Yom Ha’atzmaut- 2010, Ambassador Michael B. Oren

One freezing dawn during Israel’s War of Independence, fifty youths in their late teens and early twenties, bearing pickaxes and shovels, climbed a rocky hill in the Galilee, barely a mile from the Lebanese border. They were about to establish a kibbutz, one of the communal settlements fostered by the Zionist movement to reclaim and cultivate the hardscrabble Israeli countryside. Similar scenes were being enacted throughout the newly created state—in the Negev, on the Sharon Plain, and in the Jerusalem Hills.

But this one was different: These fifty young people were all Americans. They came from across the United States—from Los-Angeles, Brooklyn, and Chicago. More than a few were hardened combat veterans of World War II. Many had sacrificed a comfortable college experience for sunup to sundown agricultural work and long nights of guard duty.

They came because they believed. They believed in the ideals and values they had learned as Americans and that had instilled in them a sense of responsibility for Jewish freedom everywhere. “The world in which we played hopscotch and baseball and grew to maturity was dominated by Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler,” one of the youths wrote, “The one represented Protection and Welfare… and the other… a horror… in which every Jew was a potential blood offering.”
They came, like the American pioneers centuries before, to build a state and secure its frontiers. After training at an agricultural camp in New Jersey, they departed by boat and arrived in Israel to another kibbutz founded by Americans, Ein Hashofet—the Spring of the Judge, named for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

Brandeis, who was also the president of the American Zionist Federation, had said that every Jew, in order to be a patriotic American, must be a Zionist. And these fifty young American Jews were, indeed, patriots, the embodiment of the principles that lay at the foundation of the U.S.-Israel alliance.

They climbed the hill and broke ground for the first of a huddle of drafty shack— their new homes. And they called their kibbutz after an ancient Jewish town that had existed on that very site. They called it Sasa. Today, sixty-two years after Sasa’s founding, the kibbutz is a thriving community with a beef herd and fruit orchards.
But Sasa has changed. Along with the agricultural work started by its founders, the kibbutz today produces technical and home care products and is host to one of Israel’s most successful plastics factories. Furthermore, in recent years, Sasa has been working closely with American military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to provide made-in-Israel armor for U.S. vehicles. That armor which helps protect these vehicles from the hazards of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), has saved untold American lives.

And so, the children and grandchildren of Sasa’s founders uphold their commitment not only to Israel but to Israel’s historic alliance with the United States.

Israel, too, has changed—from a struggling agrarian society to a high tech powerhouse with more start-ups per capita, more patents, and scientific papers, and more Nobel Prizes per capita than any other country in the world. A nation that trails only the United States in the number of companies represented on the NASDAQ exchange.

Yet one aspect of Israel will never change and that is its values: the respect for democracy and the rule of law, the commitment to civic and personal freedom, and the yearning for peace. These are the values that we in Israel share with the people of the United States and that form the core of our unshakeable alliance.
We share the vision of a secure and recognized Jewish state of Israel living side by side with a stable and non-violent Palestinian state, and the Government of Israel is deeply committed to working with President Obama to realize that vision. Together with the United States, Israel will strive to create a Middle East—indeed, a world—free of the threats of terrorism and its extremist supporters, a world in which Israelis can live and interact peacefully with all peoples.

As one of Sasa’s founders wrote that first freezing day sixty-two years ago, “The kibbutz that we build will be dedicated not only to the renaissance of our own people, but to… the future of mankind, including our Arab neighbors.”

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Featured in the December 19th edition of the Albany Times Union, an editorial by Joel Lion explores the steps Israel is making to realize a two-state solution. Following the historic yet controversial settlement freeze, Lion looks at where the Israeli people are today, and how the Palestinians can meet them halfway to negotiate a peace.  Lion is Consul for Media Affairs and Spokesperson at the Consulate General of Israel in New York.

Check out his full piece in the Albany Times Union.

Photo provided by alvarezperea on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

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In an editorial featured in the December 6th edition of the New York Daily News, Joel Lion, consul for media affairs at the Consulate General in New York,  argues for more collaboration and multilateralism in the peace process. In his piece, Lion explores the recent controversy surrounding the decision by the Palestinians to bypass Israel and move straight to the UN Security Council and the EU for an appeal for statehood.

For the full article, “It takes two to forge a lasting Mideast peace,” click here.

