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Are Jared and Ivanka Good for the Jews? - The New York Times

Jewish communities stand more divided than ever on whether to embrace or denounce Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

By Amy Chozick and Hannah Seligson
Nov. 17, 2018

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/style/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner.html

On election night in Beverly Hills, Jason Blum, the hot shot horror-movie producer, was accepting an award at the Israel Film Festival. The polls in a string of midterm contests were closing, and Mr. Blum, a vocal critic of President Trump, was talking about how much was at stake.

“The past two years have been hard for all of us who cherish the freedoms we enjoy as citizens of this country,” Mr. Blum said.

That’s when the crowd of mostly Jewish producers and power brokers started to chant, “We like Trump!” An Israeli man stepped onto the stage to try to pull Mr. Blum away from the microphone as the crowd at the Saban Theater Steve Tisch Cinema Center cheered.

“As you can see from this auditorium, it’s the end of civil discourse,” Mr. Blum said, as security rushed the stage to help him. “Thanks to our president, anti-Semitism is on the rise.”
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In the weeks after a gunman killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, in one of the most horrific acts of anti-Semitism in years, debates about the president’s role in stoking extremism have roiled American Jews — and forced an uncomfortable reckoning between Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and his daughter and son-in-law’s Jewish faith.
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers greets Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump near the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Credit
Doug Mills/The New York Times

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Rabbi Jeffrey Myers greets Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump near the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
Rabbis and Jewish leaders have raged on Twitter and in op-eds, in sermons and over shabbat dinners, over how to reconcile the paradox of Jared Kushner, the descendant of Holocaust survivors, and Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism to marry Mr. Kushner.

To some Jews, the couple serves as a bulwark pushing the Trump administration toward pro-Israel policies, most notably the decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To many others, they are the wolves in sheep’s clothing, allowing Mr. Trump to brush aside criticism that his words have fueled the uptick in violent attacks against Jews.

“For Jews who are deeply opposed to Donald Trump and truly believe he is an anti-Semite, it’s deeply problematic that he’s got a Jewish son-in-law and daughter. How can that be?” said Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University.
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Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump serve as senior advisers in the White House. At a time when Judaism is under assault — the F.B.I. said this week that anti-Semitic attacks have increased in each of the last three years — they are unabashedly Orthodox, observing shabbat each week, walking to an Orthodox Chabad shul near their Kalorama home in Washington, D.C., dropping their children off at Jewish day school and hanging mezuzas on the doors of their West Wing offices.

After the Pittsburgh attack, Mr. Kushner played a key role in Mr. Trump (eventually) decrying “the scourge of anti-Semitism.” And Mr. Kushner helped arrange the president’s visit to the Squirrel Hill synagogue, including inviting Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States to accompany them. There, in Pittsburgh, thousands marched to protest what one organizer described as the insult of the Mr. Trump’s visit.
Arabella Kushner lights the menorah as her parents look on during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in 2017.
Credit
Olivier Douliery/Getty Images

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Arabella Kushner lights the menorah as her parents look on during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in 2017.CreditOlivier Douliery/Getty Images
The White House has referenced Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump’s religion to dismiss accusations that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened anti-Semites. “The president is the grandfather of several Jewish grandchildren,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, told reporters.

Using the couple in this way has unnerved many Jews who oppose the president and say Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump violated the sacred, if sometimes unspoken, communal code that mandates Jews take care of each other during times of struggle. “I’m more offended by Jared than I am by President Trump,” said Eric Reimer, a lawyer in New York who was on Mr. Kushner’s trivia team at The Frisch School, a modern Orthodox yeshiva in New Jersey that they both attended.

“We, as Jews, are forced to grapple with the fact that Jared and his wife are Jewish, but Jared is participating in acts of Chillul Hashem,” said Mr. Reimer, using the Hebrew term for when a Jew behaves immorally while in the presence of others.
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For Mr. Reimer, who hasn’t spoken to Mr. Kushner since high school, one of those incidents was the administration’s Muslim ban, which prompted members of the Frisch community to sign an open letter to Mr. Kushner imploring him “to exercise the influence and access you have to annals of power to ensure others don’t suffer the same fate as millions of our co-religionists.”

