diplomacy

An unwelcome precedent

An Israeli cabinet minister visited Canada recently and, with due respect, some of our journalistic colleagues buried the lede.

In journo parlance, the “lede” is the most important and, therefore, first item mentioned in a conventional news story. To “bury the lede” is to (intentionally or unintentionally) downplay the most important thing that happened by talking about other things first.

This was the case when Amichai Chikli, Israel’s new minister for Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, visited Canada recently. Some of our colleagues reported on Chikli’s condemnations of Canada’s government for not following some other countries in moving our embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and commended the Conservative party for “unwavering support for Israel and Jerusalem.” The minister’s abandonment of international diplomatic protocols appeared lower in the coverage.

It seems to us that there is a bigger story than an Israeli pol backslapping overseas allies and criticizing the government in power – although that is not unrelated from the bigger problem here. The main thing – the lede, as it were – is that an Israeli government minister came to Canada, sidestepped conventional protocols around meeting with commensurate-level officials, hung out instead with an ad hoc group of mostly opposition members of Parliament, spoke to an evangelical Christian audience and then scooted back to the Middle East.

Canada and Israel have deep, historic bilateral bonds. The Jewish community in Canada is tied to Israel emotionally, spiritually and familially. There have been diplomatic disagreements between our governments – and, indeed, there are some very basic divergences right now between Canadian Jews and what is happening in the Jewish state – but there are ways that things are done. And there are ways that things are just not done.

For four years, what many people view as the highest political office in the world was held by a man who betrayed every diplomatic nicety and convention imaginable. It may be that, among the countless ways the former U.S. president’s smashing of standards has lowered the collective bar, an Israeli politician sees it as acceptable to barge into Canada and behave as though he is a free agent rather than an official representative of the Israeli people. Canadians should not see it as acceptable. Canadian Jews should be particularly concerned.

An elected official who is not a member of a cabinet is free to travel to foreign lands and meet with ideological cohorts. A member of the government is expected to represent his (or her) country, not their own narrow interests.

The Canadian group that hosted Chikli – a new entity called the Israel Allies Caucus – is also to blame. Apparently operating outside the more formalized parameters of the longstanding official Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group, the new body appears to be made up of evangelical Christians and political conservatives, and it is abandoning protocols in favour of its own agenda. This should be particularly concerning to Canadian Jews who care about our country’s relations with Israel, as well as being overshadowed by groups that may not represent our interests.

Presumably, the new group views Canada’s official approach to Israel as not the right kind of support – but the specifics of government policy are not the biggest issue here.

Let us not forget that there are activists in Canada who recently tried to prevent former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett from entering Canada, accusing him of being a “war criminal.” Other voices, critical of policies of the current government, want to ban representatives of that government based on political disagreements.

Diplomatic protocols exist to create a space where representatives of countries can keep lines of communication open even when we have grievous disagreements, as we do, for example, with the worst human rights violators in the world. Indeed, Canada has carved out a role in the world as a “soft power” that uses words, rather than weapons, to bring sparring parties closer together.

If we diverge from diplomatic protocols and allow activists on any side to subvert these carefully constructed channels of communication, we risk further politicizing issues that should be above politics. More to the point, making Canada’s relations with Israel a political football is to risk long-term gain for someone’s perception of short-term gain. It may have made partisan ideological activists feel good to shmooze with an Israeli cabinet minister. It will feel less good for all concerned when policies that strengthen the Canadian-Israeli bond become viewed through a prism of which Canadian political parties benefit from their adoption.

Further, if we accept, from apparently “pro-Israel” activist MPs, a flouting of protocol, we will be hard pressed to complain when MPs host other overseas visitors we might view as troubling. If an opposition MP invites an Israeli, Palestinian or other speaker that many or most Canadian Jews view as deeply problematic and rolls out the red carpet on Parliament Hill as the Israel Allies Caucus did for Chikli, we will have no moral pedestal from which to complain.

Chikli should have known better. Higher-ups in his government should dress him down for his breach of protocol. But it was the leader of his government – the prime minister of Israel – who first and most egregiously breached such protocols, accepting an invitation several years ago from the U.S. Congress, rather than the U.S. president. (Of course, it was the Congress that broke the protocol first by extending the invitation, so we are addressing a larger pattern of inappropriate behaviour.) But Canadian Jews, even – perhaps especially – those who most enthusiastically welcomed Chikli, his undiplomatic behaviour and his impolitic remarks (whether we agreed with them or not!), should be aware of the unwelcome precedent they may have set.

