What Israel's ambassador said on Yom Kippur [CORRECTED]

Posted By Josh Rogin Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 10:02 PM Share

The Israeli government has agreed to go along with President Obama's policy of engaging Iran at least until the end of the year, Israeli's new man in Washington said Monday.

Speaking to the conservative Washington congregation Adas Israel on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, Amb. Michael B. Oren spelled out the cautious approach that Israel has taken to the new international effort to hold talks with the Iranian regime, stressing that the support of the Jewish state for talks with Tehran (which begin Thursday) was not open-ended.

"The government of Israel has supported [Obama's] position on engagement with Iran. It was not an easy position to adopt," Oren told the fasting congregants. "We see a clock ticking on the wall, but we support it, with assurances that this will not be an open-ended process, that by the end of the year, the [U.S.] administration will have a good idea about where Iran stood on this process, and that failing to persuade Iran diplomatically to stop enriching uranium on its soil, the United States would lead the international effort to impose crippling sanctions on Iran."

As for when or under what circumstances Israel might launch a unilateral strike against Iran, he said, "We'll defer that answer until later on."

Oren also lashed out at the United Nations, and particularly the recent Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes during the last military action in the Gaza Strip. The report was ordered by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, and was the result of an investigation by former South African judge and International Criminal Tribunal prosecutor Richard Goldstone.

Assailing the credibility of the report, Oren said it "established a mandate that assumed Israel's guilt in advance, which included a judge who published her findings condemning Israel for war crimes in advance, which conducted its hearings under the auspices of Hamas ... and thanked Hamas for its cooperation."

"We take that kind of cooperation very, very seriously as a very severe threat to Israel's security," he added.

He compared it to a hypothetical situation whereby the U.N. would investigate American operations in Afghanistan by holding hearings under the auspices of the Taliban.

"We in Israel as a democracy, and as a Jewish state, are taking the responsibility upon ourselves by investigating ourselves," he added, referring to several ongoing inquiries the Israeli military is conducting into alleged abuses during the January Gaza operation.

Oren, who first moved to Israel to live on kibbutz at age 15, was born and raised in northern New Jersey by what he calls "a mildly Zionist" family. He had to renounce his American citizenship upon taking up his new post.

He supported Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and has said that Israel must ultimately close settlements in the West Bank to preserve its identity as a Jewish state. A YouTube video of him giving these remarks evoked criticism in Israel when his name was originally floated for ambassador to Washington.

In his new role, Oren speaks in proud but pragmatic terms.

"Peace is a great goal, we all desire it," he said Monday. "But we've accomplished all that we've accomplished in the last six decades without peace."

CORRECTION: The initial version of this post incorrectly stated, "Oren said that Israel had no choice but to hold in reserve its right to strike Iran first, saying, 'If you know someone is going to cause harm to your family, you are compelled to launch a preemptive strike against them. You can't let that person come.'"

Oren was actually responding to a question from moderator Jeffrey Goldberg about whether Israel's use of power since its inception was in accordance with Jewish moral standards, and the above quote references the teachings of the Talmud. Oren was not speaking about Iran; he was making the argument that Israel had in fact exceeded the Talmud's moral requirements in its recent operations in Gaza. FP regrets the error.

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A BALANCED VIEW

2:29 AM ET

September 30, 2009

We should make it abundantly

We should make it abundantly clear to Israel that if they were to bomb Iran, we would 1) intercept their fighters and bring them down if necessary and 2) take out their capacity to send further missions.

Such a strike would bring about an oil price led depression that would devastate the US. In fact. If Israel preemptively attacks Iran, Its just as though they are running bombing raids over the city's and suburbs of the US.

More to the point, we would weaken the stand of the Iranian regime if we FORCED Israel to tear down its settlements and remove the IDF and allow a mostly UN peace keeping team to take their place and to keep the settlers and IDF out for good.

WEPUMP

11:40 AM ET

September 30, 2009

Another 6 decades of paying the pied piper

In his new role, Oren speaks in proud but pragmatic terms.

"Peace is a great goal, we all desire it," he said Monday. "But we've accomplished all that we've accomplished in the last six decades without peace."

Just think about it we in the west for 6 decades of supplied this Democratic goverement that openly says they will do what they want and peace is not really an option when they know we will back them up no matter what Im going out and buying a steel rebar and cement company in Isreal and a coffin making factory in the middleast cause these boys are going to take us down both economicly and politically with thier open democracy as you read direct from one of the leading horses mouth. Looks like another 60 years of the same lies and same games from these guys might as well get rich off them

FARAMARZ FATHI

3:15 PM ET

September 30, 2009

Fantasies and realities

I have firmed up a belief, for the last several years, that the Apartheid while knowing they might be capable of sneaking an attack on Iran they have given up all hopes on considering such an action.

For they know very well an attack on Iran will result in a swift, massive retaliations by Iranians while reserving the rights when to end it.

The Apartheid know Iran is not just standing by to absorb an attack on its soil and take on airways to unleash condemnations. Their retaliations will be instantaneous and never ending and what they won't do is to say anything. They will let the Apartheid to pick up the pieces and and let the world to sort it out between themselves. And, the Ambassador will confirm, much to his disappointments, the Iranians are the least amused by all the rhetoric unloaded throughout Tel Aviv regarding the Apartheid's concern about the Iranian nuclear programs.

Faramarz Fathi

CAREFUL OBSERVER

8:03 PM ET

September 30, 2009

Accurate reporting

I attended the talk and this is simply not accurate reporting.

Ambassador Oren did not say that Israel "reserves the right to strike Iranian nuclear facilities preemptively." He simply did not say that.

Likewise, the Ambassador did not say that "Israel had no choice but to hold in reserve its right to strike Iran first, saying, If you know someone is going to cause harm to your family, you are compelled to launch a preemptive strike against them. You can't let that person come.'" It's true that Oren spoke about when self-defense might be appropriate under Jewish law (he was citing the Talmud), but his comments came in response to questioning about Gaza, not Iran. Hamas rained thousands of rockets down on Israel before the country responded militarily. He was saying that Israel would have been justified in responding much earlier than it did. Iran was not part of the conversation at that point. Not at all.

The use of quotation marks throughout the piece is misleading. The sentiment about Goldstone attributed to Oren is largely accurate, but not the actual quotes. Do you know how I can be sure? This was Yom Kippur; no one was writing and there were no tape recorders going, at least not openly. If there was taping, I’d like to hear the mp3 posted to this website.

Finally, the suggestion that Adas Israel is a “conservative” congregation is laughable. Yes, it’s affiliated with the Conservative Movement of Judaism in the United States, but I assure you that it is not “Conservative” in the sense that a reader of this tripe would think. Its congregants are so nearly uniformly left of center that many of my friends won’t come into the place. Last year one of our rabbis essentially called the Bush administration a bunch of war criminals. “Conservative” my foot.

This whole piece is really a disgrace. It should be taken down before its inaccuracies cause real trouble.