Obama Administration Inconsistency (aka Hypocrisy) on Oren’s Memoir?

...Should Oren have written about his experiences so directly and so soon after his tenure? It’s indiscreet and a tad obnoxious, but Obama and his aides must remember that those who live in glass houses should not have thrown stones in the first place. Such memoirs are a phenomenon of democratic political culture. But, then again, that may be what Obama most resents.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
20 June '15..

The Obama administration is reportedly furious with Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, for publishing a behind-the-scenes account of U.S.-Israeli relations during the early portion of President Obama’s administration. Suffice to say, the Oren memoir did not stick to Obama administration talking points.


The umbrage that Obama administration officials and the State Department take is just a bit hypocritical. After all, multiple Obama administration officials were veterans of earlier administrations and, during the Republican interlude, wrote books. For example, former George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administration diplomat Dennis Ross castigated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in The Missing Peace, his 2004 memoir of behind-the-scenes efforts to win Palestinian-Israeli peace. For example, he wrote for just one example, “What went wrong? To put it simply, Netanyahu was not willing to concede anything.” Never mind Yasser Arafat’s terrorism and two-faced behavior; it was Netanyahu’s fault. How awkward, then, it must have been to return to Obama’s National Security Council to work on Middle East issues after having badmouthed Netanyahu, who had also returned to office in the meantime.

Not all indiscretions emerge in book form. Martin Indyk, director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, served as the Obama administration’s Special Envoy for Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations from 2013 to 2014, after having earlier served in the Clinton administration as an assistant secretary of State. In between his two stints in government, Indyk penned a book openly badmouthing Netanyahu, whom he compared to a “winter’s chill” before the “spring warmth” of Ehud Barak’s election. Indyk, who in his capacity with Brookings had accepted Qatari money before and after his government service, wasted little time bashing Netanyahu openly, on background, and with little discretion.

Then there was Samantha Power. Years before she became the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, she called for a U.S. military invasion of Israel. Awkward. The badmouthing goes further. There were Obama’s open-mic insults, and the Netanyahu-baiting offered on background to de facto administration stenographer Jeffrey Goldberg.

Trust us! Some stunning insights into an evolving alliance

...Oren doesn’t say that the president is anti-Israel. Rather, “Obama is pro-Israel — but his is a certain mythical, pre-1967 Israel that never really existed,” he said, a time when the state was “less democratic, less open, less respectful of minorities.”

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
15 June '15..

An important new book, a memoir by Prof. Michael Oren who served as Israel's ambassador to the US between May 2009 and September 2013, is getting media coverage this week. His vantage point as both an insider and a noted historian at a time of huge importance is an invaluable one.

It's worth noting that, unlike some other key ambassadorial appointments, Oren did not get the job through his being close to prime minister Netanyahu. In fact, as far as we can tell, he's never been regarded as a Netanyahu crony. Nor has he been associated with especially robust viewpoints about the US/Israel relationship. Until now.

He calls "Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide", to be published next Tuesday, a book written "with love — and fear." He's not kidding.

We have not read it (it's not yet available in the stores) but were struck some things said by the author and his reviewer in an article by Gary Rosenblatt in the current issue of The Jewish Week NY. Under the title "No Way To Treat An Ally", it's (in the newspaper's words) a "devastating insider’s account of White House distancing from Israel." Some selected verbatim quotes:

As he notes in his foreword, “‘ally’ is a simple, beautiful word” that evokes “warmth,” fitting for the “special relationship,” said to exist between Israel and the U.S. But that relationship also includes “bitter differences,” he reminds us at the outset. And much of the next 375 pages is a carefully recalled, detailed and riveting first-hand account of how the Washington-Jerusalem ties have unraveled — undone by mistrust, mistakes and missed opportunities — with Obama in the role of bully-in-chief.

(Read Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 

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Ambassador Oren’s Perilous Plan B

Ambassador Oren’s plan for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is neither new nor smart.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
27 February '14..