Games, fun and serious

Team Canada’s 600-strong contingent marched into the opening ceremonies of the quadrennial Maccabiah Games July 14 at Jerusalem’s Teddy Coliseum. They were led by a trio of flagbearers – Toronto’s Molly Tissenbaum, a hockey goalie who has overcome serious health challenges to return to the ice, and Calgary twins Conaire and Nick Taub, volleyball players who are slated to enrol at the University of British Columbia in the fall. Canada sent the fourth largest team to the 21st “Jewish Olympics,” after Israel, the United States and Argentina.

The flag-bearing trio, their 600 teammates and about 10,000 others streamed into the stadium at the start of the largest-ever Maccabiah Games. Also on hand was an American visitor, President Joe Biden, who was the first U.S. leader to attend the event, flanked by Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

The trio of leaders appeared jubilant, and no doubt there is a natural bond between Biden and Lapid that neither shares with either the former U.S. president Donald Trump or the once and possibly future Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who had a legendary bromance together.

While athletes began their friendly skirmishing for medals, the politicians began skirmishing themselves, around issues more existential than soccer scores.

Whatever personal affinity Biden and Lapid might share is at least partly restrained by reality. Lapid took over from Naftali Bennett as a sort of caretaker during the election campaign. Whether he remains leader after the votes are counted in November looks, at this point, less than likely.

Far more importantly, the two leaders disagree on the approach to Iran’s nuclear threat.

“Words will not stop them, Mr. President,” Lapid told Biden in their joint public remarks. “Diplomacy will not stop them. The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that … if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force. The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table.”

Biden has returned the United States to the Obama administration’s approach, aiming to revive the 2015 agreement between Iran and the West, which was supposed to slow that country’s march to nuclear capability. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal.

After Biden left Israel and headed to Saudi Arabia, words heated up dramatically Sunday. A top aide to the Iranian leader asserted that Iran already has the capability of creating a nuclear bomb but has chosen not to do so. In response, Aviv Kochavi, head of the Israel Defence Forces, responded with uninhibited forewarning.

“The IDF continues to prepare vigorously for an attack on Iran and must prepare for every development and every scenario,” Kochavi said, adding that, “preparing a military option against the Iranian nuclear program is a moral obligation and a national security order.” At the centre of the IDF’s preparations, he added, are “a variety of operational plans, the allocation of many resources, the acquisition of appropriate weapons, intelligence and training.”

Meanwhile, the inevitable moving pieces of Middle East politics continued shifting.

Biden walked a fine line, visually demonstrated by his choice to fist-bump rather than embrace the Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman, who has on his hands the blood of dismembered journalist, author and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose grisly murder at a Saudi consulate in Turkey shocked the world. Rumours of warming relations between Saudia Arabia and Israel – the rumours go from the opening of Saudi airspace to Israeli planes, to the full-on recognition of Israel – remain mostly that. Saudis reiterated the old orthodoxy that relations would never develop until there is a Palestinian state.

The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, is openly mooting returning to diplomatic relations with Iran after six years. The UAE has sided with the Saudis against Iran in the ongoing proxy war in Yemen, but the Emiratis are making noises about “deescalating” tensions.

Back in Israel, meanwhile, divergent approaches to issues foreign and domestic are very much on the front burner. With the diplomatic niceties of welcoming the leader of Israel’s most important ally now in the past, parties are holding their primaries to select their leaders and lists for the Nov. 1 vote – the fifth since April 2019 – and forming new partnerships that reshape the landscape in advance of the nitty-gritty campaigning to come.

Much closer in time, the Maccabiah Games close Tuesday, with final results expected to be more definitive than the national election, which will almost inevitably end up with weeks of negotiations leading to a tenuous coalition government.

“Right of return” a poison pill?

Among Middle East observers, there has long been a view that the demand for a Palestinian “right of return” is a bargaining chip that would be negotiated away in a final status agreement, perhaps in exchange for a symbolic but small number of Palestinian refugees admitted to Israel and a substantial amount of money as compensation.

In a new book, two prominent Israeli progressives argue that this assumption is wrong, that the right of return is an unwavering demand from the Palestinian side and, as a result, represents a poison pill that guarantees no resolution to the conflict or to Palestinian statelessness.

“The Palestinian conception of themselves as ‘refugees from Palestine,’ and their demand to exercise a so-called right of return, reflect the Palestinians’ most profound beliefs about their relationship with the land and their willingness or lack thereof to share any part of it with Jews,” write Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf in the book The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream has Obstructed the Path to Peace (All Points Books, 2020).

