The Foreign Ministry’s starvation, the visit of Pompeo and the appointment of Erdan
In these days of the corona pandemic and high-level legal imbroglios, the state comptroller’s wide-ranging report on Israel’s foreign relations perhaps didn’t receive the attention it deserved.
Alongside praise for the widening net of Israel’s relations with other countries, there is criticism about the multitude of government bodies engaged in foreign relations with scant coordination among them.
This, alas, hasn’t improved with the formation of the new government. At the last count, no less than seven such bodies (the Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the Strategic Affairs Ministry, the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, the Regional Cooperation Ministry, the Intelligence Affairs Ministry) will be dealing in one form or another with foreign relations.
In addition, there is the Mossad, various public bodies such as the Jewish Agency, the Knesset, political parties and numerous types of political and business organizations, which are also active on the diplomatic margins.
The report recommends that one government office should coordinate the activities of the diffuse government bodies in order to prevent duplications of efforts and resources and counterproductive undertakings and to contend with “the frequent changes in the map of Israel’s international interests.”
The report does not spell out which ministry should be made responsible for this, but one may assume that the intention is for the Foreign Ministry, though another possibility could be the National Security Council in the Prime Minister’s Office.
As to the supposed “frequent changes in the map of Israel’s international interests,” actually those “changes” are not so frequent, as the template of Israel’s international interests is fairly constant, shaped by its geopolitical situation and its strategic relationship with the US.
One of the report’s main criticisms is the persistent budgetary starvation of the Foreign Ministry by the Treasury, a situation that impairs the former’s operations and its ability to recruit talented young people to its ranks. (As a young cadet in the Foreign Ministry, back in the fifties of the last century, I still remember my vexation at getting a salary well below that of new employees at the Treasury.)
The reason for this, by the way, is that almost no foreign minister, apart from Yitzhak Shamir, made any special effort to fight for budgets – maybe because most saw their job merely as a stopover to the office of prime minister; or that, like Moshe Dayan, foreign minister in Menachem Begin’s government, the minister dealt with the key issues almost exclusively with a close circle of trusted aides, four or five in all, rather than through the ministry’s regular staff.
However, justified in principle the criticism of the lack of coordination is, it doesn’t give enough consideration to the reality – including in its reference to setting strategic objectives for Israel’s foreign policy – that since day one, Israel’s main strategic and political issues, such as the Palestinian question and its repercussions on overall policy, and Israel’s all-important relations with the United States, were the almost exclusive domain of the prime minister (and again, with one exception: Dayan), and that is how it is bound to remain.
Even so, it should be clear that the Foreign Ministry remains an important center of policy decisions and implementation, requiring experienced and responsible leadership.
By the way, the trend of making major foreign policy decisions principally the responsibility of the head of state became very pronounced also in the US during World War II and intensified during the Obama administration with the upgrading of the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, at the expense of the State Department.
As far as coordinating public diplomacy (formerly hasbara) is concerned, there has been some progress in recent years, but not yet enough, and in this context, fortunately, Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s best spokesman next to Netanyahu, remains in the government.
A recent policy paper by Douglas Feith, a former undersecretary of defense during the George W. Bush administration, and Brig.-Gen. Shaul Chorev, former head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, titled “The Evolving Nature of War,” points out that what it calls “information operations” will play an increasingly important role during future wars, in which propaganda, arguments, images and “narratives” (i.e., a deliberately false reading of history and of the present) are used as primary instruments for achieving terrorists’ war aims – especially against democratic countries like Israel. “Such operations often focus on news media – mainstream and otherwise – to influence elite and popular opinion.”
These stratagems were aided by the Obama administration’s refusal to link terrorism to Islamic extremism and jihadism.
Another factor in this is social media, which, as well as regular media such as the press, television, radio, etc., are relatively easy to manipulate in democratic societies – as happened with the aim of ISIS propaganda to intensify and spread fear, and as is happening every day with the propaganda efforts of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations based on the image of Palestinian supposed victimhood, often abetted by various “human rights” organizations and international bodies.
Though not directly related, one cannot ignore the relevance of the State Comptroller’s
Report to some current and possible future developments in the realm of Israel’s foreign relations, including the recent lightning visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Jerusalem.
As announced, the main objectives were coordinating courses of action with regards to Iran, and the American reservations about the expansion of Chinese economic ties with Israel, the latter being a longtime fly in the ointment of US-Israel relations, which none of the administrations have been very lenient or forgiving about (and I still have the scars to prove it). This issue has now exacerbated as a result of the increasing American-Chinese economic tensions. One hopes that the American message got home and that both sides will now adopt workable arrangements in this matter.
However, in addition to the above, Pompeo probably wouldn’t have made this trip unless it were for the need to discuss various aspects of the proposed annexation by Israel of the Jordan Valley and the northern shore of the Dead Sea and application of sovereignty to settlements in Judea and Samaria, perhaps as soon as July 1.
Pompeo’s statement “Israel has a right to exercise independent judgment” does not negate the American position preferring a longer timetable, and calling for a four-year freeze on construction beyond the current parameters of the settlements. As to the application of sovereignty, this should, in the US view, be in conjunction with the caveat of the four-year timetable proposed by the US and not before the US-Israel joint committee on borders submits its conclusions.
THIS ARTICLE cannot end without mentioning the appointment of Gilad Erdan to serve as ambassador both to the United States and the United Nations.
This is not a good idea. Each of those roles, and particularly the ambassadorship in Washington, requires a full-time presence on the job, especially taking into account the possibility that come January another president will be in the White House.
Considering that Israel’s relations with the United States are so diverse and extensive, encompassing almost every possible subject, including contacts with various parts of the administration, Congress and its committees, the various advisers, different statutory bodies, the media and political party headquarters – all in Washington and all usually wanting to have a direct line to the ambassador – let alone AIPAC and other Jewish organizations, the Washington ambassadorship is a full-time job and then some.
Although with respect to modern diplomacy, and particularly in the last almost four years, direct personal contacts between the prime minister of Israel and the US president were of supreme importance, this, too, requires constant preparatory and follow-up work.
The United Nations also needs full-time attendance, and not only because it constitutes an excellent stage for public diplomacy, but also because Israel is almost constantly on the agenda there.
But didn’t Abba Eban fulfill both of these roles, you may ask?
Although this is factually true, the relationship with America in Israel’s first years does not compare with the current multifaceted situation, while in Eban’s time the United Nations had not yet become the hothouse of anti-Israeli activities that it is now.
Also, although Eban was undoubtedly an outstanding diplomat, the actual benefit from his pushmi-pullyu functions was placed in considerable doubt during the grave diplomatic crisis that Israel faced both with the US and the UN in the wake of the Suez Crisis.
Erdan is a talented and efficient official and would indeed be suitable for either office – separately. Maybe the dual appointment was by his own request, but it is not good, neither for him nor for his mission.
The office of the Israeli ambassador in Washington is equal in importance and prestige to that of almost every senior minister in the government – provided that he devotes all of his talents and efforts to it.
The writer is a former ambassador to the United States.