The Israeli political Left is perilously anxious. The same people who once sold us Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas as peace partners are now telling us that peace with the Palestinians is probably impossible yet the existing situation is unacceptable. Therefore, they now say, unilateral withdrawal from part or all of the West Bank is Israel’s best/only remaining course of action, and it is urgent.

In the Left’s newfangled political parlance, unilateral withdrawal is being giving a heroic shine. It involves “acting boldly to set Israel’s borders without being hostage to the Palestinians;” “making peace without (Palestinian) partners;” tearing down settlements in the distant reaches of the West Bank in order to “signal” to the world that our government is “serious” about compromise; “showing” America that Israel is not interested in “forever being an occupying power”; and so forth.

In Ambassador Michael Oren’s thinking (If peace talks fail: Michael Oren’s Plan B, The Times of Israel, Feb. 26), unilateral Israeli withdrawal is elevated even further and accorded almost angelic status. “I would supplant the word unilateralism with Zionism,” Oren gushes. “One good definition of Zionism is Jews taking their destiny in their hands… We do not outsource our fundamental destiny to Palestinian decision making.”

Ambassador Oren’s over-the-top salesmanship of Plan B (– unilateral withdrawal as “the Zionist option”!) suggests that he knows that Mahmoud Abbas won’t settle with Israel. “I believe the Palestinians have never indicated a willingness to meet our minimum requirements, which are recognition of Israel’s permanence and legitimacy as a Jewish state and end of claims and end of conflict,” Oren admits.

Alas, the only thing new about Oren’s “Plan B” is the sad adding of his important voice to the emerging, dodgy mindset of unilateralism. Others already are into detailed planning for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from most of Judea and Samaria.

Former IDF Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, who now heads Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), also says that if peace talks with the Palestinians fail – and he assesses that they will – Israel should withdraw unilaterally from 85 percent of the West Bank. This will “advance Israel towards a two-state situation, even if there is no two-state solution,” he and his colleagues wrote in their annual strategic assessment. Such a withdrawal will improve Israel’s demographic and international situation, Yadlin contends, and will supposedly gain Israel “the ability to be firmer on the Iranian subject and get the United States on board.”

Oren similarly argues (without a shred of logical evidence) that unilateral withdrawal would “help take the wind out of the growing BDS movement, particularly in Europe.”

A Both Effective and Eloquent New Advocate For Israel

...In contrast to many of the charming and utterly ineffective persons who have represented Israel abroad, Dermer gets it when it comes to dealing with attacks on his country and the justice of his cause. His eloquent advocacy for Israel’s rights may upset some who see it as always in the wrong, but it’s doubtful that Netanyahu could have made a better choice for this important position.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
09 July '13..

The official announcement that Ron Dermer is to be appointed Israel’s new ambassador to the United States is only a few hours old but the brickbats being prepared by the Jewish state’s critics are already starting to fly in his direction. Dermer, a close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had long been rumored to be the successor to Michael Oren when that COMMENTARY contributor left his office this summer after four years in Washington. But while Oren largely escaped much negative scrutiny during his time as Israel’s most important foreign envoy, Dermer should expect to find himself in the cross hairs of left-wing attacks even before he arrives in his new office. As Haaretz’s story on the appointment put it, Dermer is seen by the left as the worst of all possible creatures: a “right-wing neo-con with close ties to the Bush family.”

But rather than seeking to pre-emptively sandbag Dermer in this fashion, the Jewish left should understand that he is ideally suited to be Israel’s ambassador to its superpower ally. Oren, a historian with a better grasp of America’s attitudes toward Israel than virtually anyone else in the Jewish state, was an outstanding diplomat. But Dermer brings to his job the one element most necessary to ensure that misunderstandings between Washington and Jerusalem are kept to a minimum in the coming years. As the person who is as close to Netanyahu as anyone currently working in the prime minister’s office, Dermer will be seen as a direct conduit to Israel’s leader thereby enabling him to play a vital role the U.S.-Israel relationship as efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program come to a head and Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempts to revive the peace process continue.