Wilf, a former Labour member of the Knesset, and Schwartz, an academic and journalist for Ha’aretz, have undeniable left-wing credentials. But, while the Israeli left has long been associated with the idea of compromise and idealism, the authors contend that there is little room for any sort of resolution as long as Palestinians cling to the idea that five million or more of them have the right to citizenship in Israel. Part of the failure of successive peace plans, they write, stems from the inability of negotiators to recognize the Palestinians’ tenacity in holding fast on this core issue – and argue that Israelis need to recognize that truth.

“[D]ecades of shuttling, strong-arming the sides, and endless hours of negotiations came to naught because none of the diplomats or negotiators truly understood and dealt with the root causes of the conflict, choosing instead to turn away and focus on that which appeared easier,” they write.

The status of Palestinian refugees is unique in the world. They have their own international agency devoted to the issue: UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, while all other refugees fall under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In this sole instance, the definition of “refugee” has been amended to become an inheritable status, meaning that the several hundred thousand Palestinian Arabs dislocated by wars in 1948-1949 and 1967 have ballooned to more than five million – even though many or most of the original refugees have died and the vast majority of those seeking “return” have in fact never lived or set foot in the state they claim for their own.

While exponentially more people were made refugees in the same era – in Europe, in the Indian subcontinent and at least 800,000 Jews forced from Arab- and Muslim-majority lands across the Middle East and North Africa – Schwartz and Wilf argue that Palestinians view themselves as having experienced a unique injustice.

They quote Aref al-Aref, a Palestinian writer who was mayor of East Jerusalem under Jordanian rule in the 1950s: “We have been afflicted by a catastrophe, we the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular, during this period of time in a way in which we have not been subjected to catastrophe in centuries and in other periods of time.…” Another Palestinian scholar, in 1950, wrote: “It is the most terrible disaster befalling the Arabs and the Muslims in modern history.… It is a deep-rooted disaster, far-reaching and full of dangers. It is an evil growing by the day and by the hour.” Another writer compared it with the Muslims losing Spain in the Middle Ages.

This almost apocalyptic language precludes compromise on what Palestinians have been promised through the generations by their leaders, according to the book. And, while plenty of voices, including academics, activists and politicians, have argued that the right of return would not be such a terrible thing for Israel’s well-being, the authors provide plenty of evidence that the proposed migration of millions of Palestinian Arabs into Israel is perhaps less about justice for refugees than it is about doing to the country through demographics what the Arab world has been unable to do militarily.

“It is well known and understood that the Arabs, in demanding the return of the refugees to Palestine, mean their return as masters of the homeland and not as its slaves. With greater clarity, they mean the liquidation of the state of Israel,” said a senior Egyptian politician in 1949, at the beginning of the refugees’ long history.

As an article in a Lebanese newspaper put it, the Palestinians’ return would “create a large Arab majority that would serve as the most effective means of reviving the Arab character to Palestine while forming a powerful fifth column for the day of revenge and reckoning.” Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha viewed the refugees’ return as making it possible for “an irregular army that would be in a position to cause a great deal of inconvenience to the Jews by acts of sabotage.”

To ensure that the plan was not foiled, no matter how long it took to reach fruition, a now-seven-decade-old scheme was hatched to prevent Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere from putting down roots, argue the authors.

“The rehabilitation of the refugees in Arab countries would have meant the end of the war, but that was not what the Arabs wanted,” they write. While the Palestinians were made pawns of the Arab League’s campaign of “denormalization” against Israel, the book portrays most refugees as at least semi-willing players. Attempts to find resolutions to their statelessness have been met with outrage. When Canada’s foreign minister suggested some Palestinian refugees might find a permanent home in Canada, he was burned in effigy in Nablus.

UNRWA, which was presumably begun with the best of intentions, has been consumed by politics and corruption and usurped into what the authors contend is effectively a globally funded branch of the Palestinian liberation movement. Agency-funded textbooks used in Palestinian schools have been shown for decades to inculcate Jew-hatred, venerate terrorists and incite violence. Nevertheless, Palestinians receive through UNRWA among the most per capita humanitarian aid in the world and live a life of which most refugees – and the poor in most Arab countries – can only dream.

From the start, UNRWA’s first annual report, in 1951, noted that many or most refugees were enjoying a better way of life than they had before 1948, receiving universal free education and quality healthcare. The UNRWA schools, now with more than three generations of alumni, have created a uniquely well-educated population of refugees, but, along with reading, writing and arithmetic, the curriculum has created “an embittered, angry and frustrated generation, raised on myths about ethnic cleansing by the Jews, the perfidy of Arab leaders, a sense of victimhood and a refusal to take responsibility for the results of the Palestinians actions in the years and months before Israel’s birth and thereafter,” Wilf and Schwartz write.

