The Principles of SDUSA express strong support for the existence of the State of Israel within secure borders, while opposing settlements and advocating an independent Palestinian state at peace with Israel. We share these beliefs with the Labor and Socialist Zionist movements which largely led and fought for the creation of Israel, and we are comrades of the modern forms of those movements, the Israel Labor Party and the Meretz Party.

David M. Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer and Donald Trump’s designated American Ambassador to Israel (related facts), is about as far from our principles as it is possible to be. He has been an outspoken supporter of settlements on the West Bank, has denigrated the idea of a Palestinian state and even suggested that President Obama is an anti-Semite. His extreme views are to the Right of even Prime Minister Netanyahu’s public positions. He has made despicable statements likening progressive American Jews to Jewish collaborators with Nazis in the death camps and denied that members of J Street, the progressive Jewish lobby, are even Jews.

Resistance to his confirmation has begun, with Ameinu, the Labor Zionist organization, beginning a petition asking the Senate to block his nomination. The petition and related statements can be found on Ameinu’s website, www.ameinu.net. You don’t have to be Jewish to sign– just a person who believes in a just, fair, peaceful solution to a very complicated problem!