Israel Matzav

Left goes ballistic over Dermer

I meant to post this earlier and did not get to it.

Almost immediately after Ron Dermer was announced as Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Haaretz's Barak Ravid posted a nasty attack rehashing all the reasons why the Prime Minister didn't name Dermer ambassador several months ago.

In Washington, however, Dermer is viewed with suspicion by the Obama administration. He is identified there as a supporter of the Republican party. His family in Miami Beach have close ties with the Bush family, particularly with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, whose name has been mentioned as one of a number of possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Many Democrats also see Dermer as the brains behind Netanyahu's support for Mitt Romney. An article published in Tablet Magazine a few months before the election revealed that Dermer was the one who conceived and planned Romney's visit to Israel in July this year, along with Dan Senor, an adviser to Romney.

Romney’s visit is the brainchild of two other men: Ron Dermer, the American-born political operative who is Netanyahu’s chief strategist and speechwriter and, more importantly, Dan Senor, a Republican politico-turned-investor who is a close adviser

Dermer is also the person who tried to convince Netanyahu by any means possible that Romney was set to win the elections. With the Obama starting his second term in the White House, it may be hard for Dermer to develop a network of trusted and intimate contacts among the president's most senior advisers.

Let's assume that it's true that Dermer can't make friends in the current Washington climate (I don't accept that but let's assume that it's true).  The last time I checked, Israel's ambassador to the United States is supposed to represent Israel's interests in Washington and not the interests of the Obama administration.

Dermer's positions on policy are far more extreme than Netanyahu's. European and American officials have expressed shock by his positions on the settlement issue, on peace talks with the Palestinians, and on the principle of an independent Palestinian state.

On the way back from Netanyahu's first visit to Washington, for example, Dermer told reporters on the prime minister's plane that "the principle of two states for two peoples is a childish solution to a complicated problem." A U.S. State Department diplomatic cable that was leaked to Wikileaks revealed that Dermer is convinced that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is no partner for peace. (Click here for the original document).

I would say that at least regarding the last sentence of that blurb, most Israelis are convinced of the same thing at this point. And the fact that he said it in 2010 makes him a lot more prescient than most Israeli politicians.

Then Ravid says something that's simply mud slinging.

Dermer immigrated to Israel in 1997 at the age of 26. He did not serve in the IDF or do national service (he claims that he went to sign up, but the IDF rejected his request to enlist). Since he moved to Israel, he has mainly been involved in politics – at first as an adviser to Natan Sharansky and later as an aide to Netanyahu. For four years, from 2004 to 2008, he was not in Israel, after Netanyahu nominated him as a representative of Israel's Finance Ministry to Washington. 

I immigrated to Israel in 1991 and was slightly older than 26 at the time (please don't tell my kids). By the time I would have been called in 1994, they wouldn't take any immigrants who were over 21. And as time went, on they took less - not more - immigrants over 21 because with the massive Russian aliya of the late '80's and early '90's they simply didn't need them.

Unlike many darlings of the Left who were born in Israel and became poster children for evading the draft (Bar Refaeli, Aviv Gefen and others), Dermer didn't evade the draft. He was exempted from it. National service? It almost didn't exist back then.

Labels: Aviv Gefen, Bar Refaeli, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Mitt Romney, Ron Dermer

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:37 PM