The book does not paint an optimistic picture. Western diplomats, peacemakers and politicians refuse to recognize the Palestinian demand of return seriously and continue to believe it can be negotiated away.

“If return were truly just a bargaining chip,” write the authors, “it could have and would have been bargained long ago for a Palestinian state. Rather, it is a Palestinian state that is repeatedly bargained away in order to keep fighting for return.”

There are plenty of issues to discuss – if there were negotiations occurring – but, they argue, the entire Palestinian case rests on the thing Israel must reject.

“The one article that Israel could absolutely not agree to, as it entailed its very suicide, was the one without which the conflict would never end,” write Schwartz and Wilf.

Writing for Israel at UN

Aviva Klompas recently published the book Speaking for Israel: A Speechwriter Battles Anti-Israel Opinions at the United Nations. (photo from Aviva Klompas)

Aviva Klompas came close to writing a declaration of war. In early 2013, after an Israeli post was fired upon by Syria – one of a number of attacks – Klompas was tasked with penning a condemnation that would be submitted to the United Nations.

Still relatively new as director of speechwriting for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York City, she recalled the criticism she received: “Be more direct. Be more assertive about things,” she was told. “I thought to myself, ‘channel outrage.’ I tried to do so. I wrote this very stern letter, and I took it to the ambassador to review.”

Klompas, who spoke with the Independent recently, said she then learned the art of diplomacy, and how words might set off an international firestorm.

“To be clear,” Ambassador Ron Prosor, then Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, told her, “you don’t have any authority to declare war.” And it was off to a rewrite.

Thankfully, there weren’t any other close calls, but there are many other fascinating stories – many of which Klompas has brought to light in Speaking for Israel: A Speechwriter Battles Anti-Israel Opinions at the United Nations (Skyhorse, 2019). The book is a candid examination of how the Israeli delegation – and Israel as a whole – is perceived and treated in the international body.

During Klompas’s time at the UN, several major events occurred, including but not limited to the Iran deal, countless anti-Israel resolutions, Palestinians’ bid to join the International Criminal Court, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, and 50 days of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. She wrote the book, she said, to show the tireless work of those who advocate for the Jewish state and who rarely get their due.

“It always feels like it is an uphill battle by the nature of the bias at the UN,” she said. “There are people who show up every single day and never say, ‘Why are we doing this? We should leave the UN.’ I’ve never had a single colleague make that suggestion. They came to work and did the job. I think, it’s a little bit my story, but it’s really our story.”

Klompas was director of speechwriting from 2013 to 2015.

“It’s very few people that make the headlines – the ambassador, maybe the deputy ambassador, maybe the foreign minister – but what about everyone else that is doing it day in and day out?” she asked.

About her work, the Toronto native said it advanced Israel’s policies and informed public opinion. Being successful at it, she said, required overcoming some challenges. For one, there was a culture clash.

“Certainly, Israelis are much more direct in their feedback, which is for better or for worse. At first, it is startling, but then you get to understand that it’s not personal,” she said.

Learning how to write in someone else’s voice was difficult, too. Prosor has “a very distinct style,” she said, describing him as “extremely articulate, funny, charming and intelligent. To be able to write for somebody like that takes time.”

In addition, Prosor took a different approach to diplomacy, when “so many speeches can be dry and not entirely lively,” said Klompas. “He’d be all too happy to break out into song in the middle of a speech, whether it be a song about African nations, which got him a standing ovation from some of the African nations in the General Assembly, [or] he would sing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine.’ In a speech about women, he sang Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect.’”

Klompas gave him the nickname “the Singing Diplomat.”

“Ambassador Prosor felt it was very important to be heard and, to be heard, you have to be different,” she explained. “He knew he had to capture attention to get people to listen.”

In the beginning, she would have to write up to 20 drafts of a speech before she got a sense of the ambassador’s voice and style. Sometimes, there wasn’t much time to tweak.

“It’s pretty stressful,” she said. “You can get a phone call any time of day or night, weekend, and be told the Security Council is convening a special session, come down to the office, we have to get writing. You could have a couple of days’ notice or a couple of hours’ notice. And emergency sessions tend to get a lot of publicity.”

Klompas, who is now associate vice-president of Israel and global Jewish citizenship at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston, said there were poignant takeaways from her job as a speechwriter.

“You can’t be easily deterred by situations that seem unfair or unreasonable. You need a courage of conviction to deflect the constant attacks and brush aside the fact that systems and processes aren’t as simple as one might hope,” she said. “I’d say that my experience gave me a greater sense of what happens behind the scenes in international diplomacy, and the ways in which Israel is working to find equality in the family of nations.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.

