The change in Turkey’s orientation and its return to the Middle East is an event
of historic magnitude and nobody quite knows where it will lead, Israel’s
ambassador to the US Michael Oren told
The Jerusalem Post on
Monday.
Oren, in a briefing with the Post’s editorial board, said there
was “deepening discomfort” and “uneasiness” about Turkey on Capital
Hill.
RELATED:US warns citizens of Gaza travel
'Silwan project undermines trust'
“We are living in a sea of change,” said Oren, a historian who has
written two books on the Middle East.
“The change in Turkey’s orientation
– literally toward the Orient – is an event of historical proportions.
Turkey’s
return to the Middle East after a hiatus of 90 years is huge, and nobody
knows
where this is going.”
Oren said that in addition to a “sea of change” in
Turkish policy, there has also been a major shift in US foreign policy,
with US
President Barack Obama coming into power determined and serious about
bringing
change to American domestic and foreign policies alike.
By contrast, he
said, the positions of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government
have, in
most respects, been indistinguishable from those of previous
governments, and
that what is changing is not Israeli policy, but rather US and Turkish
foreign
policy.
After Israeli-US relations suffered an extremely difficult month
of March that saw the visit here of US Vice President Joe Biden,
followed by a
less than sterling visit by Netanyahu to Obama (one which Oren said was
not as
bad as reported in the press), the tone from the Obama administration
has since
changed significantly.
Oren says US tone has changed
“The tone changed within a week,” Oren said,
citing as reasons both US domestic political considerations and a
realization in
Washington that the policy was not helping the diplomatic process and
leading to
negotiations.
Once the tone changed, Oren said, “The Palestinians came
back to the negotiation table, albeit proximity talks, but they came
back, and
it happened very quickly.”
Oren said that the Palestinians believed they
could “sit back and watch a wrestling match between the US and Israel,”
and that
the US administration’s change of tone toward Israel “disabused” them of
that
notion.
Contrary to popular perceptions in Israel, Oren said emphatically
that Obama’s powerful chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel was “not a problem,”
and
indeed a “great asset.”
“He is a person who understands us deeply,” Oren
said. “He doesn’t agree with everything we say, but he understands us
deeply and
has been someone I could talk to when I needed to.”
Oren said Emanuel,
who the
Daily Telegraph
reported Monday was going to step down in six to eight
months time, called him in tears last month during his visit to Israel
for his
son’s bar mitzvah.
“He had an amazing visit here,” Oren said.
“He
was overwhelmed that he went jogging on the beach with his wife and
everyone
came up to him and wished him a mazel tov, and that everyone was great
to his
kid.”
Israel becoming a bi-partisan issue in US
Oren said that one of the great new challenges Israel faces in
Washington is that it is becoming an increasingly partisan issue. His
comments
come as polls consistently show a sharp increase in support for Israel
among
Republicans, and a decline among Democrats.
“Bi-partisan support for
Israel is a national strategic interest for us, and I’m sometimes in the
difficult position of having to tell some of Israel’s most outspoken
supporters
to be aware of this,” Oren said.
“I’m concerned about the drift toward
partisanship, and while the American people remain overwhelmingly
supportive of
Israel, pro-Israel, when you break it down by party you get a more
nuanced
picture, and for me a more troubling picture,” he said.
Oren advised
Israel supporters against “ad hominem attacks on the president as if he
is anti-
Israel. Barack Obama is not anti-Israel, he has different policies than
some of
his predecessors, but he is not anti-Israel. You can debate the relative
value
of his policies toward us, but let’s not couch it in saying someone is
pro-Israel or anti- Israel.”
Regarding J Street, the left-wing Washington
lobby whose first convention meeting he did not attend last year, Oren
said that
the group was an issue that “took up a lot of press” but does not
“occupy a
major share of my time.”
J Street not influential in Washington
Asked about J Street’s influence on the White
House or its sway in Congress, the ambassador said, “I don’t think that
they
have proven decisive on any major issue we’ve encountered.”
Oren said J
Street was fundamentally different than the American Israel Public
Affairs
Committee (AIPAC).
“AIPAC’s mandate is to support the decisions of the
democratically elected government of Israel, be it left, right or
center,” he
said. “J Street makes its own policy and does not necessarily, to say
the least,
accept the decisions of the policies of the government of
Israel.”
“Listen, I represent the democratically elected government, and
that government reflects the will of the people of Israel, and what they
perceive as the interests of Israel,” he said, adding that J Street was
an
organization “taking issue with that, and that in itself is a source of
disagreement.”
Oren said he has met with J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami,
adding that he and Ben-Ami tried to keep their disagreements “civil” and
find
areas where they can cooperate.
He said J Street has been helpful in
combating divestment moves at the University of California at Berkeley,
and
during the brouhaha over his recent invitation to speak at Brandeis
University’s
commencement ceremony.