US President Barack Obama nominated top White House aide Daniel Shapiro as ambassador to Israel Wednesday, following a testing two years between his administration and the Netanyahu government.
Shapiro currently serves as senior director for the Middle East and North Africa on Obama's National Security Council and is seen as having a close relationship with the president.
He is well known in the region and has frequently engaged both Israeli and Palestinian leaders on delegations led by America's Middle East envoy George Mitchell.
Shapiro, who speaks fluent Hebrew, has good ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
His nomination, and the fact that he is a senior White House appointee rather than a career diplomat, will likely lead to talk that Obama is seeking a direct line to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Shapiro has also been a key point of contact between Obama and the American Jewish community, amid disquiet among some US supporters of Israel over Obama's strategy in the Middle East.
Washington has insisted that despite the turmoil wrought by Arab uprisings in the Middle East it is not giving up its bid to help Israeli and the Palestinians negotiate peace and a two-state solution.
Obama has expressed hopes that in the long term, Arab youngsters will seek to channel their energy into building their own new states rather than into efforts to destabilize Israel or assault its legitimacy.
The current US ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, a career foreign service officer, has been in Tel Aviv since August 18, 2008, and had been due to be rotated back to Washington or to another post.
Shapiro, like other ambassadorial nominees, must be endorsed by the US Senate.