Awareness and denial

Historical ignorance has been in the news recently, with polls indicating widespread lack of awareness of the Holocaust, especially among young people in North America and Europe. (See jewishindependent.ca/much-work-left-to-do.) Some media reports got the story wrong, however, claiming that many people “don’t believe” six million Jews died in the Holocaust. The reality is that many people “don’t know” this fact, and there is a big difference between not knowing and not believing. Then there is a different phenomenon altogether: denial.

Plenty of well-informed but ill-intentioned people know the truth of the Holocaust but, for various reasons, take a position that the facts are falsified. The notorious Holocaust denier David Irving is reportedly again making the rounds in Britain, promoting his ahistorical ideology. In a nice contrast, Irving’s nemesis, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, is back in the news promoting her new book, Antisemitism: Here and Now.

Lipstadt went from respected Emory University professor to a sort of global superstar when Irving sued her for libel in a British court in 1996 for correctly characterizing him as a Holocaust denier. Although Lipstadt is an American, she and the book’s U.K. publisher were targeted because Irving apparently thought that country’s libel laws might serve his cause. In the United Kingdom, libel law places the burden of proof on the defendant instead of the plaintiff. As a result, the trial played out as a public history lesson, with Lipstadt’s legal team forced to prove the historical truths of the Holocaust. They did, of course, and won the case. Nonetheless, Irving’s career as a provocateur and historical revisionist continues.

More serious than a nasty British gadfly is the Holocaust denial taking place in Poland right now, a phenomenon that has led to a collapse in Israeli-Polish relations.

Until recently, Poland was one of Israel’s closest allies on the world stage. While Polish society has never undergone the self-reflection that Germany did after the Holocaust, Polish governments developed excellent relations with the Jewish state. After the fall of the communist regime, relations between the two countries grew quite warm. Trade and diplomatic relations at the highest levels flourished.

With the election of the right-wing nationalist Law and Justice party, in 2015, things began to change. Last year, the Polish government passed a law criminalizing speech that references Polish collaboration with the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Canadian Prof. Jan Grabowski, who spoke in Vancouver last fall, heads a team of researchers, most of them in Poland, who are scouring archives throughout that country amassing what is probably the most comprehensive assessment ever compiled on the subject of Poles’ complicity in the Holocaust. Without Polish collaboration – frequently offered willingly and without compulsion, the research indicates – the Nazis could not have succeeded nearly so completely at their murderous destruction of Polish Jewry, Grabowski insists.

Politicizing this history – that is, criminalizing the truth – has put the Polish government on a trajectory of institutionalized denial. Unlike masses of young North Americans and Europeans, the Polish leaders know very well what transpired in their country during the war. As Grabowski notes, it is not the collaborators and their descendants who are today ostracized in small communities across Poland but rather those families whose members helped their Jewish neighbours.

It was inevitable that Poland’s approach would have repercussions in the Polish-Israeli relationship. It happened dramatically in recent days. The Visegrád Group, which is a cultural and political alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, was slated to meet with Israeli leaders at an extraordinary summit in Israel this week.

A week ago Friday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was visiting the Museum of Polish Jews, in Warsaw, when he stated, in a meeting with Israeli reporters where recording devices were not permitted, that Poles had aided the Nazis. A flurry of confusion followed as the prime minister’s office clarified that he had said “Poles,” and not, as some media had reported, “the Poles” or “the Polish nation.”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki decided to snub Netanyahu by withdrawing from the summit and sending his foreign minister instead.

Yisrael Katz, on his second day on the job as Israel’s foreign minister, dumped fuel on the simmering conflict in a TV interview. Ostensibly sent to smooth over the matter, Katz used the opportunity to quote the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir to the effect that “the Poles imbibe antisemitism from their mothers’ milk.”

Suffice to say the summit is off. The leaders of the three other countries are still slated to travel to Israel for bilateral meetings but Polish-Israeli relations are on the rocks.

The conflict illuminates a strange dichotomy. The government of one of the countries most affected by the Holocaust tries to blot out what they certainly know to be the truth. Meanwhile, a generation of young people look on, unaware of even the barest details of what is at the root of the uproar.

Trump-Bibi bromance

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, left, with U.S. President Donald Trump in New York. (photo from Israel’s Government Press Office via Ashernet)

A great deal of diplomacy depends on intangibles like whether the parties involved like or dislike each other. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made little effort to hide his frustration with Barack Obama, the former U.S. president. The feeling was blatantly mutual, as even the most obtuse reader of body language could interpret from photographs of the two men together. Netanyahu and the current resident of the White House … this is whole new meeting of minds.

