A controversy over the conduct of Nadav Tamir, Israel’s consul general for New England, is roiling the Israeli Foreign Ministry as well as Boston Jewry. Tamir, a career diplomat, is apparently not fond of Israel’s current government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and its policies. He seems to have something of a crush on the Obama administration despite its propensity to pick fights with Israel and to curry favor with its Arab foes. But rather than merely gripe privately about his bosses, the consul wrote a memo detailing his disagreements with his country’s policies on settlements and defending Obama’s stands. The memo was leaked to an Israeli TV station last week, and not surprisingly, Tamir was recalled to Jerusalem for an explanation of his conduct.
The text of that memo can be found on a website run by a Boston blogger, Martin Solomon. It reflects, as Solomon notes, the J Street view of the world. Indeed, Tamir seems to think that most Americans see Israel as part of a troika of states that won’t cooperate with Obama’s vision—in the same realm as Iran and North Korea, in a new version of the old axis of evil. Tamir attacks the George W. Bush administration as being run by neoconservatives who were more naive about the world than are Obama’s realists. He laments most Israelis’ distrust of Obama and says that Israel’s government must accommodate the U.S. president’s wishes. Most interestingly, he says that Jerusalem is making a mistake in trying to rally support among American Jews. Tamir apparently believes this approach has no chance, since most Jews voted for and still like Obama.
It should be understood that there is nothing wrong with a diplomat writing a confidential memo expressing an opinion that differs from that of his masters at home. However, when such a diplomat leaks the document in an effort to embarrass those whom his country’s voters have elected to be his superiors, then his behavior is no longer defensible.
Tamir may not be representative of Israeli public opinion, but he does sound like someone with his finger on the pulse of the liberal Jewish establishment in this country, as the Boston Globe reports today that the leaders of major Jewish organizations in New England have spoken out in support of Tamir.
While Tamir’s conduct is unusual (he is widely suspected to have leaked the document himself), it is not without precedent. At the start of Netanyahu’s first term in office in the 1990s, Colette Avital, a follower of Shimon Peres, who had just been defeated by Netanyahu, led Israel’s crucial New York consulate. Until she was finally replaced, Avital made it clear to anyone who had contact with her that her office was not there to defend her country’s government, a stance that clearly differed with her conduct when someone whom she liked better than Bibi led it.
Like Avital, Tamir seems deeply frustrated by Israeli voters’ thorough rejection of policies he supports. But like other left-wingers who hope to win by American pressure what they could not achieve at the Israeli ballot box, he sympathizes with an American administration and its Jewish apologists who seek to hammer his own government.
More important than the fate of Tamir is what this incident says about Israel’s ability to defend itself in the United States. Israel has a strong case to make, and it still resonates with the majority of Americans, including the majority of Jews who voted for Obama. But if its appointed representatives are so out of sync with the will of Israel’s voters that they identify more with their country’s American opponents than its defenders, then any efforts to explain to Americans that Israel’s stances on settlements, Jerusalem, and security issues are justified are bound to be compromised.
Why no coverage of the amazing budget House Republicans offered as an alternative to Obama’s? You know, the one with no estimates and no deficit projections, the one that even conservative reporters mocked at the press conference to introduce it?
And what was the only “idea” in it: the largest tax cut for the rich in the history of the world (and no way to pay for it). Revolutionary.
Politico:
“The leadership appeared united a press conference this afternoon, with Pence and Boehner holding copies of blue-jacketed budget outline as photographers clicked away.
“But no sooner were copies distributed, than Democrats began blasting away, gleefully pointing to its lack of specific numbers — except for a proposal to cut tax rates on people earning $100,000 from over 20 percent to 10 percent.”
What a bunch of clowns. Just when you think conservatives couldn’t be more incompetent, they fall for the president’s bait — taking the dare to come up with their own budget. Now, they’ll have to scramble to fill in details and make choices. By the time they’re off defense, Obama’s budget will be law.
Yeah Eric – -I think it can be conceded that there were flaws in the strategy to take the bait — on the other hand your band of incompetents just passed a stimulus bill that contained political poison put into it at the request of Boy Genius at Treasury. The Shadow President has been linked to Fannie May and the administration is already stonewalling. Your VP is acknowledging that the must pass stimulus isn’t having the effect that made it a must pass. Your journalistic cabal resembles a Twitter gossip group. The president is getting huffy at mildly confrontational questions at a useless primetime news conference. And your get out the 30 somethings effort mustered 10,000 volunteers out of 14 million. Maybe the rest were all too busy busy watching the NCAA tournament to see how their brackets were doing – -following the example of fearless leader. When inflation hits 18% and the economy isn’t growing people will not remember the Republicans budget. They will remember the one that passed and those that passed it.
You won’t often hear me praising the NJDC, but they did criticize the Oliphant cartoon.
http://www.njdc.org/blog/post/OliphantAntiSemiticCartoon032609
#3 — At least in the article you linked to, it does not appear that NJDC itself criticized Oliphant’s work. They simply quoted an excerpt from the ADL.
1. The next step in Organizing America is for the government to slip the potential recruits a signup bonus as “stimulus”. This is exactly the sort of pro-Obama activity the “stimulus” bill was designed to promote (on our dime).
2. No Republicans in Congress should allow themselves to sound off anymore about poor Democratic budgeting until their alternative budget plan has some real meat. Let’s not see any Geithner imitations (vagueness in lieu of a promised plan) from our side. What exactly were these guys thinking?
3. Oliphant himself is immune to normal thought, and his bosses are complicit or clueless, so his detractors ought to boycott newspapers carrying his poisonous cartoons. No muss, no fuss, just don’t buy them. Newspapers are starved for readers as it is.
The Kaus excerpt is must reading, although I have to admit it is EXACTLY the way I would envision the best and the brightest of the liberal intellectual elite having discourse among themselves. Where is the sandbox?
Jeffrey Goldberg is on fire today – about the Oliphant cartoon, and about execrable Jew-hater Michael Scheuer:
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/
On the right:
Sure they linked to the ADL article. Even if they didn’t write it themselves, it’s still a step in the right direction. They didn’t simply sit on their hands.