Leah Pisar, president of the Aladdin Project, a Paris-based group that works to counter Holocaust denial, and whose late father, Samuel Pisar, escaped Auschwitz and advised John F. Kennedy, said she found it “inconceivable that Jared could stay affiliated with the administration after Pittsburgh” and called Mr. Kushner the president’s “fig leaf.”

Those kinds of accusations are anathema to other Jews, particularly a subset of Orthodox Jews who accused liberal Jews of politicizing the Pittsburgh attack and who say that any policies that would weaken Israel are the ultimate act of anti-Semitism.
Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in May.
Credit
Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press

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Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in May.CreditSebastian Scheiner/Associated Press
“Jared and Ivanka are one of us as traditional Jews who care deeply about Israel,” said Ronn Torossian, a New York publicist whose children attend the Ramaz School, the same Upper East Side yeshiva where Mr. Kushner’s eldest daughter Arabella was once enrolled. “I look at them as part of our extended family.”

Even some Jews who dislike Mr. Trump’s policies and recoil at his political style may feel a reluctance to criticize the country’s most prominent Orthodox Jewish couple, grappling with the age-old question that has haunted the Jewish psyche for generations: Yes, but is it good for the Jews?
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To that end, even as liberal New York Jews suggest the couple would be snubbed when they eventually return to the city, many in the Orthodox community would likely embrace them. “They certainly won’t be banned, but I don’t think most synagogues would give them an aliyah,” said Ethan Tucker, a rabbi and president of the Hadar yeshiva in New York, referring to the relatively limited honor of being called to make a blessing before and after the reading of the Torah. (Mr. Tucker is also the stepson of Joe Lieberman, the first Jewish candidate to run on a major party ticket in the U.S.) “I don’t think people generally honor people they feel were accomplices to politics and policies they abhor,” Mr. Tucker said.

Haskel Lookstein, who serves as rabbi emeritus of the Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, the modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side that Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump attended, wrote in an open letter to Mr. Trump that he was “deeply troubled” by the president saying “You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” in response to the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va.

When reached last week to comment about the president’s daughter and son-in-law days after the Pittsburgh attack, Mr. Lookstein said simply, “I love them and that’s one of the reasons I don’t talk about them.”

Talk to enough Jews about Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump, and you begin to realize that the couple has become a sort of Rorschach test, with defenders and detractors seeing what they want to see as it relates to larger rifts about Jewish identity.

“It’s not about Jared and Ivanka,” said Matthew Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “People look at them through the prism of their own worldviews.”
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From left to right on front row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara Netanyahu, Mr. Kushner, Ms. Trump, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
Credit
Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press

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From left to right on front row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara Netanyahu, Mr. Kushner, Ms. Trump, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.CreditSebastian Scheiner/Associated Press
Those worldviews are rapidly changing. One in five American Jews now describes themselves as having no religion and identifying as Jews based only on ancestry, ethnicity or culture, according to Pew. By contrast, in the 1950s, 93 percent of American Jews identified as Jews based on religion.
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As Jews retreat from membership to reform synagogues, historically made up of political liberals who were at the forefront of the fight for Civil Rights and other progressive issues, Chabad-Lubavitch, the Orthodox Hasidic group with which Mr. Kushner is affiliated, has become a rapidly-growing Jewish movement. The growth of Chabad correlates with fierce divisions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a small but growing contingent of American Jews who prioritize Israel above any other political or social issue.

Mr. Kushner, in particular, has become a sort of proxy for these larger schisms about faith and Israel, according to Jewish experts. “There is a great deal of anxiety around the coming of the Orthodox,” said Dr. Sarna, the Brandeis professor. “Jared in every way — his Orthodoxy, his Chabad ties, his views on Israel — symbolizes those changes.”

Mr. Kushner is the scion of wealthy real-estate developers and his family has donated millions of dollars to the Jewish community, including through a foundation that gives to settlements in the West Bank. Mr. Kushner influenced the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy, to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and to shutter a Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a better supporter of Israel than Donald Trump and Jared plays a role in that,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. Mr. Kushner is currently working on a Middle East peace plan expected to be rolled out in the coming months.

Haim Saban, an entertainment magnate and pro-Israel Democrat, is optimistic about Mr. Kushner’s efforts. He said in an interview from his hotel in Israel that although he disagrees with some of Mr. Trump’s policies, “Jared and by extension the president understand the importance of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel on multiple levels — security, intelligence, but most of all, shared values.”
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That embrace has only exacerbated tensions with secular Jews who overwhelmingly vote Democratic and oppose Mr. Trump. According to a 2018 survey by the American Jewish Committee, 41 percent of Jews said they strongly disagree with Mr. Trump’s handling of U.S.-Israeli relations and 71 percent had an overall unfavorable opinion of Mr. Trump. (In response to questions for this story, a White House press aide referred reporters to an Ami magazine poll of 263 Orthodox Jews in the tristate area published in August. Eighty-two percent said they would vote for President Trump in 2020.)

“To wave a flag and say ‘Oh, he’s obviously pro-Jewish because he moved the embassy’ just absolutely ignores what we know to be a deeply alarming rise of anti-Semitism and all sorts of dog-whistling and enabling of the alt-right,” said Andy Bachman, a prominent progressive rabbi in New York.
President Trump praying at the Western Wall.
Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

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President Trump praying at the Western Wall.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times
In September, Mr. Kushner and his top advisers, Jason D. Greenblatt and Avi Berkowitz, hosted a private dinner at the Pierre Hotel on the Upper East Side. Over a kosher meal, Mr. Kushner, aware of concerns within the Jewish community that Israel policy had become an overly partisan issue, fielded the advice of a range of Jewish leaders, including hedge-fund billionaire and Republican donor Paul Singer and Mr. Saban, to craft his Middle East peace plan. “He called and said ’I’ll bring 10 Republicans and you bring 10 Democrats,’” Mr. Saban said.

The undertaking will only bring more kvetching about Mr. Kushner. Indeed, some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent Jewish supporters have already expressed their displeasure at any deal that would require Israel to give up land.

“I’m not happy with Jared promoting a peace deal that’s sending a message that we’re ready to ignore the horrors of the Palestinian regime,” said Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America and a friend of Republican megadonor Sheldon G. Adelson.

“But …” Mr. Klein added, as if self-aware of how other Jews will view his position, “I am a fanatical, pro-Israel Zionist.”
Amy Chozick is a New York-based writer-at-large and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, writing about the personalities and power struggles in business, politics and media.

Des mails fuités révèlent une offensive émiratie contre l’Iran, le Qatar, et le Hamas, et en faveur de Mohamad Ben Salmane – Site de la chaîne AlManar-Liban
▻http://french.almanar.com.lb/434696

En parallèle à la crise qui a éclaté entre les monarchies du Golfe, a éclaté l’affaire des emails de l’ambassadeur des Emirats arabes unis (EAU) aux Etats-Unis. Elle révèle les manœuvres réalisées par ce petit émirat, dans le sillage de la politique saoudienne, pour obtenir les faveurs de Washington. Tout y passe : l’Iran, le Qatar, le Hamas, Al-Jazeera et le vice-prince héritier saoudien Mohamad Ben Salmane. Et même le Mondial 2022 prévu au Qatar…

(...) Contre l’Iran

Ambassadeur depuis 2008, M. Al-Otaiba est perçu comme « l’homme le plus charmant de Washington » selon le Huffington Post. Il est aussi connu pour ses liens étroits avec les milieux pro israéliens et plus précisément avec l’ambassadeur israélien Ron Dermer.

Ce lobbying le diplomate émirati l’a mené en concertation avec la Fondation pour la défense des démocrates (FDD). Ce mouvement américain pro-israélien est financé par le milliardaire Sheldon Adelson, un allié du premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahu selon The Intercept.
Au cœur des discussions entre Al-Otaiba et le FDD : les pressions à exercer sur les grandes entreprises pour éviter les échanges économiques avec l’Iran.
Les fuites prouvent que Youssef Al Otaiba a échangé avec le PDG de la FDD, Mark Dubowitz, le 10 mars 2017, à propos d’une liste d’entreprises à viser pour qu’elles fassent le choix entre faire du commerce avec l’Iran ou les EAU.
La liste contient un grand nombre d’entreprises internationales majeures comme Airbus ou le Russe Lukoil, selon The Intercept.

Un agenda a aussi fuité dans les mails. Serait alors prévue une discussion « possible » entre les politiques américains et émiratis pour « impacter positivement la situation interne de l’Iran ». Une façon de « contenir et vaincre l’agression iranienne », selon les informations obtenues par The Intercept.

Contre le Qatar, avec les Israéliens

John Hannah, un responsable du FDD et l’ambassadeur émirati aux Etats-Unis échangent très régulièrement. « Durant la dernière année, les deux hommes ont voulu soumettre le futur des relations entre les Etats-Unis et le Qatar au débat », écrit le Huffington Post qui explique que le Qatar est perçu comme le pays faisant la promotion d’un islam extrémiste voulant imposer la charia. D’un côté, Israël s’inquiète du soutien qatari au Hamas, de l’autre, une guerre est menée entre les EAU et le Qatar pour savoir qui aura plus d’influence sur les États-Unis. Les pro-Israéliens et Émiratis s’allient alors pour se lancer dans un lobby anti-qatari à Washington D.C.

Al-Jazeera et le Hamas
Un prisme des emails qui a été largement repris par Al Jazeera (détenu par l’Etat du Qatar) qui angle sur le rôle joué par l’ambassadeur émirati dans la campagne pour ternir l’image du Qatar. En effet, les mails dévoilent un agenda qui inclut des discussions autour de : « Al Jazeera, un instrument de l’instabilité de la région ».

Dans un autre échange, daté d’avril 2017, John Hannah se plaint à M. Al-Otaiba du fait que le Qatar héberge une réunion du Hamas dans un hôtel appartenant à un Emirati. L’ambassadeur répond que ce n’est pas la faute du gouvernement émirati et propose un accord au FDD : « Faisons comme ça : vous déplacez la base militaire, après nous déplacerons l’hôtel ». En allusion à la base militaire américaine située au Qatar que les Emirats souhaitent héberger à la place des Qataris.

Autre sujet de ces emails : l’organisation de la coupe du monde de football en l’an 2022 au Qatar, manifestement raillé par l’ambassadeur émirati qui a accusé aussi la Fifa que Doha de corruption.

Pour Ben Salmane, contre Ben Nayef

Les emails du diplomate émirati montrent aussi que les EAU soutiennent l’accès au pouvoir du vice-prince héritier saoudien Mohammad Ben Salmane, au détriment du prince héritier actuel Mohammad Ben Nayef.

Dans ce qui semble être un accord dans le cadre de l’organisation d’une campagne médiatique, un email adressé au chroniqueur du Washington Post, David Ignatius révèle très bien cette tendance : « Je crois que nous sommes tous d’accord sur le changement en Arabie saoudite. Je suis satisfait du fait que vous avez commencé à rallier notre vision. Votre voix et votre crédibilité seront décisifs pour la persuasion… notre besogne maintenant consiste à faire tout notre possible pour s’assurer que Mohammad Ben Salmane succèdera à son père », lit-on dans ce message électronique, apparemment rédigé après une rencontre entre le journaliste américain et le vice-prince héritier saoudien.

Une conclusion découle de ces messageries électroniques : Toutes les décisions régionales prises par les dirigeants des Etats du Golfe passent nécessairement par Washington.

#nuit_torride

Netanyahu expects to reach deal with U.S. on restrained settlement construction -

’There’s no blank check from Trump for construction in the settlements and that was known from the first minute he entered the White House,’ says Israeli official.

Barak Ravid Mar 15, 2017
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.777320

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects to reach understandings with the United States within a few weeks on curbing construction in the settlements, according to an Israeli official.
Although the understandings with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration are likely to include Israeli willingness to impose significant restrictions on construction in West Bank settlements, the Prime Minister’s Bureau believes that this will not weaken the coalition.
“There’s no blank check from Trump for construction in the settlements and that was known from the first minute he entered the White House,” said the official, who is involved in contacts between Israel and the United States on the subject. “We are looking for the common denominator with the Americans that will allow construction on the one hand, and on the other promote with the Trump administration diplomatic moves in many areas.”

Israeli-U.S. negotiations on restraining settlements.
Netanyahu met on Monday evening for more than five hours with American envoy Jason Greenblatt. Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, was present for most of the meeting and the most significant part of the conversation dealt with the attempt to formulate understandings on construction in the settlements.
Netanyahu and Greenblatt are expected to meet again this week before the envoy leaves the country.
Speaking at a Tuesday press conference at his office, Netanyahu described his conversations with Greenblatt as “good and thorough.” Netanyahu added: “I can’t say that we finished or summed things up; we are in a process, but a process of true and sincere dialogue in the positive meaning of the word. It is not yet open to the press.”

