Netanyahu with Ron Dermer. 'They are forgetting that they are Israelis'
Photo: GPO
The prime minister of America
Op-ed: As an American, Netanyahu has the thinking patterns of Republican voters, and those are the people he wants around him.
Reports coming from the United States say National Security Advisor Susan Rice
has yet to meet with Israel's ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer,
and will likely not meet with him anytime soon. It's safe to assume that there won't be any disaster if Ms. Rice fails to meet with our senior representative there. It's very possible that he also believes he can do without her.
Arik Sharon, may he rest in peace, once tried to bypass such an administration prohibition to meet with him. It ended in a 20-minute meeting with Housing Secretary Jack Kemp at the Houston meat restaurant in Washington, between the spare ribs and the mustard.
From the provided explanations one may have understood that the refusal to meet was simply incidental, and that the two had already met at some event. Come on. With the Americans, nothing is incidental. If they have indeed decided that Mr. Dermer will not meet with Ms. Rice – he will not meet with her.
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And can’t we do without Ms. Rice, you'll ask. Of course we can. But in the Israeli diplomatic tradition, the national security advisor has always been our connection, our supply of oxygen and life in the American capital. The embassy will likely issue a statement that such a meeting will be held soon. In a jiffy. It's like the Israeli "in a jiffy" about Pollard's release, which has been going on for 30 years now.
We should hope that our ambassador in Washington – a position which is more important than almost every ministerial role in the Israeli government – is the right person for the job. But he seems to be in the wrong place. He has two big humps on his back: He represents Benjamin Netanyahu, who is not too popular among the current administration, and worse: Dermer is a Republican American in a democratic administration. The Americans believe that he is the one who foolishly advised Bibi to stick with Republican candidate Mitt Romney and welcome him here with great applause in the midst of the US presidential elections.
The Americans, especially in the administration, have many bad traits. Two of them are that they don't forget and they don't forgive. In their favor, it should be said that they are merciful people: They put the victim to sleep before sticking their poisonous arrows in him.
The Americans know very well that it's not Ron Dermer. Who is he to them anyway? When they studied the current Israeli government, they realized almost immediately that Netanyahu is an American who thinks and lives America, and that almost all his assistants, advisors and associates were born in America or think in American or speak American English.
An 'outsider child'
The internal circle surrounding Netanyahu includes former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold, Ron Dermer, chief of staff Ari Harow, former Ambassador to the US Michael Oren – all native Americans – and the late David Bar-Ilan from Netanyahu's first term, who spent almost all his adult years in America. To them we can add Arthur Finkelstein and George Birnbaum.In the Prime Minister's Bureau, in internal discussions, they speak American English with concepts taken from the American world which only they know. Even with two Israelis – Uzi Arad and Alon Pinkas – they only spoke English. Netanyahu himself, people say, explained once that when one speaks about American issues one must speak American for the sake of accuracy.
But the truth is that these people are the product of the natural environment of our prime minister, who is American in spirit. Netanyahu, the son of an "emigrant" who lived in the US for years, who was raised, studied and worked there, is an "outsider child," and like Ehud Barak once said about him: "He is not from here."
As an American, even if he is an Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu has the thinking patterns of Republican voters, and those are the people he wants around him.
Like every good Republican, they dream and fight to defeat the Democratic Party's administration. American's are allowed to think that way, and to fight that way too. And that's exactly the point that the people with the Republican DNA at the Prime Minister's Office are forgetting: They are Israelis. And so are we.
