page, every dollar we budget, every decision we make has to be an expression of who we wish to be as a nation, our values,” Obama said.
Stumping for Obama’s reelection in 2012, Lew told JTA that the president earned his loyalty in part by respecting his faith.
“As a father who is at home and has dinner with his girls, he values that Shabbat is my time being with my family,” Lew said then. “I could not ask for someone to be more respectful and supportive, and that’s the reason it works.”
Lew has deep connections to Israel, including as a board member of NLI USA, the American support group for the National Library of Israel.
He likes to advise young Orthodox Jews to consider public service, but he counsels humility. “You can practice your faith openly, but don’t ever take it for granted,” he said in 2019 at a New York forum with Lieberman. “And keep in mind that accommodations are being made for you.”
Lew was not the only candidate for the ambassador post with deep involvement in his Jewish community. Other names floated include Ted Deutch, the American Jewish Committee CEO who retired last year as a Florida Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Robert Wexler, the former Florida Democratic congressman who now leads the Center for Middle East Peace and who was a close contender with Nides for the post in 2021.
Also touted was Kathy Manning, the Democratic congresswoman from North Carolina who is a past president of the Jewish Federations of North America. She would have been the first woman ever to hold the post.
A favorite story about Lew’s Judaism involves his walk home from synagogue on Shabbat when he was Clinton’s OMB director, hearing the phone ring and letting it click through to the answering machine — only to hear a staffer for Clinton, who was in another time zone, relay the president’s apology. After an earlier call, Clinton realized he was disturbing Lew’s Sabbath and wanted to say sorry.
Lew has a mild-mannered sense of humor. When he was attending Beth Sholom, an Orthodox synagogue in Potomac, Maryland, a rabbi jokingly asked him to run for treasurer. Lew rejoined that running the OMB was challenging enough.
And in discussions of Israel, he has displayed diplomatic skills of a sort. In a debate with Tevi Troy, a former senior Bush administration official who is also Orthodox, at a Beachwood, Ohio, Orthodox synagogue during the 2012 campaign, someone asked both men which their candidate would prefer — shawarma or falafel. Troy said Mitt Romney would opt for shawarma. Lew said Obama would happily eat either.
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The post Jack Lew, Orthodox Jew who led US Treasury, is Biden’s pick for Israel ambassador appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ritchie Torres Announces Intent to Vote for Sanctions Against ICC, Citing Anti-Israel ‘Ideological Crusade’
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) announced on Wednesday that he intends to vote in favor of imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
In statements posted on X/Twitter, Torres lambasted the ICC over its “weaponization of international law,” arguing that the Hague-based court has waged an ideological propaganda campaign against Israel and unfairly maligned Israeli leaders for “daring to defend” their country against terrorist groups.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious,” Torres said. “The ICC has set a precedent for criminalizing self-defense: any country daring to defend itself against an enemy that exploits civilians as human shields will face persecution posing as prosecution.”
Torres accused the ICC of brushing aside Israel’s motives for prosecuting its war against the Hamas terrorist group. He also castigated the ICC as a “kangaroo court,” criticizing it for ignoring Hamas’s intentional use of the Palestinian people as human shields to maximize civilian casualties — a tactic employed by the terrorist group to tarnish Israel’s international reputation.
“The ICC ignores the cause and context of the war. Israel did not initiate the war. The war was imposed upon Israel by the unbridged barbarism of Hamas on Oct. 7 [of 2023],” Torres said. “Not only did Hamas wage war on Israel, causing the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, it carefully constructed a battlefield designed to maximize the loss of civilian life. None of that context seems to matter to the kangaroo court of the ICC, which cannot let facts get in the way of its ideological crusade against the Jewish State. The ICC should be sanctioned not for enforcing the law but for distorting it beyond recognition.”
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, initially made his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation infuriated US and British leaders, according to Reuters, which reported that the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.
Following the official issuing of arrest warrants in November, a slew of US lawmakers vowed to seek retribution against the ICC after President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month.
“These allegations have been refuted by the US government,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), Trump’s pick to serve as White Hous national security adviser in the incoming administration, wrote on X. “Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.”
Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has also threatened to push legislation imposing sanctions on the ICC if it does not halt its efforts to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.
Another challenge for Israel has been Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
The post Ritchie Torres Announces Intent to Vote for Sanctions Against ICC, Citing Anti-Israel ‘Ideological Crusade’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Biden Administration Shifts $100 Million in US Military Aid From Israel and Egypt to Lebanon
Lebanese army soldiers gesture as they secure the area near the US embassy in Awkar, Lebanon, June 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
In the final days of US President Joe Biden’s time in office, his administration has redirected over $100 million in military aid from Israel and Egypt to Lebanon, citing a need to strengthen a ceasefire agreement to halt fighting between the Jewish state and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
The US State Department issued two separate notices to Congress dated Jan. 3, announcing that it would shift $95 million in military aid intended for Egypt and $7.5 million intended for Israel toward the Lebanese military and its government, the Associated Press reported.
The move came after some lawmakers in Congress expressed concerns about Egypt’s human rights record, particularly the arrests of thousands of political prisoners.
Most of the money will go to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which has a central role in enforcing the November ceasefire that stopped nearly 14 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist terrorist organization that wielded significant political and military influence in Lebanon.
“Successful implementation [of the ceasefire] will require an empowered LAF, which will need robust assistance from the United States and other partners,” the State Department said in its letters.
Hezbollah relentlessly pummeled northern Israeli communities with daily barrages of missiles, rockets, and drones in the months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel from Gaza in the south. Roughly 80,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate Israel’s north due to the unrelenting attacks.
