MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Lily Galili
Ha’aretz
Sept 17 2009
Israel
In the course of our meeting, Yitzhak Levanon gets a phone call from
a producer at the Palestinian news agency Maan, inviting him for an
interview. When he gets off the phone, Levanon, the Foreign Ministry’s
Arab media spokesman, says with a thoughtful, slightly bemused look:
"I really don’t know what to do now. I read in an interview that
my foreign minister wants to remove the Palestinian issue from the
Foreign Ministry’s purview. So, should I do the interview or not?"
This is Levanon’s new job, after five years as Israel’s ambassador
to the United Nations in Geneva, and after 38 years of service in the
ministry. His life story is no less interesting than his professional
career, though he chooses to summarize it all too briefly: He was born
64 years ago in Lebanon, and immigrated to Israel after the Six-Day
War, as part of a prisoner exchange deal. Those are all the details
he is willing to provide.
Levanon recently returned here from his post as UN ambassador, one of
a large group of envoys who completed their service this summer. Most
are still "in rehab" – unpacking their baggage. From conversations
with three of them, it sounded like they not only served in different
countries, but were also representing different countries. Be that
as it may, these conversations lead to a single sobering conclusion:
The whole world is not against us.
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There is no lack of difficulties in foreign relations and hasbara,
a term for Israeli public diplomacy that entails official efforts
to promote the country and explain its policies. Just last week, the
Swedish foreign minister canceled a scheduled visit here, academics
around the world continued to call for boycotts against Israel, and
important artists backed out of the Toronto Film Festival, merely
because films being screened there depict Tel Aviv as a normal place.
"Things have been worse and there is work to be done," Levanon
says. "The UN is a pile of anti-Israel resolutions and they give
you three minutes for a response …. But just like you hold on to a
military position at any price, you must fight to explain Israel’s
cause. In Geneva I knew every morning that I was going off to work
against a hostile bloc of 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and yet
something could be done."
Levanon describes the amount of freedom he has to maneuver as an
ambassador, during the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead
as well, as being equivalent to the range between an ambassador’s
inability to criticize his government’s policy and where he personally
draws the line. "Contrary to what it seems, that leaves us extensive
freedom to maneuver," he adds. "You can talk for hours within that
range."
Regarding the challenges the country’s policies pose, Levanon uses the
extreme caution and tortuous wording that come with experience. How
do you contend, for example, with Israel’s use of cluster bombs and
white phosphorus shells? He says he had no trouble explaining it to
NATO countries and the United States, which has used similar weapons,
but did have a hard time dealing with the lag-time caused by Israel’s
initial denial and a subsequent admission of their use.
The envoy’s polished way of putting it: "The Israel Defense Forces is
cautious, after all, and has to check things out to tell the truth,
and that effort takes time, because of which we wind up losing
momentum. In my experience, I have learned that it is easier and
more effective to tackle a tough problem from a clear position of
persuasion, rather than to deal with vague positions."
Does that apply to a matter like the cluster bombs?
Levanon: "It applies to everything."
He is not the sort to lash out or take things to extremes. He does
not see every anti-Israeli statement as anti-Semitic, although
that description does apply to various comments coming from the
Arab-Muslim bloc. Despite this, Levanon says that all of the Arab
and Muslim ambassadors to Geneva are personal friends of his, with
the exception of the Syrian and Iranian envoys.
Only one UN body manages to anger him: the Human Rights Council. He
believes that body’s warped bias is built into its regulations,
which includes one clause ensuring an annual discussion of human
rights violations around the world, and a special, separate clause
devoted to discussing the situation in Israel.
In general, the world is growing more sensitive to human rights
violations as the nature of war changes, but it is hypersensitive
when it comes to Israel: Who wants to mess with China or investigate
human rights problems in Darfur, he asks wryly.
To my suggestion that a policy change may be more effective in this
case than better hasbara, Levanon replies: "In many cases we gave
the army and political officials a picture of the situation in this
arena [that we had assembled], and now it is certainly being taken
into account."
But what happens when many people believe the foreign minister himself
is associated with human rights violations in his own country?
"In the globalized world, relations between countries are not based
on one person. Arab media outlets see Minister Avigdor Lieberman as
a riddle to crack."
Levanon is not always forthcoming with his views: When invited to
comment on the recommendation of the police to indict his minister,
he declines. "That is not related to the Foreign Ministry," he states
emphatically.