There are similarities and differences of style and substance between Bibi and Donald Trump. One thing worth noting is that each has their core of stalwart domestic supporters and another, possibly even more virulent, bloc of detesters.

Seeing the two leaders together in New York this week, present for the annual United Nations General Assembly, was a reminder of how big a role mutual affection or irritation between two leaders can affect international relations.

The Israeli prime minister engaged in a Trump-like tweetstorm Monday morning, including this one: “Under your leadership, @realDonaldTrump, the alliance between the United States and Israel has never been stronger.”

This may not be true – the relationship has always been extremely tight – but it is certainly true that the alliance between the two countries’ leaders is strong.

It’s always wise for Israeli leaders to seek good relations with the American president, but this particular relationship is double-edged. A recent poll indicated that 21% of American Jews view Trump favourably, while 77% view him unfavourably. This puts Netanyahu in a difficult position of his own choosing – hitching his wagon to a politician who is deeply distrusted by the largest population of Diaspora Jews.

There is also something odd about Netanyahu’s interpretation of the Israel-U.S. relationship. Just a couple of years ago, at the depths of the Netanyahu-Obama snit, commentators wondered if the bilateral relationship had ever been lower. (Calmer heads insisted that, despite the childishness at the top, on every issue of bilateral substance, everything remained tickety-boo.) Now, just 10 months into a new administration, the Israeli leader alleges that the alliance has never been better. Was a change in the White House all it took for things to go from bad to super-awesome? If so, upon what kind of a foundation does this relationship rest? And, what are the metrics?

The reality is that, for reasons pragmatic and ideological, the Israeli-American bond is strong and indivisible. What Netanyahu did in New York this week is simply the flip side of the coin he tossed when Obama was in office. Then, he betrayed diplomatic processes to accept an invitation from U.S. congressional leaders. Now he’s got a man he likes in the White House and he’s throwing bouquets at him. In both instances, he is crudely poking around in the internal politics of the United States, a strategy that has (in ordinary times) about a 50-50 chance of blowing up in a foreign leader’s face. And these are not ordinary times. Trump is a divisive and potentially dangerous figure who is supported by the worst elements in American society, including racists and antisemites. By wrapping himself in Trump’s flag, Netanyahu is playing a risky game.

Even so, coming just hours after the Emmy awards, the Donald and Bibi show had its fleeting moments of humour, if unintentional. To wit, Trump lent his inimitable erudition to the promise of Mideast peace.

“Most people would say there’s no chance whatsoever. I actually think with the capability of Bibi and frankly the other side, I really think we have a chance,” Trump said. “I think Israel would like to see it and I think the Palestinians would like to see it. And I can tell you that the Trump administration would like to see it.”

Apparently we’d all like to see it. Yet every administration since Truman has tried, to one extent or another, to facilitate peace between the Israelis and their neighbours. The best and brightest among the presidents have proved incapable of the task. Is it possible that this one will counterintuitively succeed? The definition of insanity is said to be doing the same thing again and again and anticipating a different outcome. President after president has taken a similar approach to this problem and failed. No one can accuse Trump of doing things the conventional way. And, he’s put his best man on the job – son-in-law Jared Kushner – whose qualifications appear to be, well, mostly matrimonial.

Trump, the self-proclaimed great deal-maker, has repeatedly failed to find any common ground with a House and Senate led by his own party and has so far been able to achieve none of his signature initiatives. A modest achievement like solving the Israeli-Arab conflict would be something worth bragging about. As Trump and Netanyahu plot that little rabbit trick, we will watch with interest or, if you’re a praying person, maybe do that.

A new consul general

Left to right: Nico Slobinsky, director of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Pacific Region; Galit Baram, consul general of Israel to Toronto and Western Canada; Sara Lefton, vice-president of CIJA, Greater Toronto area; and Judy Zelikovitz, vice-president of CIJA University and Local Partner Services. (photo from CIJA-PR)

“There is never a dull moment,” Galit Baram, the new consul general of Israel to Toronto and Western Canada, told the Independent. “It is a whirlwind of names, people I should meet and new faces to remember.”

Baram said adaptability and versatility are key in the life of a diplomat, and her relish for her job comes through when speaking with her. Baram, who is married to a fellow diplomat and has two children, arrived in Toronto to replace D.J. Schneeweiss, the former consul general, in August. “I am looking forward to this new chapter, this new adventure,” said Baram.

Baram was born in Jerusalem. She has previously served as counselor for public affairs and coordinator of academic affairs at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. (2009-2012); counselor for economic affairs in Cairo (2006-2009); and counselor for political affairs in Moscow (1998-2003). Most recently, she was the director of the Department for Palestinian Affairs and Regional Cooperation (2013-2016).

