Biden names Israel ambassador days after new government

President Joe Biden has nominated veteran Democrat Thomas Nides as the US ambassador to Israel. (File/AP)

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Tuesday nominated veteran Democratic Party official Thomas Nides to be US ambassador to Israel, filling the post two days after the formation of a new government eager to renew ties.
Nides, a former top banker at Morgan Stanley who has spent his adult life in Democratic politics, served in the US State Department when Barack Obama was president and defended funding for the Palestinians.
He would mark a sharp departure from the last US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a forceful advocate for hawkish Israeli policies who was tapped by former president Donald Trump after serving his company as a bankruptcy lawyer.
Nides grew up in a Jewish home in Duluth, Minnesota, where his father was temple president. He is not known as an ideological figure on the Middle East or other issues.
While serving as deputy secretary of state for management and resources, Nides fought attempts by Republicans in Congress to stop US funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees -- a step taken by Trump but reversed by Biden.
Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to Washington, wrote in a 2011 book that Nides once called him to argue passionately - and profanely - against attempts in Congress to defund the UN cultural agency UNESCO after it admitted Palestine as a member state.
Nides, Oren wrote, said with colorful language that Israel would not want to defund UNESCO as it has played a role in education about the Holocaust.
Nides, whose nomination had been rumored for weeks, needs to be confirmed by the Senate, where the Democrats are narrowly in control.
His nomination was announced two days after the fall from power from Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister who had toxic relations with Democrats after he rallied against Obama's Iran policy, rejected moves for a Palestinian state and aligned himself with Republicans.
Biden has quickly congratulated Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is a staunch defender of Jewish settlement in the West Bank but governs in coalition with centrists and leftists.