I observed yesterday that conflicts between the new governments in the United States and Israel are being magnified by those who seem to have a stake in ensuring friction between the two.
Shmuel Rosner debunks another effort to magnify differences between the two administrations.
However, examining the historical record would pour cold water over the outrage at Lieberman’s comments. No Israeli government has accepted the Arab offer so far, and I do not expect any future government to accept it — unless the Initiative is fundamentally altered. When Lieberman claims the Initiative is dangerous, he refers to the version presented in the past — one that includes Israeli withdrawal to the ‘67 border with no land-swaps and no recognition of “new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, [that makes it] unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.†Bush’s 2004 letter to Ariel Sharon clearly validates these concerns.
However, Samir Kuntar’s BFF Dion Nissenbaum engages in the same sort of no-confidence building measures that Rosner debunks. In Israeli ambassador pick raises eyebrows:
On the face of it, Israeli historian Michael Oren would seem like a good choice to be Israel’s next ambassador to the United States.
Oren Born in New Jersey, trained at Princeton and Columbia, and author of respected books on the Middle East (including the most recent, “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present”), Oren is well-suited for the role, especially when compared to the two other names floated for the job: Dore Gold, a conservative former Israeli ambassador to the UN, and Zalman Shoval, a Netanyahu loyalist who served two stints as Israel’s ambassador to the US.
But Oren is not without his detractors. He has never been a diplomat, and he holds conservative views at a time when Democrats hold a near-lock on power in DC.
Given that he will be representing the current Israeli government, I would think that it would most appropriate for the ambassador to share similar views to the government.
If the ambassador has a knowledge of the political climate country where he will be stationed, he will be able to articulate his government views more effectively. Elder of Ziyon observed in a review of Oren’s book on the history of American ties to the Middle East.
He also effectively analyzes every US President’s thinking and psyche on Middle East matters.
Nissenbaum himself points out that Oren’s pre-election analysis was seemingly on target. While I saw it as a reason to vote for McCain, I’m sure that those who disagreed with me on foreign policy would have seen the same essay as an endorsement for Obama. The analysis was dispassionate, not partisan.
And Nissenbaum gives away his game when he wraps up his post by quoting terror apologist Richard Silverstein. While Nissenbaum refers to Oren as “consevative” he offers no such modifier for Silverstein, who is quite a leftist.
Nissenbaum clearly knows very little about Oren. I’ve seen him work a hostile crowd. I think he will be effective in conveying the messages of his government in terms that the current administration will appreciate.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