Ideal nation
Compared with the complexity of diplomatic dealings at UN institutions,
being ambassador to Azerbaijan sounds like a walk in the park. If
it is possible to generalize from the experience of our most recent
envoy there, the ideal country for Israel, in terms of relations,
is a moderate Muslim dictatorship with absolutely no interest in
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an insensitivity to human rights,
and an intimidating proximity to Iran that helps forge a natural
affiliation with Israel.
Arthur Lenk has now returned from that perfect country, after spending
four happy years as Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan.
"[Yasser] Arafat did us a wonderful service. On one of his visits to
Armenia, which Azeris hate, he declared that his name should really be
‘Arafatian’ because he was Armenian, too." That statement erased any
remnants of Azeri sympathy for the Palestinians.
"The Azeris say that we, like them, have crazy neighbors," Lenk
explains, "but with powerful neighbors like Iran and Russia, and an
enemy like Armenia, I’d rather have our neighbors."
The wars in Gaza and Lebanon interested the Azeris primarily from
the Iranian angle. In fact, during Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli
and Iranian ambassadors were invited to an important interview program.
"I did not alter [the Azeris’] voting patterns, which are always in
keeping with the rest of the Muslim countries, and I did not make
them take a stand against Iran," Lenk says, summing up his service
in a country that he learned to love. "You can always sense the
Iranian presence in the background there. But the fact that Azerbaijan
hosted President Shimon Peres shortly after the war in Gaza, when a
right-wing government is in power and Lieberman is foreign minister –
that is definitely a foreign policy success."
Great expectations
You might think the life of a diplomatic envoy to Berlin is easy as
well. Super easy. Israel tends to expect almost unqualified support
from Germany, and it seems as if criticism of the occupation or
violence does not really sound credible in German.
The question of how much more mileage Israel can get out of the
Germans’ sense of guilt does not surprise Ilan Mor, who has just
returned after five years as deputy chief of mission in Berlin.
"’Mileage’ is a cynical expression, but I too ask myself how much
longer the Holocaust will continue to play a role in diplomacy, and
whether the time perhaps has come to seek another basis for these
relations," he says.
"The Holocaust is a unique pillar in the unique relations between
Israel and Germany, but not the be-all and end-all. Germany is expected
to veto any anti-Israeli resolution in the UN General Assembly and
block any negative Arab activity. In practice, there is a gap between
this expectation and Germany’s ambition to safeguard its standing in
the European Union by maintaining a broad consensus."
Based on his experience, which was mostly positive but sometimes
complicated, Mor says Israel needs to prepare for a generational
changeover in Germany. There are already some circles that are bothered
by these special relations, he notes, and since the mid-1990s,
there have been attempts to insinuate that what Israel is doing in
the territories today is no different than what the Nazis did.
"We are still talking about a minority, and an article like the one
in Sweden [accusing IDF soldiers of harvesting the organs of dead
Palestinians] would not be published in Germany," Mor emphasizes. "But
just as we have expectations of them, they have expectations of
us. They succeeded in emerging from their horror through dialogue and
negotiation, so they have trouble understanding why we have not. With
the Berlin Wall gone, they have a hard time grasping the importance
we place in the separation fence, and in every discourse with the
German public, the issue of the settlements comes up."
In view of this complexity, Mor attaches particular importance
to diplomacy directed at the person on the street: There is no
substitute for lectures in schools, or meetings with the public,
including young politicians from the new left who were indoctrinated
in East Germany. The latter are now undergoing changes that include
developing what Mor calls unreserved acceptance of the very existence
of the State of Israel.
Nevertheless, several German newspapers lost their restraint when
Lieberman was appointed foreign minister, and they compared him to
the late leader of the Austrian far right, Joerg Haider.
"I told the newspaper editors that they were engaging in character
assassination," Mor says. "During [Lieberman’s] two visits to Germany,
it turned out that he by no means constitutes a burden when it comes
to foreign policy. On the contrary, the fact that he does not have a
hidden agenda or employ doublespeak is certainly a type of advantage."
And after all that explaining, the diplomat – who until recently was
surrounded by bodyguards and rode in an official car – rushes off to
catch a crowded Israeli bus, comparing his life today to the moment
in the Cinderella story when the carriage turns back into a pumpkin.