Meet Jack Lew, Biden’s front-runner to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel
Jack Lew with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2016. Photo by Matty Stern / U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has emerged as the Biden administration’s front-runner to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, say sources familiar with the matter.
While a U.S. official said a final decision has not been made, Lew is the only candidate currently deep in vetting as the administration intends to announce its selection within the next several weeks, as previously reported by Haaretz.
The potential appointment, nearly two months after Tom Nides departed the post after two years in Jerusalem, comes at a time where U.S.-Israel ties are increasingly tense given the ideological rift between the Biden administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
Both the possible appointment of Lew – an observant Jew who has decades of experience at the highest levels of federal government – as well as the speed at which the administration has moved to replace Nides, signals how much U.S. officials understand the need to have a sure-handed official with Biden’s full confidence to relay his messaging to Israeli officials.
Lew’s nomination would set up a heated Senate confirmation battle, which would serve as a de facto referendum on Biden’s Middle East policy.
In order to get confirmed, Lew would need to garner support across the political aisle. This may prove tough considering his role as then-U.S. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff (notably the first Orthodox Jew to occupy this role) and his deep involvement in key policy battles with the GOP over several decades.
He is well versed in dealing with highly partisan divides in Congress, playing an instrumental role in showdowns over the debt limit in the 1980s, in the ’90s when he served in the Clinton administration, and in 2011 and 2013 under Obama. Lew’s positioning during negotiations with the GOP earned equal amounts of praise from Democrats and scorn from Republicans, particularly from then-House Speaker John Boehner and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions.
Israel’s then-minister Yuval Steinitz, who spoke after Lew, called him a “true friend of Israel” and said that without Lew’s help, Israel would never have been accepted to the OECD. Other Israeli leaders, including former Jewish Agency chief Natan Sharansky and then-Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, scolded the audience for their treatment of Lew, who was visibly flustered after the incident.
Quick rise through party ranks
The episode undoubtedly hit close to home given Lew’s background. He was born Jacob Joseph Lew to a middle-class Orthodox Jewish family in Queens, New York, in August 1955. His father came to the United States from Poland as a child, and Lew placed a tiny ceramic replica of Ellis Island on his desk during his career.
Lew, who attended New York City public schools, quickly rose through the Democratic Party ranks, serving as a senior adviser to House Speaker Tip O’Neil immediately after graduating from Harvard in the late ’70s, before later attending Georgetown Law School.
He would practice private law and act as executive director of the Center for Middle East Research, and issues director for the Democratic Party’s 1988 presidential campaign, adopting a centrist yet pro-peace stance, before returning to the public sector.
Lew served as budget director under then-President Bill Clinton and was later a deputy to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (preceding Nides in the same position, ironically) before acting as Obama’s budget director and chief of staff and treasury secretary – all while maintaining Jewish observance, including endeavoring to keep Shabbat.
He never ceased in his public and private dedication to Jewish causes, in both the public and private sector. Not only did Lew work closely with Sharansky during the ’80s to try to get the so-called Prisoners of Zion out of the Soviet Union, but he represented the Obama administration at key moments such as leading the U.S. delegation at the ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. He also met with French Jewish leaders following the terror attack at a Paris kosher supermarket that same year, 2015.
Lew was largely tasked with communicating the Obama administration’s messaging to the U.S. Jewish establishment, particularly Orthodox Jews. This included advocating to skeptical pro-Israel organizations and leaders on Obama’s behalf, whether on the president’s pro-Israel bona fides or on specific nominees like Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
When Lew needed Senate confirmation in February 2013 for his role as treasury secretary, 25 Republicans, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, voted against him. While many cited his tactics during historic negotiations, others highlighted his $1.1 million salary from Citigroup while the bank’s proprietary trading group under his purview fueled losses of billions of dollars. He had received a $900,000 bonus in 2009, the same year the federal government provided Citigroup with a $45 billion bailout after losses of $27 billion.
GOP attack points
Any upcoming confirmation, however, would undoubtedly renew the focus on Lew’s close association with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and a potential lifting of sanctions. This would only become more pressing as Republicans accuse Biden of paying a $10 billion “ransom fee” in order to secure the release of five U.S. citizens from Iran.
Lew would also likely be pressed on standard GOP attack points against Democrats aimed at politicizing support for the Palestinians under the guise of backing the BDS movement, as well as more topical issues such as the administration’s decision to cut academic funding to research institutions beyond the Green Line. Fourteen Republican senators recently threatened to block Biden’s nominations – to Israel and elsewhere – over the “antisemitic” move.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, has said it is not planning on reversing the so-called Pompeo Doctrine instituted by the Trump administration that deems West Bank settlements part of “greater Israel” by word and deed.
Lew should also expect to face questions on whether he embraces the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which critics have charged conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish hatred.
Should he be confirmed, the 67-year-old will be tasked with no shortage of issues. These will include the current state of affairs within Israel concerning the judicial overhaul; the ever-disappearing possibility of a two-state solution; and the administration’s efforts to push for Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia.
He will also be tasked with overseeing the administration’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, operating under the guise of conflict mitigation and undertaking small-scale confidence-building measures.
U.S. officials continue to maintain this policy despite unprecedented West Bank settlement expansion and the establishment of several new illegal outposts. Its efforts to build on Israel’s continued integration into the Middle East, meanwhile, have hit repeated roadblocks due to the far-right ruling coalition’s rhetoric and policies.
Lew, who is currently a managing partner at the Lindsay Goldberg private equity firm, has already been indirectly involved with one controversy relating to the current Israeli government.
He sits on the U.S. board of directors for the National Library of Israel, an institution co-owned by the state and the Hebrew University. The coalition pursued a controversial bill that compromised the library’s independence by giving the education minister – a politician from Netanyahu’s Likud party – the power to appoint their own board of directors.
The coalition and National Library only reached a deal after the attorney general and Finance Ministry blocked the original proposal and major donors vowed to cancel more than $22 million in donations planned over the course of several years.
“The National Library of Israel is a gem – a resource for people from the four corners of the world who are interested in the history of Israel and of Jewish communities everywhere. With digitization and our ability to connect virtually, I see the library as a cultural and educational destination for all of us in America,” Lew is quoted as saying on the library’s website.
Netanyahu provocation
Although Lew has been careful not to make controversial statements about Israel in public, he did once briefly address the fraught relations between Obama and Netanyahu. Their personal dynamic “was not as good as one might have hoped. And it was in both directions,” he told Jewish Insider in 2017. “I saw more provocation coming in [from Netanyahu] than I saw going out.
“Now, you can say that the president should ignore that and it shouldn’t make a difference – and usually it didn’t. But some things like the [2015 Iran] speech to a joint session of Congress kind of went beyond the pale of what you can just ignore. I think that was a huge mistake for Israel,” he said.
Lew is also believed to have been among the U.S. officials who internally opposed the Obama administration’s 2016 decision to abstain from a contentious UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements.
“Personally, I wish the resolution hadn’t been there at all. I’m not happy that there was a resolution. 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,” Lew said about the vote to Jewish Insider.
While Lew awaits a possible hearing and potential confirmation, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires ad interim Stephanie Hallett is tasked with navigating the tightrope of U.S.-Israel relations, including a fast-approaching September 30 deadline to determine whether Israel obtains entry into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program; a series of upcoming Supreme Court hearings pertaining to the judicial overhaul; and the possible escalation of tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.
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