Israel Matzav

Our anti-Israel diplomatic corps

Evelyn Gordon has a spot-on comment about Israel's diplomatic corps.

Matthew’s critique of Israel’s latest PR fad is spot-on: No campaign can succeed without addressing the fundamental issue of the Jews’ “right to self-determination in their homeland.” But there’s one simple thing both Israel and Jewish organizations could do to improve the situation: stop appointing official representatives who actively promote the anti-Israel case. Consider two examples: former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev, and Zoe Jick, New York regional director for the World Zionist Organization’s Department of Diaspora Activities.

Read the whole thing.

As I have pointed out in the past, a major part of the problem with our diplomatic corps is that most of the appointees are foreign ministry employees, who are appointed based upon seniority and not based upon qualifications or willingness to support government positions. The foreign ministry was in the Left's control for years - even during so-called Right wing governments, the foreign ministry was under the likes of Tzipi Livni, Sylvan Shalom and David Levy - all of whom are far to the Left of the current government - let alone the years that the ministry was under the likes of Shimon Peres and Shlomo Ben Ami. The result is that Israel's diplomatic corps is full of people who are unwilling to defend the positions of the current government. Until that changes, we will continue to have appointees like Shalev and Jick, or like Nadav Tamir (pictured above - follow the last link).

Labels: Israel's Foreign Ministry

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:45 AM