At the National AIPAC policy conference in Washington, DC, I attended the talk given by Israel’s new Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, on the topic of Israel’s relations with Jordan and Egypt. His talk spanned Egyptian history from the time of the Pharaohs and the creation of Trans-Jordan after WWI to the present. It was a tour de force as were the other talks I have heard him give. Oren is, among other things, a great scholar. He is the author of the best selling book, Power,Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. My review of it appears here.
I can think of no better representative for Israel in this country than Oren. He is a true Renaissance man: an athlete, a historian, a journalist, a veteran of the IDF, and a recent representative for the Israeli military during the fighting in Gaza.
He is also a mensch. A beautiful account by Dan Gordon, who fought alongside him, appears in The American Thinker. Gordon captures the nature of Oren the man. Our experience with Michael confirms this. Friends introduced us, and then invited us to their home for lunch with Michael and his wife Sally. Michael went out of his way to offer his help on various matters concerned with publication of our new book. He gave us advice on publicity, problems with the book industry and how to circumvent them, what we could do to make it a success, and the editing process. Then he kindly offered to read the manuscript, gave us a wonderful blurb, and phoned or emailed us with corrections when he found errors.
Michael will have a lot on his plate as Israel’s Ambassador. No one is better equipped to handle the job than he. I predict that Michael will go down in history as one of Israel’s greatest Ambassadors, a man who will be as well known and highly regarded as the late Abba Eban, who became Israel’s voice in the United States.
So Mazeltov, Michael. You will make Israel proud.
Michael Oren seems like an excellent choice. He does not appear to be a guilt tripped white guy who will be intimidated by Barack Obama. This is, for all practical purposes, the number one requirement of any Israeli ambassador sent to Washington, DC. The greatest existential threat to that country is not per se the Palestinians. No, it is the bizarre notion that the mostly white citizens of Israel are crapping on these generally darker skinned Arabs.
I too am an Israeli American Jew and I cannot in any way support the appointment of Michael Oren to the post of Israeli Ambassador to the United States.
This is because Mr. Oren has repeatedly expressed his support for the Sharon disengagement operation which expelled around ten thousand law abiding Jewish Israeli citizens from their homes, jobs, and livliehoods in the Gaza Strip and the Northern Shomron. Mr. Oren not only continues to support and defend this awful act, he has on numerous occasions stated that Israel must carry out the same sort of ethnic cleansing of her own Jewish citizens in the rest of Judea and Samaria.
Whatever his other qualifications in other areas, his support of the Disengagement operation and his support for further acts of this kind should immediately disqualify him from any serious Israeli diplomatic posting. By now practically every serious and rational Israeli politician, security official, and even common citizen realizes that the Disengagement operation did nothing to improve Israeli security and nothing to improve our international diplomatic standing. The Disengagement did achieve several negative and very dangerous outcomes, i.e., it put an Iranian terrorist proxy, the Hamas organization, in charge of the Gaza Strip thus placing both missiles and heavily armed terrorists within strikiing distance of Israel’s major cities. It also sent a clear message that Israel can be beaten diplomatically and will carry out unilateral withdrawals in exchange for nothing. The Disengagement has already resulted in one huge Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, which sadly accomplished very little, and which will almost certainly be followed by others.
The fact that Michael Oren cannot or will not recognize the dangers of the Sharon Disengagement tells me and many others that he lacks the realism and the practical understanding of events necessary for our most important diplomat in Washington.
Michael Oren is not qualified and should not hold the post of Israeli Ambassador to the United States of America.
Greetings:
I only know of the man through his “Six Days of War” and his appearances on “Charlie Rose” (which I won’t hold against him). As an ex-infantryman, I would certainly rather have a soldier as a diplomat than a diplomat as a soldier. Israel may have many friends in Washington D.C., but I don’t think any of them live or work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
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I agree, that Michael will go down in history as one of Israel’s greatest Ambassadors.
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