Sol Salbe sent me this funny cartoon about the imagined fate of Israeli consul general (Boston) Nadav Tamir, who wrote a leaked memo to the foreign ministry complaining that Netanyahu government provocations were driving a deep wedge between Israel and the U.S. If you imagine Lieberman offering Tamir a down jacket, snow boots, gloves and ski goggles, then it becomes even funnier.
As I wrote yesterday, Lieberman has already publicly asked for Tamir’s resignation so Tamir may not be long for the diplomatic corps. I have no doubt though that such an honest man can find honest work in another field (though I hope, as a major in the IDF, it isn’t in the Israeli military defense contracting business).
Prof. David Newman of Ben Gurion Univ. has published a terrific column in the Jerusalem Post (!) defending Tamir and laying out the salient policy issues:
The fact that Israel only continues to portray itself as the weak and threatened country, subject to continuous terror attacks and, more recently, a potential nuclear attack from Iran just doesn’t sell well when, at one and the same time, the government continues to undertake policies which negate many basic international standards of human rights for Palestinian civilians who are subject to its control.
Were Israel, as the strong power, to make real meaningful concessions on the issue of Palestinian statehood, the world would much more readily accept the very real security threats that the country faces and it would not be so antagonistic. But recent policies and statements by our leaders have sent a very different message to the world, and it is now our supporters and allies, not our enemies, who are criticizing us.
WHY SHOULD we be surprised when a worried diplomat sends a private letter back to his superiors in Jerusalem informing them of the damage being inflicted each and every time Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman or Uzi Arad are interviewed or make public statements?
…No diplomat has a problem with representing Israel’s legitimate right to security and its right to defend itself against terror…But when the government undertakes dubious policies which harms Israel’s reputation even among its allies, it is not only legitimate, but the clear duty of the diplomat to warn his/her government of the damage which is being done to Israel’s cause.
Amazing.
A US consul to Israel who sides with Israeli policies is a diplomat who suffers from “clientitis”.
An Israeli consul to the US who sides with US policies is an “honest” diplomat.
Michael Oren is a shameless intellectual sycophant & doer of Bibi’s bidding. Nadav Tamir is a courageous individual who does what a good diplomat should do.
How much do you know about diplomacy anyway? Where does yr special expertise come from?
I might not know about diplomacy, but I know a heckofalot about nepotism, “protektzionerism”, and incompetence when I see it.
Nadav Tamir is no other than Yuli Tamir’s first cousin. Yuli was a founder of Shalom Akhshav and the former “education” minister -What bothers me are not his views – that was expected- but his reliance on self-serving surveys written, conducted and published by the same body – then passing them off as true facts.
Now I might not agree with Michael Oren, but no one can doubt that he has EARNED his position.
I have no idea what “survey” you’re referring to. Yuli Tamir now has nothing to do with Peace Now. That group’s reports are unassailable in their accuracy & thoroughness. I’d be interested to hear you debunk or dispute anything in any Peace Now rpt. on settlements.
Nadav Tamir is a major in the IDF and has been a career diplomat for decades (long before his cousin was a minister). You’re implying that Oren “earned” his post while Tamir’s cousin didn’t? You should be ashamed. Oren has never held a diplomatic post in his life & served no prior senior role in the foreign ministry (I think earlier in his career he may’ve been the equivalent of a file clerk somewhere if memory serves). He was however a PR flack for the IDF during the Gaza war & wrote articles extolling it for western media w/o revealing to his readers or editors that he was serving in the IDF in the role of promoting the war.
So much for “earning” anything. Oren is a shill. Nothing more, nothing less.
And btw, do tell us which website or source informed you Tamir was Yuli Tamirs’ cousin. It wouldn’t be Settler Media Arutz Sheva or the like now would it??
In a country full of unemployed PhDs, people wonder how someone with just a BA went from being a security guard at the President’s house to advising in the Foreign Ministry (only later did he get his MA degree).
With the kind of resources he has at his disposal, he should have at least researched the credibility of the agency polling the Jewish community for J Street (before you ask, see Noah Pollak, “Poll me once, poll me twice” – pretty damning in my view) before he passed off its findings as facts.
The Foreign Ministry is kinder than I am, Tamir’s cousin went back to Boston.
Whether he is Yuli Tamir’s cousin is factual knowledge in Israel but I know it was mentioned on the 12th in a Yediot Aharonot article and was also discussed on Reshet bet, who mentioned Yuli Tamir’s reaction saying that “Nadav’s ideas are his own”. She didn’t deny being his cousin.
Regarding Peace now, to be frank, I wouldn’t know what to rebuke or not to rebuke, they pretty much seem to have been supplanted by the Obama administration these days.
You come here spouting COMMENTARY & expect to be taken seriously????!!! Silvia, please. YOu can do better, can’t you? CAN’T YOU? If not, you might as well just slink back into yr right-wing Jewish world–you’ll certainly not learn anything here. No one at this site takes that shmate seriously. And I’ve unfortunately actually read some of the articles so I know whereof I speak.
The guy is a Major in the IDF and you claim he was a “security guard?” Surely you’re joking. And is it your claim that people with B.A.’s don’t have the qualifications to be consul general in Boston? Gee, I guess the foreign ministry, which appointed him, must have laxer standards than yours. What a pity you can’t be foreign minister yrself & tighten up the ship.
And are you claiming that Tamir relied on the findings of Jim Gerstein’s poll for J Street to determine that American Jews support a settlement freeze? If so, can you indicate where Tamir actually said that? You don’t even need Gerstein’s poll to validate the truth of the statement that American Jews support a settlement freeze. It’s self-evident though I hope this yr. the AJC will add such a question to their annual poll in order to confirm what everyone but you, Mort Klein, Abe Foxman, Howard Kohr, Shelly Adelson & Norman Podhoretz seems to know.
Noah Pollak and Shmuel Rosner did about as much damage to the credibility of the J St. poll as Daniel Pipes did to Barack Obama’s credibility in claiming he was a Muslim apostate during the election campaign.
Looks like you can’t discern the difference between pandering to a foreign government, and honest criticism of one’s own government.
RE: “Lieberman has already publicly asked for Tamir’s resignation”
MY COMMENT: Why can’t Israeli consul Tamir learn to follow Netanyahu’s orders as well as Steny Hoyer follows them?
SEE – “Hoyer: E. J’lem not same as W. Bank”, Jerusalem Post, 08/11/09
(EXCERPT) US House Majority leader Steny Hoyer praised Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, called for the Palestinian Authority to drop any preconditions to negotiations, and said that Congress differentiated between building in east Jerusalem and in the West Bank, during an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Hoyer, currently in the country leading a delegation of 29 Democratic legislators, also said the rhetoric coming out of the Fatah General Assembly in Bethlehem was “unfortunate.”
The delegation, sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, arrived on Sunday evening and met Monday with President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and US security coordinator Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton…..
ENTIRE “JERUSALEM POST” ARTICLE –
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418573121&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull