On March 23, 2017, David Friedman was confirmed as US ambassador to Israel. His confirmation hearing was far from staid. Several protesters interrupted the proceedings to highlight his extreme anti-Palestinian views.

More unexpectedly, at one point during the hearing, Republican senator and Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Corker expressed amazement that Friedman was willing to “recant every strongly held belief that [he’d] expressed, almost,” and asked why Friedman was willing to dispose of these beliefs. Friedman responded that “the opportunity to serve [his] country as Israel’s ambassador would be the fulfillment of a life’s work.”

Perhaps we should be heartened that Friedman is willing to back down from his past far-right stances on Palestine. But if one surveys the record carefully, it’s clear that much of his life’s work has actually been in service of those supposedly recanted beliefs. Friedman’s past writing makes it apparent that he is concerned chiefly with promoting Israeli colonization, including the expropriation of Palestinian land and the expansion of settlements — a cause for which he has raised millions of dollars, with blatant disregard for international law and the wellbeing of Palestinians.