Jack Lew, former Treasury secretary, is the new US ambassador to Israel

Jack Lew, former secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury, was confirmed this Tuesday by the United States Senate as the new ambassador to Israel. The Upper House, in charge of authorizing these appointments, gave the green light to the appointment, which had 53 votes in favor and 43 against.

Thus, the official, who was also chief of staff of the White House in the government of Democrat Barack Obama, replaces Thomas Nides, who was in office from June 2021 to July of this year.

Since then, Stephanie Hallett, the US chargé d’affaires in Israel, assumed control of the diplomatic legation on an interim basis.

“I am pleased to see that the United States Senate has confirmed Jack Lew as the new United States ambassador to Israel. I look forward to welcoming you soon, ambassador-designate Lew!” Hallett said on platform X.

Jack Lew, 68, has extensive experience in budget management. He began his career in Washington as an advisor to former House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill during budget negotiations with Ronald Reagan’s Administration in the 1980s, the Efe news agency noted.

Jack Lew, with “broad responsibilities”

President Joe Biden said of Jack Lew, when he nominated him as US ambassador to Israel in early September, that he has assumed broad responsibilities on economic diplomacy.

The new ambassador, a New York Jew trained at the prestigious Harvard (Boston) and Georgetown (Washington) Law schools, is managing partner of the firm Lindsay Goldberg LLC and visiting professor of Public and International Relations at Columbia University.

He was also on the board of Citigroup between 2006 and 2009, when the mortgage bubble burst.

The agency indicated that, as Obama’s chief of staff, he entered the then president’s closest circle after occupying the position of director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which he had already held between 2010-2012 and during the presidency of Bill Clinton, between 1998 and 2001.

Chuck Schumer, Democratic majority leader in the Senate, said that with everything that is happening right now in Israel, Lew’s confirmation as ambassador is one of the most important votes the plenary has taken in a long time.

“Israel is in crisis, the United States needs to be at its side and the most urgent and obvious step is to make sure we have an ambassador,” Schumer said before the vote occurred.

He also stressed that the need to approve the appointment was “irrefutable.”

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