South Florida Sun Sentinel
May 27, 2021 10:50 AM
An effort to convince President Joe Biden to pick former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler as U.S. ambassador to Israel apparently has failed.
News reports from Washington said Biden has finalized a list of several ambassadorships. The administration has been leaking the names to media outlets, and several including the Associated Press, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NBC News and Axios, are reporting that the president has selected Thomas Nides as the next ambassador to Israel.
Nides, a Wall Street executive who was a deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, had long been seen as the leading candidate. But several weeks ago members of the House and Senate, from Florida and elsewhere, reached out to the White House to urge consideration of Wexler.
Wexler was one of Israel’s most prominent supporters during his time representing Broward and Palm Beach counties, which he did for 13 years until he resigned in 2010 to become president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.
Then-U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, on May 10, 2009 in Jerusalem. Wexler was a candidate to become U.S. ambassador to Israel, but President Joe Biden has picked someone else. (Handout/Getty Images)
In early 2007, he became the first big-name Florida politician and one of the few Jewish Democrats in the country to endorse Barack Obama’s presidential campaign — long before pundits gave Obama a chance of when virtually every other South Florida Democrat was supporting Hillary Clinton.
Wexler has also been a Biden supporter, volunteering for his 1988 presidential campaign, and backing his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Wexler said in an interview that he called to congratulate Nides and offer to assist him in any way he needed.
The Associated Press and New York Times said administration officials wouldn’t say when the nomination would be announced.
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