#colonies #Israël #Palestine #Etats-Unis

Suddenly it’s okay to be pro-Israel and anti-Semitic
When friendship for Israel is judged solely on the basis of support for the occupation, Israel has no friends other than racists and nationalists.
By Gideon Levy | Nov. 20, 2016 | 4:25 AM
►http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.754073

All of a sudden it’s not so terrible to be anti-Semitic. Suddenly it’s excusable as long as you hate Muslims and Arabs and “love Israel.” The Jewish and Israeli right has issued a sweeping amnesty to anti-Semitic lovers of Israel – yes, there is such a thing, and they’re en route to taking power in the United States.

So now we know: Not just pornography but also anti-Semitism is a matter of geography and price. Right-wing American anti-Semites are no longer considered anti-Semites.

The definition has been updated: From now on, anti-Semites are only found on the left. Roger Waters, a courageous man of conscience without stain, is an anti-Semite. Steve Bannon, a declared racist and closet anti-Semite who has been appointed chief strategist in the Trump White House, is a friend of Israel.

Jewish and Israeli activists who left no stone unturned in their effort to discover signs of anti-Semitism, who viewed every parking ticket for an American Jew as an act of hate, who moved heaven and earth every time a Jew was robbed or a Jewish gravestone was cracked, are now whitewashing an anti-Semite. Suddenly they’re not convinced we’re talking about that particular disease.

Alan Dershowitz, one of the biggest propagandists in this field, has already come out in defense of the racist Bannon. In a Haaretz piece late last week, Dershowitz wrote that the man whose wife said he didn’t want their children to go to school with Jews isn’t anti-Semitic. “The claim was simply made by his former wife in a judicial proceeding, thus giving it no special weight,” Dershowitz wrote, with specious logic.

After all, Dershowitz’s former research assistant, an Orthodox Jew who later worked with Bannon, assured him that he had seen no signs of anti-Semitism in Bannon. And suddenly that’s enough for Dershowitz. Suddenly it’s possible to separate racism from anti-Semitism.

Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, naturally hastened to join the party. Over the weekend, he said he expects to work with Bannon. And boy, does he expect to work with that racist. After all, they’ll agree about everything: that there’s no Palestinian people, that there’s no occupation, that the settlement of Yitzhar should remain forever, that leftists are traitors.

For Dermer – ambassador of the illegal outpost of Amona, friend of the Tea Party and boycotter of J Street; a man who if the bilateral relationship had been normal would have been declared persona non grata by the United States – the new appointments are like the dawn of a new day.

He’ll feel so at home with Frank Gaffney, another hater of Muslims who’s likely to receive a senior appointment in the new administration; he’ll be so happy working with Bannon. And Mike Huckabee is exactly his cup of tea. Dermer, after all, was given the Freedom Flame Award by the Center for Security Policy, a hate group that proudly flies the flag of Islamophobia.

These racists and their ilk are Israel’s best friends in the United States. They’re joined by the racists of the European right. If you discount the guilt feelings over the Holocaust, they’re the only friends Israel has left. When friendship for Israel is judged solely on the basis of support for the occupation, Israel has no friends other than racists and nationalists. That ought to have aroused great shame here: Tell us who your friends are and we’ll tell you who you are.

These racists love Israel because it’s carrying out their dreams: to oppress Arabs, to abuse Muslims, to dispossess them, expel them, kill them, demolish their houses, trample their honor. This bunch of trash would so dearly love to behave as we do.

But for now this is only possible in Israel, so it’s the light unto the nations in this field. What happened to the days when Jews in South Africa went to prison with Nelson Mandela? Nowadays Jewish activists in America support the new rulers – the racists and anti-Semites.

The Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa wrote on Facebook over the weekend: Palestinians are calling white nationalist Bannon an anti-Semite, while AIPAC and Dershowitz think he’s not such a bad guy. What more proof do you need that Zionism is a face of white supremacy, and ultimately antithetical to Judaism?

Last summer, Abulhawa was deported via the Allenby Bridge. And she’s right. The United States and Israel now share the same values – and woe to that sense of shame.

Ambassador Dermer cut off from Obama’s staff, White House entry logs show - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.651770

The extent of the disconnect between Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer and the powers-that-be in Washington has been highlighted by new data released by the Obama administration.