Israel intensified its military efforts against Hezbollah in September, using airstrikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon — bolstered by sophisticated intelligence operations — to decimate much of the terrorist group’s leadership and weapons stockpiles.
In late November, both Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, which in part requires Israeli forces to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon over 60 days. Meanwhile, the Lebanese army will enter these areas and ensure that Hezbollah retreats north of the Litani River, located some 18 miles north of the border with Israel.
The newly shifted US aid is largely meant to help the LAF in dispatching troops throughout southern Lebanon to supplement UN peacekeeping efforts there.
“US security assistance to the LAF increases its capacity as the country’s only legitimate military force and defender of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, enables the LAF to prevent potential destabilization from ISIS and other terrorist groups, and enables the LAF to provide security both for the Lebanese people and for US personnel,” the State Department said in its notices.
The department also rejected the claim that members of Hezbollah are serving in the LAF, insisting that the Lebanese army serves as a valuable “counterweight” to Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon.
“US support to the LAF reinforces the LAF as an important institutional counterweight to Hezbollah, which receives weapons, training, and financial support from Iran,” the State Department wrote. “The LAF continues to be an independent, non-sectarian institution in Lebanon, and is respected across all sectors.”
Critics have noted that UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 and is the basis for the current ceasefire, failed to disarm Hezbollah, with the terrorist group becoming more powerful despite the presence of the LAF and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Nonetheless, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) applauded the Biden administration’s announcement, arguing that the diversion of funds to Lebanon helps bolster American priorities in the region.
“Our military aid should advance US values and national security interests in the Middle East — not reflexively reward the Egyptian government, despite its failures to meet human rights conditions set by Congress,” Murphy said.
However, Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, DC-based think tank, argued that shifting money toward the LAF was ill-advised.
“If we actually saw the LAF take on Hezbollah, there might be value in this support, but right now, we are throwing away taxpayer money to a Hezbollah enabler. Egypt should be pressured to do much more to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, but moving money from a Hamas enabler to a Hezbollah enabler makes no sense,” Goldberg said in a statement.
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Israeli Minister of Culture Urges FIFA to Remove Senior PA Official for Inciting Terrorism Against Israel
Palestinian Football Association head Jibril Rajoub speaks during a press conference regarding the cancellation of the soccer match between Argentina and Israel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday, June 6, 2018. Photo: Flash90.
Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar called on Tuesday for FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, to remove Jibril Rajoub as president of the Palestine Football Association (PFA) for inciting, justifying, and supporting violence against Israel.
Zohar wrote in a letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino that Rajoub’s alleged incitement to violence is a “blatant infringement of the core values that international sports aim to promote — values of peace, unity, and mutual respect.” He urged Infantino and the FIFA Executive Committee to act swiftly and expel Rajoub from his senior position.
“There is no place for individuals who incite or support terrorism and violence within sports institutions,” he added. “His continued membership in senior roles within the sports world undermines public trust and sends a dangerous message — that the platform of sports can be exploited for political agendas and the promotion of hatred and violence … It is our collective responsibility to ensure that sports remain a unifying force that brings people together, rather than a stage for incitement and terror. I trust in your leadership and in FIFA’s commitment to upholding the integrity of international sports, and I am confident that you will act to safeguard its moral future.”
Zohar noted in his letter that following the Hamas-led deadly terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct, 7, 2023 — in which 1,200 people were murdered and over 250 were kidnapped – Rajoub “publicly justified these acts of terror, stating that they were a ‘natural response to the occupation.’”
“He has repeated this appalling justification on several occasions,” Zohar added. He additionally pointed out that on Sunday, Rajoub made a guest appearance on television and “openly called for continued violent attacks against innocent Israeli civilians. He even encouraged the Palestinian Authority to take responsibility for overseeing such acts.”
“Tragically, within 24 hours of Mr. Rajoub’s statement, multiple terrorist attacks were carried out in Israel, resulting in the deaths of three innocent civilians: a 70-year-old woman, a 73-year-old woman, and a 35-year-old man,” Zohar explained.
Rajoub was fined and temporarily suspended by FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee in 2018 for inciting hatred and violence. He received the suspension after he called on soccer fans to burn jerseys of the Argentinian Football Association as well as pictures of Argentinian soccer player Lionel Messi ahead of a soccer match between Argentina and Israel. The Argentinians ultimately pulled out of the soccer game.
Since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the PFA has repeatedly called for FIFA to suspend Israel from all international soccer matches because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip, which target Hamas terrorists who orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. FIFA is expected to make an announcement regarding the matter in May. A number of international soccer organizations have voiced support for the PFA’s efforts to have Israel suspended from FIFA, including the Asian Football Confederation and the Norwegian Football Association (NFF).
“The Norwegian FA is not indifferent to the disproportionate attacks Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to over time … The NFF is actively advocating for FIFA to address the Palestinian FA’s proposal for sanctions against Israel,” NFF President Lise Klaveness said in December. “We are also closer to the region and the Palestinian Football Association than most other European associations. For over 10 years we have worked on the ground in the region and the Palestinian West Bank to train female football coaches and create football activities for children in schools and refugee camps.”
Kaveness also denied reports that Norway has refused to compete against Israel.
“Israel is currently part of UEFA’s competitions. We are following the situation closely, and follow the policies set by FIFA, UEFA, and the Norwegian authorities,” Kaveness added. “This means our national team will play against Israel — in March away on a neutral pitch, and in October at home at Ullevaal Stadium. Everyone now has a clear responsibility to protect and respect the football matches and the players on both teams.”
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