Like Oren, Dermer is a native of the United States who immigrated to Israel as an adult. He may be best known here for being the co-author of the best-selling The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror with Natan Sharansky. The book, which puts forward the position that democratic reform is the necessary prerequisite for both peace in the Middle East and any hope for a better life for the Muslim and Arab worlds, was famously embraced by President George W. Bush who said it put into words exactly how he felt about the issue. While this “neo-con” testament is, among other influences, blamed for America’s unsuccessful attempts to bring democracy to the Middle East in the last decade, the truth is, the book is actually quite prescient about the failures of premature experiments in democracy in Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and now in Egypt. Unlike those who fetishize elections as the sole determinant of freedom, Dermer and Sharansky understood that there was more to the concept than casting ballots in the absence of a culture that fostered consensus about democratic values.

(Video) Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren - Clear and to the Point

Bloomberg TV..
15 August '12..




Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren talks about concerns over Iran's nuclear program and the prospects for an Israeli military strike against the nation. Oren, speaking with Mark Crumpton on Bloomberg Television's "Bottom Line," also discusses the situation in Syria.



Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/oren-israel-survival-imperiled-by-a-nuclear-iran-jeRMz02yS1~8QaM6B2LeAA.html


Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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Interview with Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren (Part 2)

Jennifer Rubin
Right Turn/Washington Post
26 December '10

On Friday, I shared the first half of my interview with Israeli ambassador Michael Oren.

In the remainder of the interview, Oren discussed the onslaught Israel now faces -- not on the battlefield, but in the court of public opinion and in international bodies. In recent years, efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, that is, to challenge its legitimacy as a state and ability to act in its own interests, as does every other country, have increased dramatically.

The most visible platform on the international stage for defamation of Israel is the UN Human Rights Council. Oren observed: "Israel has been more frequently condemned by the Human Rights Council than all of the other countries combined. The council is the only UN entity which in its charter -- article 7 -- is specifically committed to condemning and investigating Israel." He cited some of the recent anti-Israel actions of the UNHRC, including the Goldstone Report and the flotilla investigation, as evidence of the body's distorted mission. Should the U.S. leave? Oren declined to offer the U.S. advice, saying only, that "while the [Obama] administration has made robust effort to defend Israel, there has been no change in the Human Rights Council itself."

We then to turned to the subject of non-governmental organizations with shadowy funding that challenge the legitimacy of Israel. A bill in the Israeli Knesset to require that groups operating in the country disclose their funding set off a firestorm of protest from Israel-bashing groups and some European governments, which have been shown to provide funding (directly or indirectly) to groups seeking to undermine Israel's legitimacy. Oren said, "The question is whether they are operating as foreign agents. We have freedom of expression. Members of the Knesset can be anti-Zionist. Professors can say these things. Public employees can say these things." He contended, however, that it is legitimate for Israel to determine if groups that are acting in ways "inimical not to the politics but to the polity of Israel are being funded by foreign governments."

(Read full "Interview with Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren")

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Oren Spills the Beans

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
27 June '10

When last we heard from Michael Oren, he was giving an odd interview — suggesting that everything was just swell between the U.S. and Israel and decrying the “partisan” Republicans, who have stuck by the Jewish state while Democratic support has nosedived. Now, word comes that he was far more candid in private. Haaretz reports:

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, painted a dark picture of U.S.-Israeli relations during a briefing at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem last week. Israeli diplomats say Oren described the current situation as a “tectonic rift” in which Israel and the United States are like continents drifting apart. … Five Israeli diplomats, some of whom took part in the briefing or were informed about the details, said Oren described relations between the two countries in bleak terms. Oren, however, has denied making such statements. …

Oren noted that contrary to Obama’s predecessors – George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — the current president is not motivated by historical-ideological sentiments toward Israel but by cold interests and considerations. He added that his access as Israel’s ambassador to senior administration officials and close advisers of the president is good. But Obama has very tight control over his immediate environment, and it is hard to influence him.

