Ynet meets Dr. Eran Lerman, who took office Thursday as deputy chief of Israel's National Security Council.
For the last nine years, Dr. Lerman has served as the director of the American Jewish Committee's Middle East office. The AJC is one of the oldest Jewish organizations in the United States, established 103 years ago. Lerman started his work with the organization while Bill Clinton was still president and is finishing it as Jerusalem is showing certain suspicions about the new US administration.
Thanks to Jeff Blankfort, who writes, "that this former Israeli intelligence official who was the head of the AJC's Middle East office can shift so easy into an important position in the Israeli government would indicate that there is actually no line between the AJC and whatever government is in power in Israel."
How do you know he didn't wait until Netanyahu came to power? How do you know that he didn;t want to help Israel out under Olmert, but couldn't stomach the counter productive appeasement?
What it tells me is that upstanding Americans can go to Israel and take positions of power because we share values with Israelis in every respect. There is nothing sinister about it. When a Jew, any Jew gets a high ranking job in a Gaza government I will stand up and take notice.
See, the good doctor just proves what a canard "dual loyalty" is. Nothing dual about his loyalty.
"Lerman started his work . . . and is finishing it as Jerusalem is showing certain suspicions about the new US administration." Hmm. Suspicions, eh? How about this — Israel gives back its $3 billion in US taxpayer dollars and the gurantee of Israel bonds . . . oh, yeah, and the subsidy of jet fuel prices we foolhardly agreed to . . . then Israel can start fretting about its "suspicions." Man, we are so done with subsidizing Apartheid in Palestine, and paying for white phosphorus weapons. Go it alone, Israel. Go it alone.
Take back America,Dump Israel.
Take back intelligence, dump Dagon.
How you would react to the Head of Homeland Security if he or she were a dual national with citizenship in Iran, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia? Ask yourself why you don't feel the same about Israeli dual citizenship. Then you will understand how powerful the Israeli lobby has been in "adjusting" your acceptance of their special status.
There is no dual loyalty issue for many an American Jew because because there is no significant allegiance dividing line between any Jew born anywhere and those known as Israeli Jews. Israel was established as the homeland of all Jews, however defined under the usual methods (that is walnut shell game variations). The key is the aggregating concept of Jewish "peoplehood," and underlying that "continuity." Hence even Israel itself does not recognize "Israeli" as a nationality in the much more significant way any other bordered state does (– and it's not even totally bordered). The old Israeli ID cards listed nationality as Jew, or as between a selection of types of non-Jews; the new replacement ID avoids this. Any Israeli official can immediately decide what rights and/or benefits to give an applicant (or not) by looking at the birth date. A Jewish person has two birth dates one by Jewish calender, the other by Roman calender, while the non-Jew ID card only bears the Roman calendar birth date. http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3...
People change jobs.
Israel's Ministry of the Interior does not recognize an "Israeli" nationality. It recognizes a hot of other nationalities, and authorizes more or less rights and privileges accordingly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Israeli_N... Foreign countries just recognize "Israeli" as a nationality, as if that was true. They ignore the reality of the state that does not honor its own Declaration Of Independence. That's just how
Sure, that's the point. Simple pimple. Look at, say, Adolf Hitler–he had quite a few jobs too over his life. So did his fellows.
I see Lerman says he's not concerned about Obama's Cairo positioning aftermath unless it affects aid to Israel. And he urges activity to educate jewish children in the USA and Israel as to their core common purpose. There's no line or border that should affect the chosen mission.
At any cost to non-jews living anywhere. Sammo, sammo, so Vat's Neu?
The Europeans considered "Jewish" a nationality that made one a foreigner. Now that Jews are foreigners with their own state, Europeans want Jews to be stateless foreign wanderers again. Arab states almost universally treat "Arab" as a nationality. The Jordanian citizenship law uses "Arab", meaning ethnicity, in praxis, as a qualification for citizenship, and it made its Jewish West Bank inhabitants apatrides in 1948-9. So, shrug. Both Israel and Jordan have gradations of citizenship, and both discriminate against Palestinian citizens in some ways–as other Arab states do against their resident Palestinian non-citizens.
ei: Argentina case threatens to criminalize criticism of Israel Judonia just sent a criollo back to serve in the colony: Peninsulares Versus Criollos.
This is a dumb response. This guy is not Hitler.
This may be a dumb question, but for all the talk about Israeli agents infiltrating the American political process, who says the reverse doesn't also occur? The guy is as likely to be a CIA operative, sent to Israel to gather intelligence and stave off an Israeli air strike, as he is a double crossing hooked nosed Jew (I'm, you know, talking about the boogieman) revealing his true intentions. If we were to sit back for a moment and think about it, the probability that Israel is America's bitch, and not the other way around, is much higher. The Israeli lobby might just be a joint CIA-Israeli operation to maintain the perception of legitimacy for a client state of the Empire, and not merely an excuse factory for Israeli mistakes.
To the simpleminded,fantasy is usually more attractive than reality and Donkeydan is ample proof of that. This fellow, Eran Lerman, is not an American Jew. He is a third generation Israeli who still lives there and who formerly worked for Israeli intelligence. Until taking his new job, he served as the Middle East Director for the American Jewish Committee, the foreign policy arm of the American Zionist Lobby. The point is that in changing jobs he continues to serve the same master. As for US agents infiltrating the Israeli political process, however, he may be right. How else can one explain the fact that in the Israel Knesset one can actually hear criticism of Israeli policy (and not just by its handful of Arab members) and its treatment of the Palestinians when such discussions are totally absent on the floor of the US Congress?
Jeff, I don't claim to have knowledge about these things. They are questions. I would advise you to be respectful in your dealings with others if you have expectations of the same.
No, just a particular sort of guy jumping from one particular job with its connotations to another particular job with its connotations. then again a donkey is not well known for having imagination.
Thanks for agreeing with me–I don't think Uncle Sam should honor such values. We pay through the nose for our support of Israel and get nothing for it but a bad reputation under our own moral values.
According to Witty Lerman is just a man changing jobs, and donkey agrees with him. To say any more or suggest more is just dumb. Now we have Donkeydan dreaming of a hooked nosed Jew serving the CIA against Israeli interests. Gives new meaning to the word inane as somebody said about Witty on another thread here recently.