Baram’s first posting was in Moscow. This was particularly exciting for her, she told the Independent, because of her Russian-Israeli background. “For me, this was closing a circle representing my family and my country,” she said.

Her favorite Russian novelist? Leo Tolstoy, she said, the late works. Her single favorite Russian novel is Mikhail Bulgakov’s underground classic, The Master and Margarita.

Russia has one of the largest diplomatic communities in the world, and her time there was a great learning experience, she said. With 1.6 million Russians in Israel, the relationship between the two countries is an important one.

After Russia, Baram spent “three fascinating years in Cairo.” There, she was involved in bringing Israel and Egypt’s business sectors together. She left full of respect for businesspeople on both sides, she said. During her tenure, an important trilateral agreement was signed between Israel, Egypt and the United States, the Qualified Industrial Zones Agreement, which led to strengthening of economic ties and the mutual exchange of expertise.

In Washington, Baram brought her talents to bear on increasing academic cooperation between Israeli and American universities, before returning to Israel to head the Department for Palestinian Affairs and Regional Cooperation. Her duties focused on building aspects of civil society and cooperation between Israelis, Palestinians and neighboring countries. One of the key issues she sought to address was water.

“Water is going to be a central issue in the region,” said Baram. “Israel is leading the world in desalination technology, since the 1970s, and, in recent decades, has increasingly shared this technology around the world. Regionally, we supply water to Jordan (since 1994) and to the Palestinians. We are more than willing to share with more neighbors in the region.”

Baram also worked with a long list of Israeli nongovernmental organizations that cooperate across the Middle East in bridging the gap between different countries and groups of people, particularly young people. “We need to show that the young people can live together,” she said.

“I believe that, when it comes to the Middle Eastern region, education is a key element in regional stability,” she explained. “Jews, Arabs and Palestinians need to learn about each other. Animosity, mutual suspicion and ignorance are major problems. The best way to overcome this is to bring together young people and to bring together communities, and to build mutual understanding.”

Baram said she feels very comfortable in Canada – “Israel and Canada have very friendly and close relations, very warm,” she said. “There are many similarities between us. Both countries are very multicultural, and are always growing and changing. Canada and Israel share many important values in the spheres of human rights, democracy and pluralism. I am happy to say that Israeli diplomats feel very warmly welcomed in Canada.”

Baram added that she is very impressed with Canada’s Jewish institutions and their activities, and has found the community to be very well-organized and warm.

Baram hopes “to expand tourism and business connections between Israel and Canada, to invite Canadians to Israel to look for opportunities together, and to maintain close relations between the Jewish Diaspora and Israel.”

She said she has every intention to travel Western Canada as soon as possible, and plans to visit Vancouver soon to get acquainted with the Jewish community here.

She also added, “I would like to take this opportunity to say shanah tovah, a peaceful and successful year in Israeli-Canadian relations, and peace and happiness and health to us all.”

Baram and the consulate in Toronto can be followed on Facebook and Twitter as “Israel in Toronto.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Canadian tributes to Peres

The Nobel Peace Prize laureates for 1994 in Oslo, from left to right: Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. (photo by Saar Yaacov, GPO)

A towering figure, one among the founding generation of Israelis, Shimon Peres served as president, prime minister and in various key cabinet posts. He died Sept. 28 at the age of 93. Canadians joined in the international chorus of leaders mourning his death.

“Every so often, our lives are graced by the presence of truly remarkable individuals. They teach us invaluable lessons about compassion, fairness and generosity. They give us innumerable memories and a life of service that changes societies for the better,” said Gov. Gen. David Johnston.

“Shimon Peres meant so much to Israel, to Jewish people in Canada and around the world, and to the friendship between our nations. He called Canada an extraordinary friend during his state visit to our country in 2012, and I remember quite clearly the impression he left on me as a socially conscious man, driven by his love of Israel,” Johnston stated. “Though he is no longer with us, I hope that the legacy he left – as former president and prime minister of Israel and as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient – will let us strive for a better, more peaceful world. He will be missed and remembered by all those whose lives he has touched.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement saying, “Shimon Peres was, above all, a man of peace and a man dedicated to the well-being of the Jewish people.

“Over the course of his long and distinguished life, Mr. Peres made enormous contributions to the founding and building of the state of Israel. He was devoted to promoting understanding between his country and its neighbors, and shared a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to create peace in the Middle East.

“Mr. Peres was an internationally respected statesman and a great friend to Canada. He visited our country often, and helped build relations that remain strong to this day.

