Sunday, May 03, 2009
Israel's new ambassador
Benjamin Netanyahu has selected a learned man, historian Michel Oren, as Israel's next ambassador to the United States. It is a shrewd choice, because Oren is uniquely qualified to argue the case for Israel and the justice of its claims to the people of the United States. Journalists and academics who have made sport out of demonizing Israel and the "Jewish lobby" will have a harder time of it with Oren as point man, because many of them have previously praised his academic accomplishments. His history of the '67 war, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun May 03, 09:55:00 AM:
What, if any, are Oren's ties to either of the Clintons?
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Sun May 03, 12:10:00 PM:
I'm guessing that he's the same Oren who wrote Power, Faith, and Fantasy. It's a history of American involvement in the Middle East, from 1776.
By Gary Rosen, at
Mon May 04, 01:33:00 AM:
Anonymous 9:55,
What, if any, are your ties to John Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy?
By Georg Felis, at
Mon May 04, 08:22:00 AM:
If Israel sends a qualified ambassador, won't that make the rest of Washington look bad?
By John, at
Mon May 04, 02:59:00 PM:
I've watched some videos of him speaking, and he seems to be a firm, well-centered person, and may or may not play directly in the face of the Obama's administration's plans for the Middle East. By that I mean, I'm pretty sure he will. :)
By Ray, at
Tue May 05, 12:01:00 AM:
It's surprisingly common for other countries to send their best and brightest to Washington. Israel's DCM during at least part of the Reagan presidency? Future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It's been more than a generation since something similar has happened in American politics -- George Bush the Elder was America's first chief representative in Communist Beijing, and he was a rather singular case -- one would have to go very far back to find another president with experience as a diplomatic envoy before achieving high political office. Probably to Ike, I think.
