David Friedman: Hostage release ‘goes far beyond geopolitics and diplomacy’

David Friedman, who formerly served as US President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel during his first term, welcomes the return of the hostages, declaring that the significance of their release “goes far beyond geopolitics and diplomacy.”

Speaking with The Times of Israel in the Knesset ahead of Trump’s speech, Friedman says that “everyone in the room and millions elsewhere have been praying” for the hostages’ freedom and “we’ve gotten to know them, even if we don’t know them.”

“We’ve gotten to know their names, gotten to know their lives, their stories, their families. The fact that after two years, they’re finally going to be free is just beyond words,” he states.

He recalls his first visit to the home of just-released hostage brothers Gali and Ziv Berman in Kibbutz Kfar Aza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack, saying that “they lost two years of their lives. They’re coming home.”

Friedman says he is “deeply grateful” to the IDF for its soldiers’ “courage and bravery,” without which today’s release “never could have happened,” and praises both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his “dear friend and mentor, President Trump,” who “had a huge role to play here.”

Friedman notes that Hamas is on the streets of Gaza “slaughtering all the collaborators” and says that “it’s hard to see Hamas walking away.”

“I mean, they’re not acting like people that are planning to leave town and hand over their arms. But they have to, because if they don’t…” he trails off. “I’m hoping that the instincts of self-preservation will prevail.”

Friedman was influential as ambassador during Trump’s first term, playing a key role in the president’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as in a myriad of other pro-Israel moves.