Senate to hold confirmation hearing for Jack Lew, nominee for new US envoy to Israel

By Jacob Magid

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16 October 2023, 6:32 pm

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Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew speaks during the Financial Stability Oversight Council at the Treasury Department in Washington, Nov. 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on Wednesday morning for former treasury secretary Jack Lew, who is US President Joe Biden’s nominee to become the next US ambassador to Israel.

While Democrats are pushing for Lew’s confirmation to be fast-tracked, asserting that the US needs a high-level Biden confidant on the ground as the war against Hamas intensifies, some Republicans are planning to try and block the process.

GOP Sen. Tom Cotton told Fox News yesterday that “Jack Lew is an Iran sympathizer who has no business being our ambassador. It’s bad for the United States, it’s bad for Israel to have an Iran sympathizer as our ambassador to that country.”

Lew served as chief of staff to former president Barack Obama and was instrumental in the lobbying that secured the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.