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.651824.1429054750!/image/2059582565.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_640/2059582565.jpg

Examination of the registry that details the one million entry permits issued to the White House over the last 18 months shows that Dermer had precious few meetings with President Barack Obama’s advisers in 2014.

The data do reveal other interesting Israeli visitors, however, such as Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair, opposition leader Isaac Herzog, retired politician Ehud Barak, TV Channel 2 anchorwoman Yonit Levy, and others.

The registry was published on March 27 by the White House, and included visits to the presidential compound and the adjacent building housing the National Security Council.

The listings constitute a database meant to be used by the White House itself, but since 2012 they have been disclosed to the public following a petition by a nongovernment group of citizens who have resolved to safeguard the ethics of governance – particularly with regard to ties between business and politics.

The registry is incomplete, however, inasmuch as it does not include secret meetings with administration officials that were held elsewhere. The list also excludes meetings removed from the registry due to their sensitive diplomatic or security nature. Furthermore, as in any government bureaucracy, in this case lack of organization and of adherence to procedures likely exist in the White House as well.

Nevertheless, the registry provides an interesting perspective on Israel-U.S. relations, which became tenser than ever in the course of 2014.

Miami-born Ron Dermer started serving as Israel’s envoy to Washington in December 2013. For years prior to that, he had been a senior adviser to Netanyahu, eventually becoming one of his closest associates. Dermer immigrated to Israel at the age of 26.

During his years in the Prime Minister’s Bureau, Dermer was a red flag, in the eyes of the administration, due to his close ties to senior Republican politicians. Recently, he became, de facto, persona non grata at the White House, for his part in organizing Netanyahu’s March 3 speech before the joint session of the Congress.

Ever since he assumed his ambassadorial role, administration officials treated him according to the principle of treat your guest with respect, but be wary. In March 2014, Israeli journalist Chico Menashe reported on Israel Radio that National Security Advisor Susan Rice was refusing to meet the ambassador. Several similar reports appeared in the following months. For a long time, the administration and Netanyahu’s bureau attempted to deny or downplay the severity of this situation.

However, looking at the new data concerning visits to the White House, one sees that Dermer has almost no ties with Obama’s senior advisers. From December 3, 2013, to the end of 2014, he visited the White House only 11 times. On only one of these occasions, on June 25, 2014, was there a business meeting with Obama’s senior Middle Eastern affairs adviser Philip Gordon.

Four other visits by Dermer coincided with visits by Netanyahu to the White House, and the rest included the presentation of his credentials and attendance at functions or receptions that included multiple guests.

The absence of an ongoing relationship between the ambassador and the president’s advisers stands out when compared to the number of visits held by his No. 2 man, Reuven Azar, deputy chief of mission to the Israeli Embassy, since assuming his job in the middle of last year. Between July and December of 2014, Azar entered the White House 10 times, eight times for business meetings with Obama’s or Vice President Joe Biden’s senior staffers. The purpose of two other meetings was unclear, based on the published information.

Even though the deputy head of mission has held several meetings with senior National Security Council staff at the White House, the new data show that very few meetings took place between any official representative of the Israeli government and senior advisers belonging to Obama’s inner circle – such as National Security Adviser Rice; her deputy, Ben Rhodes; or chief-of-staff Denis McDonough.

Left-wingers welcome

Indeed, the registry information shows that the only senior Israeli official who met Rice during the whole of 2014 was her counterpart in Jerusalem, the prime minister’s national security adviser, Yossi Cohen. Apparently there were two such encounters, in addition to three visits as part of Netanyahu’s entourage during meetings with President Obama.

Another senior Israeli who managed to meet a member of Obama’s inner circle during the period in question was opposition leader Isaac Herzog. On September 9, 2014, he met the White House chief-of-staff McDonough for just over an hour.

The registry of entries records a few more Israelis who came to the White House during that year: On March 3, 2014 at 7:05 P.M., several hours after a meeting between Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, his son Yair entered the White House. The stated objective of the visit was to tour the grounds. His guide was Zaid Hassan, from the White House’s public relations department. After two and a half hours, he left the premises.

On May 7, 2014 at 3 P.M., former Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak entered the White House. No longer in office for some time, he met with Vice President Biden for almost an hour.

