Ron Dermer gets around. The former Floridian who is now Israel’s ambassador to the United States had pride of place with Hillary Clinton the other night when she got an award from the American Jewish Congress for her lifetime achievement.
And over at Lobelog, Marsha Cohen reports that Dermer is violating diplomatic convention by speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition at a Sheldon Adelson hotel in Las Vegas this week.
In a break with diplomatic tradition Ron Dermer, an American-born former Republican activist, is scheduled to attend the Republican Jewish Coalition’s (RJC) Spring Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas next week and share the speaking platform with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, Ohio Governor Jon Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
Cohen explains how this goes against diplo-etiquette:
It is highly unusual for foreign ambassadors to directly involve themselves in the politics of the country in which they are serving, particularly by actively aligning themselves with an opposition party….
“I would not be a speaker at a political rally of any side, however,” said [a] former diplomat. “Doing so is an inappropriate level of involvement in a sovereign country’s domestic politics by a foreign representative.”…
Asked to comment on the possible consequences of Dermer sharing a partisan platform with exclusively Republican speakers, the retired American foreign service officer explained, “For a foreign ambassador to appear publicly before a Republican group opposed to a Democratic administration could easily be seen as grounds for having him recalled by his government.”
“At a minimum, his utility in Washington would be affected as senior Democrats might decline to meet with him. His sending government could then decide to reassign him in favor of a neutral official,” said the former officer.
But that’s the funny part. The Democrats won’t punish Dermer. Because, as Cohen indicates, Democrats are loath to criticize the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Leading US Jewish Democrats also appear unconcerned about the upcoming event. Both the National Jewish Democratic Council and the office of the head of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL) declined to comment on Dermer’s apparent upcoming breach of diplomatic protocol.
This underscores my contention that the Israel lobby is outside and above American politics; no one can criticize it and operate effectively in the Establishment until they recant, as Chuck Hagel and Samantha Power both were forced to do last year. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party both sign off on the lobby’s major goals, so what’s the problem with the Israeli ambassador visiting the opposition? In the land o’ the lobby, there is no opposition. Though, yes, the consensus is starting to fracture (AIPAC on the right, versus J Street on the left), it’s still a drama inside the lobby.
“Ron Dermer gets around. The former Floridian who is now Israel’s ambassador to the United States had price of place with Hillary Clinton…”
You probably meant “pride of place”, but come to think of it, “price” may be the more revealing word in this case.
This just underscores that Hillary Clinton will likely be the worst president on Israel/Palestine in many generations. Obama was bad but at least he tried during his first year in office, even if what he sought was doomed from the start. And Obama’s positions have actually been to the right of Dubya, if you look carefully of what positions his administration has adopted. So Hillary looks to be even worse than both of them.
Clinton is basically running to his right just like her husband did with Bush I. She has been hawkish on Iran until she couldn’t get away with it without being accused of rank opportunism(which is why she was silent for such a long time on the Iran diplomacy deal until her hand was forced). She has compared Putin with Hitler – at a girl’s scout conference! – thereby directly putting pressure on Obama and helping the neocons pile on.
And now she is cozying up with the lobby. That’s why she is their favourite, they know it’s a dependable card to the neoconservative/Zionist agenda(the two are not the same but they significantly overlap). And it’s a pretty safe bet, her candidacy will benefit as the first woman president.
I still hold out for Elizabeth Warren. Her positions on I/P are AIPAC-worded, but from what I’ve read she has little interest in being a tool of the neocons. She might be a little disinterested now but once she reads up on the topics, she’ll mouth the propaganda but do what Obama did in his 2nd term.
But it’s depressive, de Blasio is falling under the truck of Wall Street financiers on charter schools. His approval ratings tanked after they blitzed him with ads, forcing him to backtrack. In a fight on higher taxes, Albany holds the cards and Wall Street likes Cuomo better and will support him if de Blasio gets too public, which is why he has refrained thus far.
As Mearsheimer likes to say; the debate has shifted in the U.S. but the policy hasn’t, and that’s because of the massive money gap between the two sides. Over time, this won’t matter(Obama was outspent in 2012 yet won handsomely), but it could take a long time.
‘breach of diplomatic protocol’…??????????..roflmao
That is hysterical….considering how Netanyahu appeared all over US TV campaigning against Obama in US presidential elections.
These people don’t care about protocol any more than a pig cares about acceptable dining manners.
Zionism trumps conservatism and liberalism in what is now essentially a one-party Soviet-style regime.
The United States is now totally dominated by Zionist ideology and interests. Perhaps we should be renamed the Zionist States of America, with Tel Aviv (or Jerusalem) as our capital.
It’s no wonder that many members of the US Congress are now more preoccupied with protecting the interests of Israelis than of Americans. (Quite a few Republicans have been calling for reducing American spending for Americans while increasing American spending for Israelis — see Eric Cantor, for instance.)
@Phil
I think the way to look at this is that Israel is close enough to the establishment that they don’t have to follow tight diplomatic etiquette. They get to go backstage and chat with politicians in informal ways. They have direct relationships with congressmen. That isn’t however totally atypical. For example with the UK Labor had a stronger relationship with the Democratic party while the Conservatives have a stronger relationship with the Republicans. That doesn’t mean that either American party wants a bad relationship with the UK. It just means the UK ambassador has a close enough relationship that US officials feel comfortable “talking out of school”. The UK ambassador gets to be part of USA internal discussions. The Chinese for example have much stronger relations with Republicans than with Democrats.
Similarly with Israel. If John Boehner and Ed Royce want to get a handle on Syria they might ask State, Pentagon, CIA… if they want an outside perspective they might ask the Israelis. Which from the plus side means the Israelis now understand the distinctions between House Foreign Affairs Committee’s thinking, the State Department’s thinking ….
The Israelis are unusual in that Israeli parties have US domestic groups that are almost extensions of them. Partners4Israel is Meretz. American Friends of Likud (and arguably AIPAC) is Likud… Agudath Israel of America is UTJ etc…. So if you want something unusual that’s what’s unusual.
If you want an even stronger example there were Orange and Green organizations among the Irish in America where the Greens oppressed the Orange and the Orange migrated often to Canada (another example of ethnic cleansing that no one has any intention of reversing). I think you are in New York, you can still see some remnants of the Orange lodges that survived in New York City though those that did mostly kept their head down.
In terms of other example of foreign lobbies and diplomatic lobbies that have partisan affiliations. Haiti is a good recent example where we had a situation where support for the Aristide government was almost completely the Democrats while the Republicans (including Bush) were backing regime change. We almost had a similar situation in Honduras where Jim Demint and several Republicans were backing the coup while Obama was backing the replaced government.
I’d suspect that as the population of Israel and America start to flow more freely with Orthodox Jews moving there and seculars possibly finding Europe too hostile to Israelis that this sort of close affiliation is going to increase. With people comfortably taking jobs in the diplomatic corps of both countries. The way for example people move from federal offices to state offices and back. And plenty of examples of that as well. This could if the relationship continues to develop go even further. Everyone considered the government of The Territory of Utah to be American even though it clearly wasn’t legally part of the United States and there were barriers (primarily polygamy and a state church) which made union problematic. I could imagine a situation where Israel is essentially viewed as a state with some policies (legalized religious discrimination and a state church) that make union problematic so better to keep it technically separate.