“This is a one-man show,” Oren is quoted as saying.

While certainly less “diplomatic,” these remarks have the benefit of candor and accuracy. As for the flotilla incident, Oren reportedly said: “Even our close friends came out against us. … Only after some time, when video from the ship arrived and was aired by the American media, did public opinion begin to shift in Israel’s favor.”

One can sympathize with Oren. His job is to try, under the most difficult circumstances with a president more hostile to Israel than any other since the 1948, to keep the relationship between the two countries from rupturing. And yet, he is neither deluded nor dishonest, so he concedes — he thought, privately — that Obama is pulling the relationship apart, replacing a robust alliance based on shared values, interests, and, yes, affection with an arms-length, if not antagonistic, one, in which Israel is treated as an encumbrance to Obama’s foreign-policy objectives.

(Read full post)

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The First Casualty in Obama’s Israel Policy

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
23 June '10

Ambassador Michael Oren gave a curious interview to the Jerusalem Post this week. In some respects, we got the unvarnished and deliciously candid analysis we have come to expect from him:

Asked about J Street’s influence on the White House or its sway in Congress, the ambassador said, “I don’t think that they have proven decisive on any major issue we’ve encountered.”

Oren said J Street was fundamentally different than the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“AIPAC’s mandate is to support the decisions of the democratically elected government of Israel, be it left, right or center,” he said. “J Street makes its own policy and does not necessarily, to say the least, accept the decisions of the policies of the government of Israel.”

“Listen, I represent the democratically elected government, and that government reflects the will of the people of Israel, and what they perceive as the interests of Israel,” he said, adding that J Street was an organization “taking issue with that, and that in itself is a source of disagreement.”

Ouch.

But he is also a diplomat, one trying to hold the tenuous U.S.-Israel relationship together. So he feels compelled to say things such as “the tone changed within a week” after Obama’s display of rudeness toward Bibi Netanyahu. Listen, at that time James Jones was holding meetings on an imposed peace plan and leaking it to the media. Obama more recently has not exactly been the stalwart partner for Israel during the flotilla incident. And Oren unfortunately goes well beyond the needs of diplomatic niceties when he declares:

“Bi-partisan support for Israel is a national strategic interest for us, and I’m sometimes in the difficult position of having to tell some of Israel’s most outspoken supporters to be aware of this,” Oren said.

(Read full post)

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Shut Up, Mr. Oren, J Street Explains

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
27 April '10

A reader alerts me to this item: it seems as though J Street’s president at Brandeis University doesn’t like upsetting students. (This would be news to the actual pro-Israel contingent there, who thought that J Street was all about provoking and challenging others.) Anyhow, his complaint: is “I’m not exactly thrilled that a representative of the current right-wing Israeli government will be delivering the keynote address at my commencement.” In case you thought it was directed at some party functionary, that is his way of referring to Ambassador Michael Oren, the representative of the elected government of Israel. The J Streeter thinks Oren is too “divisive.” He scrawls:

Despite its strong Jewish foundation, Brandeis has evolved into a university that prides itself on diversity, and its current student body reflects that pursuit. Even as a secular Jew of Israeli heritage, over the past four years I have often been agitated by the persistent questions, albeit half-serious, of my non-Brandeis peers: “Is there a Jewish studies requirement to graduate? I thought it was a rabbinical school.” If these queries bother me, I can only imagine what it must feel like for the half of Brandeis students who aren’t Jewish to answer these questions. Isn’t it possible that the selection of Oren is nothing but the icing on the cake, a silent confirmation that after four years of living and breathing Brandeis, these students really are outsiders in this community?

He seems to have confused “diversity” with “ridding the campus of pro-Israel voices.” He continues:

Oren is an undeniably controversial figure in a debate that is vibrant on our campus. Such speakers have a history of drawing protesters at Brandeis, something that now seems to be a likely feature of next month’s commencement.

