Ron Prosor 311.
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Six months after Gavriella Shalev returned from the UN, the Foreign Ministry’s
appointment committee on Thursday finally named a permanent successor: Ron
Prosor, the current envoy to London.
The announcement comes two weeks
after the Prime Minister’s Office leaked that Prosor would indeed get the UN
post, and that he would be replaced in London by National Security Council head
Uzi Arad. This announcement set off a political struggle between Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, with Lieberman saying
that the Prosor appointment was his idea, but that Arad would not be going to
London.
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Arad announced earlier this week that was resigning, to return to
academia.
Prosor, a former Foreign Ministry director-general, will
replace Meron Reuben, who has temporarily filled in at the UN since August.
Prosor has also served as the ministry’s spokesmen, as well as in senior
capacities in the embassies in the US and Germany.
Now that he has been
appointed, the ministry is expected to issue internal tenders for the London
post, considered one of the plum positions in the ministry. Among the leading
candidates mentioned as possibilities for that job are Jeremy Issacharoff, the
Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for strategic affairs and formerly
the No. 2 man in the embassy in Washington, and Mark Sofer, who is currently
ambassador to India and has previously served as the envoy to
Ireland.
Along with announcing Prosor’s appointment, the ministry also
announced the appointment of Alon Ushpiz to New Delhi; Dan Ashbel to Helsinki;
Chaim Shacham as consul-general to Miami; and Dan Shaham as ambassador-atlarge
to a number of countries in southern Africa.
The nominations are expected
to be brought to the cabinet for approval on Sunday, something considered a
foregone conclusion.