On December 5, 2014 at 12:27 P.M., Israel TV Channel 2’s anchorwoman Yonit Levy came to see one of Obama’s inner-circle members, deputy NSC director Rhodes. Their meeting lasted for just over an hour.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman appears on the list only once: On December 5, 2013, he attended a reception given by President Obama and his wife Michelle, which was attended by many people. Lieberman was in Washington at the time while attending the Saban Forum conference.

On November 25, 2014, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi came to the White House to meet senior Middle Eastern affairs adviser Philip Gordon.

Another Israeli visitor to the White House was Israel Defense Forces Gen. (ret.) Amos Gilad, head of the political-defense wing of the Defense Ministry. In October 2014 he met with Vice President Biden’s National Security Adviser Colin Kahl, and with the senior director for the Levant, Israel and Egypt at the NSC, Yael Lampert.

Moreover, the newly published records show that between May 2012 and August 2013, Gilad met with the president’s special assistant for Russia and Central Asian affairs at the White House, Alice Wells. It is unclear what the background for these meetings was.

Looking into the records of the entry permits reveals that several heads of leftist Israeli not-for-profit groups also visited the White House during 2014. At the end of October there was a visit by the head of the Geneva Initiative group, Gadi Baltiansky, followed the next day by a visit by the head of Friends of the Earth Gidon Bromberg. They met separately with Maher Bitar, director of Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the White House.

On December 2, left-wing activist Danny Zeidman, whose main interest is problems related to Jerusalem, met with adviser Gordon. On December 9, attorney Michael Sfard from the Yesh Din human rights group, met NSC Mideast adviser Lempert.

J Street’s Ben-Ami tells Netanyahu: You don’t speak for us - Jewish World News - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.648176

Ben-Ami, for his part, delivered a fiery address to an appreciative audience, telling the prime minister: "We say to Netanyahu, who claims to speak for all the Jews of the world - you do not speak for us.” He said that J Street is not only feeling disappointment at the election results - “It’s anger and it’s pain that we’re feeling at having watched the Prime Minister of Israel use fear mongering and scare tactics tinged with racism to claw his way to 23 per cent of the vote.”

Ben-Ami also blasted Netanyahu, Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer and House Speaker John Boehner for the “partisan gamesmanship” that enabled Netanyahu’s speech to Congress – and damaged U.S.-Israeli relations, according to Ben Ami.

Ben-Ami told his audience “being pro-Israel doesn’t mean you have to be anti-Palestinian.” He said that J Street would urge U.S. leaders to declare the settlements illegal, to publish a set of parameters for a two-state solution and to support a United Nations Security Council resolution that would provide guidelines for reaching a final settlement.

Jacobs, for his part, blasted the Jewish establishment’s rejection of J Street, saying that he was “stunned at the vituperative criticism of some who seem to imply that the greatest threat facing Israel and the Jewish people is not Iran, Hamas, or Hezbollah’s missiles but rather this pro-peace, pro-Israel group known as J Street.”

Ron Dermer : l’armée israélienne mérite le prix Nobel de la paix pour sa retenue
▻http://fr.timesofisrael.com/ron-dermer-larmee-israelienne-merite-le-prix-nobel-de-la-paix-pour

« Certains accusent #Israël #sans_vergogne de génocide et nous chargent d’avoir commis des crimes de guerre », a déclaré Dermer. « Mais la vérité c’est que les forces de défense israéliennes devraient avoir le prix Nobel de la paix… un prix #Nobel de la #paix pour se battre avec une retenue inimaginable ».

#chutzpah

Michael Oren joins CNN as Middle East commentator

And he will be, of course, “balanced”
Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.569021

Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, has joined CNN as a commentator on the Middle East, JTA reported Thursday, quoting the news channel. 

The U.S.-born Oren, who handed over his ambassadorial post in September to Ron Dermer, was very popular with American Jewish groups during his four-year stint in Washington. Before that, he wrote two best-selling books of history - “Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East,” and “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.”

Israel’s new envoy to US “more extreme than Netanyahu”
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israels-new-envoy-us-more-extreme-netanyahu

http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/5cols/leading_images/771807-01-08.jpg

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named as Israel’s new ambassador to Washington Tuesday an extreme nationalist with close ties to the US Republican Party.

Ron Dermer, who already served a stint in Washington as economic attache from 2005 to 2008, is on the record opposing the creation of a Palestinian state.

According to US diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks, he is also convinced that the western-backed Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is not a partner for peace.