Sometimes, the most intelligent people can make stupid decisions – very often when they are afraid of the outcome. A case in point is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The more he resists a State Commission of Inquiry into the fatal bungling of security on October 7, 2023, and the longer it takes to bring home all the hostages, the more think tanks will begin probing.
The information already available from the IDF points a finger at the prime minister, who has a habit of taking credit for success and relinquishing responsibility for error and ignorance. Soon, every Israeli think tank will get in on the act, as well as some from overseas, which may claim to be more objective. The leading figures there will ensure that their conclusions are published, and the situation will augur worse for Netanyahu than it already has. He would be wise to step down and allow Likud to elect a new leader.
IN MIAMI, Florida, Yair, the prime minister’s son, has become a podcast star. He appeared in the most recent episode of Standpoint with Gabe Groisman, discussing aspects of the war, the world’s reaction, and how he feels about attacks on his parents and country.
“I don’t like politics. I think it’s nasty, but I also don’t like injustice,” Yair said, “and this is what drew me into the public limelight because I cannot see injustice, especially when it’s toward my father or my mother or my parents or my country or my people and stay silent. That’s what gets me into trouble.”
Gabe Groisman and the younger Netanyahu discussed, among other things, the difference in world reaction to 9/11 and October 7.
The prime minister’s son recalled that after 9/11, the world came together, standing behind America, whereas, within a few weeks of October 7, the world started to attack Israel.
The two pondered the polarization of reactions to what happened in America’s catastrophe and that of Israel and found it difficult to understand why people started cheering the deaths and kidnappings of innocent Israelis and Jews and how anti-Israel demonstrations began in Times Square well before Israel retaliated against Hamas.
Yair Netanyahu speaks well; his English is fluent, and he even has a slight American accent, but he doesn’t have his father’s deep baritone voice nor his flair for drama.
WE GOOFED on Wednesday in an item about an interfaith conference at Bar Ilan University where three monotheistic faiths were mentioned when, in fact, there were five. We are so used to referring to three monotheistic faiths that we tend to forget about the Druze and Baha’i, whose holiest shrines are in the Holy Land. Among the scholars quoted were Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Druze, and Baha’i. The latter was Selam Ahderom.
DIFFERENT PEOPLE have different attitudes to retirement. Some look forward to it so they can travel abroad and go to places they’ve only previously read about or seen in films, some dread not having a daily framework, and others worry about what sort of social life they will have without their work companions. Others are workaholics who never really resign.
One such person is retired diplomat Yitzhak Eldan, who is hosting a series of book launches for different audiences in various parts of the country to bring his memoir, Non-Stop Diplomat, to the attention of people who misunderstand what diplomacy is all about. It’s also a very personal story.
Eldan, who is still bursting with energy, officially retired from the Foreign Ministry around 15 years ago, at which time he had been the longest-ever chief of state protocol in the history of the state.
Part of the job entails meeting new heads of foreign diplomatic missions when they arrive in the country and maintaining personal and professional contact with them.
It was, therefore, understood that one of the book launching events would be with foreign ambassadors, and one would be with former Israeli ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry. With the exception of current Chief of Protocol Gil Haskel, who was one of Eldan’s cadets, the majority of Israeli diplomats at the launch in Jerusalem this week, were retirees.
Some of these former diplomats, like Yaakov Levy, who chaired the event, knew Eldan from his student days at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and some had joined the foreign service at roughly the same as he had in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Dr. Yehuda Lancry was the ambassador in Paris when Eldan had been the deputy chief of mission. Both were born in Morocco and had been delighted when their ancestral homeland and the land of their birth had entered into diplomatic relations.
Also present was Ly Duc Trung, the ambassador of Vietnam, who had also been present at an earlier launch for the Ambassadors’ Club of Israel, which Eldan founded soon after his retirement.
The Israeli School for Young Ambassadors
He also heads the Israeli School for Young Ambassadors, in which he trains senior high school students in diplomacy so that they can defend Israel and state its case where and when there is a need. He also takes them abroad to meet with their counterparts in other countries, statesmen, and politicians and to occasionally lecture on Israel.
What Eldan does with the Ambassadors’ Club is, in a sense, a continuation of his work as chief of protocol.
He calls on new ambassadors, introduces them, and helps them familiarize themselves with the environment surrounding their embassies and their residences.
In this case, it was more than Eldan’s usual round of duty. Israel and Vietnam did not establish diplomatic relations until 1993, but long before that, the Vietnamese ambassador in Paris had specially come to Israel’s embassy during Eldan’s time there. The ambassador came to thank the country for Menachem Begin’s first foreign policy act after taking office in 1977 – giving shelter in Israel to 360 Vietnamese boat people fleeing the Communist regime, who arrived in Israel between 1977-79,
In the book, there is a photograph of the Vietnamese ambassador in Paris in the doorway of the Israeli embassy.
For most of those present, Eldan’s book evoked many memories, and for Lancry, who was among those who had already read the book, it was an enjoyable experience because they had shared so much together, and he could confirm the veracity of what was on the printed page.
Today, the building in which the Foreign Ministry is housed is an impressive complex with many halls and offices, but when all the Israelis present had started their diplomatic careers, the Foreign Ministry was a warren of bungalows that had previously served as British Army barracks.
Eldan brought a slide show to remind everyone of what life had been like in that bygone era. Also present was Nitza Raz-Silberg, a more recent retiree who had run the Protocol Office from an administrative standpoint and welcomed the opportunity to meet former colleagues, in addition to Eldan, who had been her boss. She is also a diplomat in her own right and knows just about everything there is about diplomacy.
She had been in the Protocol Office before Eldan’s arrival. In fact, he confessed, he wasn’t keen on his appointment there, but she taught him a lot, and in the final analysis, he loved that part of his job. He loves what he’s doing now because there isn’t all that much of a difference between what he did and what he does.
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