As they return to Israel, according to a story in Yediot Achronot, diplomats and their families who escaped the siege against the Israeli embassy in Cairo last week are washing their dirty laundry in public concerning their displeasure with their treatment by the foreign ministry: “While the riots raged in Cairo, Jerusalem abandoned us.” They are claiming that they were ignored when they earlier warned about the possibility of a mass takeover of the embassy and that if they’d been listened to, they could’ve managed an orderly closing of the embassy instead of the dangerous military operation that eventually was necessary to extract them from Egypt. They also complain that the MFA treated them dismissively compared to how the Mossad treated its personnel in the embassy. Further, they claim the ambassador, during the rioting, tended only to his own needs and ignored those of his staff.
Some of the complaints sound petulant and petty. For example, there is carping that the Mossad personnel were met at the airport by individual limousines which took each to his or her home, while the diplomatic staff had to make due with a bus that waited for them. There is a bit of justice here: the diplomats were quite upset that they left Cairo with nothing but the clothes on their backs and that all their personal property remained in Cairo (which they never expected to see again). Do I hear echoes of the way Israel treated the Mavi Marmara passengers? All the embassy personnel were given to tide them over was a $100 check to buy basic necessities when they returned.
By the way, this is the first admission by any Israeli media that there were Mossad agents in the embassy during the takeover. In the blog post I wrote earlier, when I discussed the papers which were thrown out of the building by protesters, I imagined the possibility that in their haste personnel might’ve left secret intelligence materials unsecured. It would be interesting to know whether any secrets were compromised during the takeover.
The diplomats at the Foreign Ministry are not happy under the heavy handed leadership of Avigdor Liberman who uses the ministry crudely as a platform to further his own political ends.
The reports from disgruntled diplomats are yet another sign of a malaise and that Israel is out of step and not prepared for what lies ahead.
Let’s hope that the landing is not too bumpy and that those who should stand up to protect the core values of Israel do so.
Let the Palestinians have their state even if they use it as a springboard for further demands
and refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Israel is not about repressing any other nation,Israel is about a safe homeland for Jews.
I can drink to that, though Israel should be a safe homeland for its Palestinian citizens as well.
Yes, correction;a safe homeland for its Palestinian citizens as well.
What core values are you talking about? Land theft? Ethnic cleansing? Racism? False flag operations? Extraordinary rendition? Vigilantism? Let’s talk about core values – not the ones it claims it has but the ones that it displays by its actions.
It’s almost as if SOME of the slogans of early days are recalled, nostalgically, as “core values”, whereas other slogans and especially the rarely spoken-out-loud ones are thought of (by some) as not-so-core-values.
“Home for all Jews who desire to come” OR “refuge” (not the same thing at all!) seem “core” to some people who may, perhaps, deny that “expulsion of Arabs” was necessary to effect this “core value”.
“A land without a people” seems to me, an anti-Zionist after all, as a VERY “core value” which asserted the lie that there were no people in Palestine (or that there were no people with rightful possession of the land). The EXPULSION of 1948 and the slow-but-steady EXCRUCIATING PRESSURE in the West Bank since 1967 are both attempts, in a sense, to make this bitter slogan “come true”.
The two-state idea cannot come true unless the Zionists agree to limit their desire for a substantially Arab-free territory to pre-1967 Israel. There is little sign of Israeli (or world Jewish) enthusiasm for this idea, what with all the OTHER SLOGANS (ASSERTED TO BE CORE VALUES) such as “undivided Jerusalem”.
“A land without a people for a people without land”
or
“The bride is beautiful but is married to another man”?
– That was the question.
A rhetorical question, of course, as everyone knew too well which was the truth and which was a fairy tale.
And the answer was:
“If you want, it is no fairy tale!”.
And they wanted very hard.
And so came ’48.
And the marriage was annulled as the land got emptied for the “people without land”.
Some call it antisemitism, some call it a sat truth.