“On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Peres – and to the people of Israel. His legacy as a tireless advocate for peace will not be forgotten.”

Rona Ambrose, leader of the Official Opposition Conservative party, stated, “Few have accomplished more for the advancement of Israel and the Jewish people than Shimon Peres. His legacy spanned more than six decades in public service and as a political figure. He was a man who was the architect of Israel’s robust defence strategy, and someone who also won the Nobel Peace Prize in an attempt to find peace with the Palestinian people.

“Israel today is a steadfast ally to the West and all those who cherish democracy and pluralism. Israel’s strength is due in no small part to Shimon Peres and his foresight in advocating for peace while ensuring the nation he loved had the means to protect itself and its citizens in a turbulent world.

“Shimon Peres’ relationship with Canada was strong and lasting. In the 1950s, he visited Canada to secure assistance for the fledgling state. This soon cemented the special relationship between Canada and Israel, and he paid tribute to Canada on his 2012 visit when he said Canada is ‘an extraordinary friend’ and ‘never indifferent, never neutral.’”

Businessperson and former diplomat Arie Raif knew Peres well. He considered the Israeli leader his mentor and first met him as a teenager in the Israeli Knesset. Peres was a visionary, an elegant individual who never lost the common touch, who felt just as home with cooks and workers as with prime ministers and diplomats, he said.

Raif recalled an incident as a youth, when Peres visited the staff at the Knesset before Passover. He greeted them all with a warm embrace and wished them a happy holiday. Raif was able to meet the future prime minister, president and cabinet minister because his mother was the sous-chef in the Knesset at the time. Later, he would go on to work with Peres, and he opened the Canadian Peres Centre for Peace Foundation in Toronto.

Peres’ like will never be found again in Israel, Raif said. He possessed unique qualities that can’t be duplicated. As someone born in Europe, he brought something to Israel that the do-it-quick Israelis are lacking – a long-term vision for the country and the region.

Raif credited Peres with promoting peace and convincing his colleague, then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, to agree to the Oslo accords and shake Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s hand. That was something Rabin resisted for a long time.

Raif noted that, while a committed advocate for peace, in his earlier years, Peres played a key role in ensuring Israel possessed the means for its defence. In the 1950s, as director of the Ministry of Defence, “he made sure Israeli security forces got the best available weaponry and, according to the foreign press, he was the one who negotiated with the French for unconventional weapons” – Israel’s nuclear plant.

Canadian Jewish organizations also paid tribute to Peres.

“President Shimon Peres was a visionary, statesman, philanthropist and a giant of Israeli life whose private and professional accomplishments over seven decades read like the history of the modern state of Israel,” said David Cape, chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “As a strong proponent of conflict resolution who earned a Nobel Prize for his efforts, Peres embodied the timeless aspiration of the Israeli people for a future in which their children will live in peace and security.”

“Shimon Peres was a vital force in shaping Israel,” said Julia Berger Reitman, chair of Jewish Federations of Canada-United Israel Appeal. “His contributions in the political and security fields are unparalleled. He was one of modern Israel’s defining figures.”

Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre issued a statement offering its condolences and JSpaceCanada, a progressive Zionist organization, issued a statement saying it “mourns the passing of Shimon Peres, a source of optimism and inspiration for Israel and for the worldwide Jewish community…. He is mourned not only by Israel’s allies throughout the world but also by members in the Palestinian leadership who seek real peace.”

Meanwhile, Montreal MP Anthony Housefather addressed Parliament, noting that, “rarely does a man embody a country, but Shimon Peres was indeed such a man. He was a part of every bit of Israeli history, big or small, since before the nation was founded.

“Israel and the rest of the world lost an exceptional human being … a great statesman who dedicated his life to promoting peace and dialogue. He was a source of inspiration to many people all over the globe, myself included. Through his enduring commitment to the principles of justice and human dignity, he always worked in the best interest of his people.”

Also addressing Parliament, Toronto MP Michael Levitt said, “the international community has lost a giant.

“Shimon Peres was a peace builder, a public servant who embodied the boundless energy, optimism and desire of Israelis to seek peace in a region fraught with immense challenges.

“In his 66 years in public life, President Peres dedicated himself to fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as exemplified in his leadership role in forging the Oslo accords.

“President Peres’ contributions extend far beyond peace and diplomacy. He was a driving force for innovation, inspiring Israelis to dream and think big. Unquestionably, his influence contributed in no small part to the rise of the ‘start-up nation.’… Israelis have lost a founding father, but his legacy will continue to shine.”

– A longer version of this article and more national Jewish news can be found at cjnews.com