US President-elect Donald Trump has chosen right-winger David Friedman as America’s next ambassador to Israel. The 57-year-old lawyer is strongly critical of the long-held US goal of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He also supports Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

A senior Palestinian official warned that such moves “will be the destruction of the peace process”. Veteran negotiator Saeb Erekat said moving the embassy and “annexing” settlements in the West Bank would send the region down a path to “chaos, lawlessness and extremism”.

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However, he said he did not really believe that Trump would approve either action. “The United States at the end of the day is a country of institutions, and they are guided by their national interests,” he said.

Friedman said earlier he looked forward to working “from the US Embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem”.

The United Nations does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and the US embassy has been located in Tel Aviv for decades.

(BBC, PC, Social Media)