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Mossad Agent Appointed Israeli Ambassador To US
In What World Is "Isaiah Berlin" A World Famous Or Influential
Philosopher?
3/4/02 3:22:00 PM
United Press International
Washington, DC -- Analysis: Mossad chief may be next envoy
By Martin Sieff
Senior News Analyst
Published 2/27/2002 6:23 PM
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Israel may send a super-spook related to a
world
famous philosopher as its next ambassador to Washington to end a long
deadlock
between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
Long embattled Israeli Ambassador to Washington David Ivry is hanging up
his
hat and going home in April. No firm decision has been taken on who will
succeed him, but the frontrunner is Ephraim Halevy, the 67-year-old head
of
Israel's Mossad Secret Intelligence Service and the nephew of Sir Isaiah
Berlin, one of the most influential Western political philosophers of the
20th
century.
[LSN: Has anyone ever even heard of Isaiah Berlin?]
Sources in Israel and Washington said Ivry would return home right after
celebrating Israeli Independence Day on April 17. Ivry is the legendary
former
head of the Israeli air force, long-time director of the Israeli Defense
Ministry and first Israeli National Security Council chief who personally
led
the famous 1981 IAF airstrike that destroyed Iraq's French-built Osirak
nuclear reactor.
Political sources in Israel's ruling Likud Party in Israel said Ivry was
not
being pushed out and could have stayed on for several more months. This
was
because, they said, Sharon and Peres can still not agree on his successor.
But the ambassador, these sources said, was determined not to stay on
because
he was angry at what he regarded as a long campaign to denigrate and
undercut
him within Likud itself.
It is an open secret in Likud circles that Dore Gold, who then-Prime
Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu plucked from obscurity to become first his top foreign
policy adviser and then Israeli ambassador to the United Nations from 1996
to
1999, has been campaigning hard over the past year to get the plum and
powerful Washington envoy post. Some Israeli media reports have even
described
him as "ambassador-designate."
But Likud and Labour party sources in Israel said Gold would not get it
because Peres was determined not to appoint him.
"Gold will never get the job as long as Shimon (Peres) remains foreign
minister," one well-placed Israeli political insider said.
The main frontrunner for the job, according to the Israeli insiders, is
Halevy, the British-born, highly cultivated veteran diplomat who now heads
Mossad. He is a former Israeli ambassador to the European Union.
Halevy, the Israeli sources said, is seen as a politically neutral figure
acceptable to both Sharon and Peres. He is also a veteran high-powered
diplomat and while his term as Mossad director has not seen any
spectacular
intelligence coups, it has also so far been free of any scandals or
intelligence bungles such as marred the careers of some of his
predecessors.
He grew up in North London.
Halevy directed the secret rescue of the Jews of Ethiopia to Israel and
was
the key negotiator under former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in concluding
the
historic 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty. For well more than a decade, he
was
Israel's most important clandestine contact with the late King Hussein of
Jordan.
Halevy is fully fluent in English as his native language and unlike the
low
key Ivry is a skilled and experienced communicator. The biggest criticism
thrown against Ivry by his Israeli critics was that he shunned the media
and
neglected to put Israel's case to the American public.
However, Sharon and Peres have not yet made a final decision to appoint
Halevy, the Israeli sources said. If he is not appointed, the next favored
candidate is Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, the daughter of
assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Rabin-Pelossof does not have the communications skills or diplomatic
expertise
of Halevy, they said, but would enjoy very high and, it is believed,
favorable
name recognition in the United States and is regarded as an acceptable
compromise by both Peres and Sharon.
Peres earlier tried to push an obscure figure with close personal ties to
him,
Danny Gilman, head of Israel's Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Israeli
sources said. But this proposal got nowhere with Sharon and his advisers,
according to the Israeli insiders.
Despite the criticisms thrown at Ivry, he will be leaving on a career
high.
Israel's standings in U.S. public opinion polls remain at a very high
level
and ever since the terror bomb attacks in Haifa and Jerusalem at the
beginning
of December, President Bush has reverted to his traditional support of
both
Israel and its prime minister.
Ivry has also enjoyed exceptionally good access and respect in both the
State
Department and, most especially, the Department of Defense, where he is
seen
as a literally legendary warrior figure.
But two question marks still hang over the appointment of either Halevy or
Rabin-Pelossof.
The first is that the splintering Government of National Unity may break
apart
with Peres and his Labour Party's new leader, Defense Minister Binyamin
Ben-
Eliezer, walking out in protest against Sharon's increasingly tough
tactics
against the Palestinians in the second intifada, or uprising. If that
happens,
then the way could be clear for Sharon, as leader of an interim caretaker
government until new elections are held, to appoint Gold to the Washington
post after all if he wants to.
And the second is that in Israel, as everywhere else, there are no
certainties
in politics and the job could go to someone else after all.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
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