Photo by provided by Rusty Stewart on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

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An independent Palestinian state is quietly being built with Israeli assistance, according to Middle East analyst Tom Gross. In his latest editorial, he argues that the perception of the situation on the ground being all gloom and doom “couldn’t be further from the truth.” Gross looks at the town of Nablus, whose checkpoints to entry have been removed, to showcase a booming Palestinian economy.

The idea that Israelis and Palestinians would be best served without what he calls “meddling” by the U.S. and E.U.  is certainly a provocative argument.

For more, check out Tom Gross’ full piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled, “Building Peace Without Obama’s Interference.”

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By Consul General Asaf Shariv

November 4th, 2009 marks fourteen years since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. A picture of the man who worked so hard to make peace — and died for that effort — sits in my office as a constant reminder of the objectives pursued by this great man and by my nation.

Each of the five Israeli Prime Ministers in the last fourteen years has worked to achieve Rabin’s objective: peace between Israel and its neighbors and security for Israel. Each of these Prime Ministers has taken bold steps to create an environment where a peace agreement could be concluded. This is true regardless of whether the press classifies them as hawks or doves. All have and are committed to the complementary goals that motivated Rabin, peace and security for all who live in the area, Arab and Jew alike.

To read Consul General Asaf Shariv’s article in the Huffington Post, visit Following in Rabin’s Footsteps Towards Peace continue reading…

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Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust.  It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.

Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants.  Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews.   Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself.  Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered.  Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp.  Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie?

And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?  One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration.  Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own.  My wife’s grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis.  Is that also a lie? continue reading…

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Israel has gone to great lengths to improve the conditions in the Palestinian Authority.

To learn more about these efforts, visit: Supporting Palestinian Capacity
Building: Israel’s Efforts in Supporting the Palestinian Economy, Civil Affairs and
Security Reforms

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On Sunday, September 13, 2009, as George Mitchell traveled to Israel to further advance negotiations, Israel’s Consul General in New York, Asaf Shariv, published an op-ed in the New York Daily News regarding the often misunderstood issue of settlements.

Israeli settlements: a red herring, not the key to peace

By Asaf Shariv

U.S. special envoy George Mitchell has just arrived in the Middle East with the mission of jumpstarting peace talks. On the top of his agenda, yet again, will be a push to freeze or roll back Israeli settlement activity.

However, this issue is deeply misunderstood. Though settlements are long held up as a prime obstacle to peace, that’s a gross distortion that glosses over Palestinian rejectionism.

A quick glimpse at history tells the whole story. Two decisions gave modern international recognition to the bond that has existed between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel for thousands of years. The right of the Jewish people to its own independent state was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of 1917; it was reaffirmed in the 1947 UN resolution declaring the Land of Israel home to the Jewish people.

It is a sad historical fact that both were roundly rejected by the Arabs, who launched a war against the newborn Jewish state.

There were no settlements in 1948. Yet we immediately found ourselves fighting for our lives. And if no Israelis lived outside of Israel’s tiny borders until 1967, it makes one wonder what the Palestine Liberation Organization intended to accomplish when it was founded … in 1964.

Needless to say, we survived. Ever since 1948, Israel has sought an end to the conflict, its leaders extending their hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace.

It was for the sake of peace that in 1982 Israel’s government evacuated thousands of Jews from their homes in Sinai as part of a sustainable peace treaty with Egypt. The broad Arab war against Israel continued.

Four years ago, in late August 2005, Ariel Sharon tried to salvage the hope for peace with the Palestinians. He was even prepared, despite constant terrorism, to accept the assumption that what the Palestinians truly desired was self-determination and their own independent state – not the elimination of Israel.

I watched Sharon struggle to make one of the most difficult decisions he had ever had to make – to unilaterally leave Gaza. It was heartrending to see Jews forced from their homes by order of the Jewish state.

At first it reminded us of the 1982 evacuation of the Sinai, except this time peace did not follow. Quite the opposite – practically as soon as the gate closed behind us, Palestinians in Gaza destroyed what we had left behind and began to fire thousands of rockets into southern Israel. Our children could no longer play in their playgrounds; they never knew when the next rocket would strike.

As terribly as our people have suffered since 2005, it pales in comparison to the brutality we have witnessed in Gaza, aimed at the Palestinian people by Hamas. Political opponents have been tortured and thrown from windows; rival factions have forced children to literally stand between them and bullets; innocent Palestinians have been blown up by explosives stored – or manufactured – in neighboring houses. This is what the Palestinians made of their newly Jew-free home.