(Read full post)

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Blaming America First for No Middle East Peace

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
20 April '10

Foreign Policy has posted a forum online on why we have failed to achieve Middle East peace. It’s an odd question, which reveals the foreign policy establishment’s predilection to see this as something we control. The real answer is, obviously, because the Palestinians and their enablers don’t want peace. But that’s not the answer from many of the participants who say the problem is — I know you’ll be shocked! — the U.S. just isn’t trying hard enough or we haven’t browbeaten Israel sufficiently. Zbigniew Brezinski says the U.S. is at fault because we just haven’t gotten “seriously engaged” and haven’t come out with a plan to impose on the parties. Daniel Kurtzer echoes this claptrap: “When we are active diplomatically, Arab states are more willing to cooperate with us on other problems; when we are not active, our diplomatic options shrink.” Some willfully distort history, as Robert Malley does when he insists that “Americans, Palestinians, and Israelis were all to blame for the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks.” Hmm. I thought it was Yasir Arafat who walked away from the deal and started killing Jews instead of accepting a Palestinian state.

Now there are some voices of sanity. Gen. Anthony Zinni: “By now, we should realize what doesn’t work: summits, agreements in principle, special envoys, U.S.-proposed plans, and just about every other part of our approach has failed. So why do we keep repeating it?” (You can see why he didn’t get an administration job — too much realism.) And then Michael Oren rightly challenges the entire premise of the discussion:

(Read full post)

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What Is To Be Done About Nuclear Iran?

Roger L Simon
Pajamamedia.com
11 February '10

Click here to watch the second part of Roger’s interview with Israeli ambassador to the United States. (View Part One here.)

A transcript of the entire interview appears below:

MR. SIMON: Ambassador Oren, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule for PJTV. And before we get into the real subject of this discussion on Iran, I can’t resist asking you to comment on the events yesterday at UC Irvine. Was it really as bad as Judean Ramallah or not as bad?

AMBASSADOR OREN: First of all, pleasure to be here, Roger. As to what happened yesterday in UC Irvine, I was giving a presentation on the state of US Israel and Israel-Middle Eastern relations, and a group of several hundred students kept on disturbing me, calling out rather, you know, various curses and expletives, none of them deleted, and basically, violating the most fundamental law on an American campus, indeed, outside of American campus in this country, and that’s the right of free speech. And from my perspective, it was a great squandered opportunity for them. Here, they had an opportunity to hear a different perspective, perhaps not a perspective they agreed with or like, but — and a chance to exchange ideas, and that, I think, is what universities are about, but they’ve blocked this. And unfortunately, this has happened at several campuses to several Israeli speakers, but not only to Israeli speakers. Last week, down at Georgetown campus, General Petraeus was subject to the same type of interference. So I think it’s the beginning of a trend that we have to watch very, very carefully, a trend to sort of bring the Middle East, where there is no freedom of expression, onto American campuses. And I think we have to be very vigilant, indeed, to prevent that from happening.

MR. SIMON: It’s not just American campuses, though, unfortunately. My nephew is a student at the London School of Economics, and the same thing happened there. And he wrote about it for Pajamas Media. But let’s move on to Iran, here.

(Read full transcript)
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Muslim students disrupt Israel Amb. Michael Oren's talk

Democast
09 February '10

Israel's U.S. Ambassador Oren withstands 10 antagonistic disruptions by Univ Calif Irvine Muslim Students Union to deliver speech about middle-east relations to capacity audience. Police Chief comments on arrest of 12 Muslim agitators. Palestinian and Zionist attendees comment on audacious conduct of alleged Muslim Brotherhood-linked, M.S.U. Full speech and interviews - 48 min.

(Quite a circus, but Amb. Oren handled it well. A very interesting interview at 39:44 of Ghazi Brighith, formerly of Beit Lechem, who now has refugee status in the U.S. and attended Oren's presentation. Very outspoken and well spoken. Y.)



Related article: Another wild night on campus reminds college adminstrators why they daren't displease their Islamist students
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