US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman praised US President Donald Trump Tuesday, telling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that supporters of Israel owe him a “tremendous debt” for his historic changes to the US-Israel relationship.
Addressing close to 20,000 attendees at the 2018 AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Friedman hailed President Trump’s “historic” recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, adding that it capped off a year of “historic firsts”, including the first visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem by a sitting US president.
"A few weeks later, I became the first US ambassador to Israel to attend the celebration of [Jerusalem Day], the 50th anniversary of the day Israel recaptured the Western Wall. Just the next day, President Trump became the first sitting president in American history to visit the... Western Wall.
"And by December of last year, we were, of course, in even greater historic territory, when President Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“I am so proud of what the Trump administration has accomplished this past year in regards to Israel.
“We owe [Trump] a tremendous debt of attitude. We entered historic territory when Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of Jerusalem.
Friedman also used his address Tuesday to lambast what he called “disingenuous” supporters of Israel, a veiled reference to self-described peace organizations.