It is time to realize that the settlements won’t settle it, after all.

Peace in the Middle East does not hinge on settlements. And in Israel, a country governed by democracy and rule of law, a country that has made and will still make sacrifices for peace, settlements are no obstacle to progress.

We Israelis cannot afford the luxury of seeing the world in black and white. We know that peace will not be found at either extreme. What the Palestinians need now is leadership that understands this as well, and is brave enough to establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people.

History has shown that settlements don’t stand in the way of peace. Continued rejection of our unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, however, just might.

Shariv is the Israeli consul general in New York. From 2002-2007 he served as personal media adviser to Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, and was a member of the special task force that worked with the U.S. government.

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In his first television interview as Israel’s new Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren sits down with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to discuss his prospects for peace in the Middle East and on Iran.

Watch the full CNN segment here.

Read Fareed Zakaria’s Q&A, “Surprising Progress in the Middle East,” here.

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West Bank Success Story

The Palestinians are flourishing economically.  Unless they live in Gaza.

By Michael B. Oren

Imagine an annual economic growth rate of 7%, declining unemployment, a thriving tourism industry, and a 24% hike in the average daily wage. Where in today’s gloomy global market could one find such gleaming forecasts? Singapore? Brazil? Guess again. The West Bank.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the West Bank economy is flourishing. Devastated by the violence and corruption fomented by its former leadership, the West Bank has rebounded and today represents a most promising success story. Among the improvements of the last year cited by the IMF and other financial observers are an 18% increase in the local stock exchange, a 94% growth of tourism to Bethlehem—generating 6,000 new jobs—and an 82% rise in trade with Israel.

Since 2008, more than 2,000 new companies have been registered with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Where heavy fighting once raged, there are now state-of-the-art shopping malls.

Much of this revival is due to Palestinian initiative and to the responsible fiscal policies of West Bank leaders—such as Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad—many of whom are American-educated. But few of these improvements could have happened without a vastly improved security environment.

More than 2,100 members of the Palestinian security forces, graduates of an innovative program led by U.S. Gen. Keith Dayton, are patrolling seven major West Bank cities. Another 500-man battalion will soon be deployed. Encouraged by the restoration of law and order, the local population is streaming to the new malls and movie theaters. Shipments of designer furniture are arriving from China and Indonesia, and car imports are up more than 40% since 2008.

Israel, too, has contributed to the West Bank’s financial boom. Tony Blair recently stated that Israel had not been given sufficient credit for efforts such as removing dozens of checkpoints and road blocks, withdrawing Israeli troops from population centers, and facilitating transportation into both Israel and Jordan. Long prohibited by terrorist threats from entering the West Bank, Israeli Arabs are now allowed to shop in most Palestinian cities.

Further, several Israeli-Palestinian committees have achieved fruitful cooperation in the areas of construction and agriculture. Such measures have stimulated the Palestinian economy since 2008 resulting, for example, in a 200% increase in agricultural exports and a nearly 1,000% increase in the number of trucks importing produce into the West Bank from Israel.

The West Bank’s economic improvements contrast with the lack of diplomatic progress on the creation of a Palestinian state. Negotiators focus on the “top down” issues, grappling with legal and territorial problems. But the West Bank’s population is building sovereignty from the bottom-up, forging the law-enforcement, civil, and financial institutions that form the underpinnings of any modern polity. The seeds of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called “economic peace” are, in fact, already blossoming in the commercial skyline of Ramallah.

The vitality of the West Bank also accentuates the backwardness and despair prevailing in Gaza. In place of economic initiatives that might relieve the nearly 40% unemployment in the Gaza Strip, the radical Hamas government has imposed draconian controls subject to Shariah law. Instead of investing in new shopping centers and restaurants, Hamas has spent millions of dollars restocking its supply of rockets and mortar shells. Rather than forge a framework for peace, Hamas has wrought war and brought economic hardship to civilians on both sides of the borders.

The people of Gaza will have to take notice of their West Bank counterparts and wonder why they, too, cannot enjoy the same economic benefits and opportunities. At the same time, Arab states that have pledged to assist the Palestinian economy in the past, but which have yet to fulfill those promises, may be persuaded of the prudence of investing in the West Bank. Israel, for its part, will continue to remove obstacles to Palestinian development. If the West Bank can serve as a model of prosperity, it may also become a prototype of peace.

Mr. Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

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