The other man who accompanied Shapiro to Damascus was career diplomat Jeffrey Feltman. Feltman‘s career took him to Israel three times (twice at the embassy and once at the Jerusalem consulate), once to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and, most controversially, as ambassador to Lebanon.

It was in Lebanon that Feltman made it very clear that he favored the March 14 movement of the Hariri clan, and Israel‘s agenda. The enemy was Shi‘ite Hezbollah. Things were so tense between Feltman and Hezbollah‘s leader Hassan Nasrallah that after the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in 2006, Nasrallah dubbed the Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora as „Feltman‘s government“ (Siniora ran the Hariri family‘s banking operations before he took on the mantle as head of government).