Former Israeli Amb. to US Michael Oren at Nixon Library July 2, '15
In his revealing auto-biography, "Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide," American-born Michael Oren discusses his experience becoming appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to work with the Obama administration as Israel's ambassador to the U.S.
Recorded before an audience at L.A.'s Museum of Tolerance, in a speech and conversation with David Suissa of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. July 1, 2015.
Above, Amb. Oren fields a broad range of questions from the audience (in two segments). David Bernstein in the Washington Post refers to "How Israel Got Taken" a review of the book by Michael Doran in Mosaic Magazine. Doran claims that "Netanyahu undertook, at American insistence, an unprecedented settlement freeze, became the first Likud prime minister to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state, and refrained from engaging in military action against Iran. He might have added that Netanyahu released hundreds of terrorist murderers to further John Kerry’s misbegotten “peace process.” While Netanyahu hasn’t always behaved well, even when he did the White House’s bidding he was met solely with contempt, more contempt than the Obama Administration has shown for any other foreign leader. That would be okay, if one really trusted Obama on the one issue key to Israeli security (and, in my opinion, key to the security of the entire Middle East and therefore to American security), preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons." United Against Nuclear Iran group has published this public service political advertisement:
Only days before the U.S. re-inaugurates Obama for a second 4-year term, and a week before Israelis vote to elect a government to replace the ruling one Benjamin Netanyahu formed in 2009, Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren appeared before a packed L.A. theater house to shore-up core support for the bilateral relationship between America and her greatest Mid-East ally, Israel. Pres. Barack Obama has been criticized for meddling to damage Netanyahu's Likud Beitenu party re-election.
Over the course of his term, for U.S. government leadership roles which deal with Islamism and Zionism, Pres. Barack Obama has nominated candidates with strong pro-Islam, pro-Palestine, (and, in some cases, anti-Zionist) worldviews- starting in 2009 with Chas Freeman (not approved) and Samantha Power (approved). The issue has been revived with Congressional opposition to Obama's nomination of U.N. Amb. Susan Rice for Secretary of State recently. The Obama Administration has endeavored to scapegoat supporters of Israel as a disloyal, fifth-column impediment to the approval of his philo-Muslim, cabinet nominees- Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, John Brennan for Director of the C.I.A., and Sen. John Kerry for Secretary of State.
While Obama's Administration works to demonize those who support Israel, Amb. Michael Oren (who has taught history at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown Universities) appeared in Los Angeles to boost the morale and dedication for support for Israel. In his 3rd year of making history as Israel's U.S.-based, chief diplomat, the 1979- American-emigrant to Israel reminded the Saban Theater audience about the long-standing commonalities between America's founding fathers and the re-establishment of Jewish Israel, their respective countries' biblical guiding principals, and their common dedication to freedom and democracy. In this half-hour talk, video-chronicled by DemoCast, Amb. Oren addresses the historic reciprocal support among Americans and Israelis.
Mr. Richard Sandler, chairman of the board of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, who along with the Israeli Consulate to the Southwestern U.S., co- sponsored the event, introduces Amb. Oren to a standing ovation from the Saban Theater audience.
Amb. Oren talks about the history of Zionism in the establishment of America - and America's contribution to the establishment of Israel. Amb. Oren also reminds the audience of Israel's affinities for America- as the only country in the Middle East with statue memorials to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the victims of September 11, 2001 attacks.
Amb. Oren followed his speech with this revealing, wide-ranging interview with TV journalist and anchorman of Good Day L.A., Steve Edwards, of Channel 11- KTTV.
Here is a cameraphone video of the West Point Choir joining the IDF Choir in singing the Israeli National Anthem, Hatikvah ("The Hope") which Amb. Oren referenced in his remarks.
The Israeli newspaper, Makor Rishon, has reported that Amb. Oren has requested to end his tenure in the spring of 2013, when he will have completed 4-years. The newspaper reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favors his political adviser, Ron Dermer, to succeed Michael Oren in the U.S. Mr. Dermer co-authored the book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror’’ along with former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky.
Despite Obama's uncharacteristic charm-offensive towards PM Netanyahu, Israel's Amb. Oren says of Washington: "Relations are in the state of a tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart!"
Ha'Aretz newspaper's Barak Ravid reports that: "Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, denied painting a dark picture of U.S.- Israeli relations during a briefing at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem last week. Israeli diplomats say Oren described the current situation as a "tectonic rift" in which Israel and the United States are like continents drifting apart."
And yet, he (Amb. Mike Oren) is neither deluded nor dishonest, so he concedes — he thought, privately — that Obama is pulling the relationship apart, replacing a robust alliance based on shared values, interests, and, yes, affection with an arms-length, if not antagonistic, one, in which Israel is treated as an encumbrance to Obama’s foreign-policy objectives.
There is a weird bit of play acting going on. The Israeli government, the Obama team, and the American Jewish groups publicly declare that things are “much improved” between the two countries and that Obama is really, honestly, a stalwart defender of the Jewish state. But, in fact, none of them believe this to be so. Bibi’s government walks a tightrope, attempting to defend its country’s interests but wary of enraging the American president, who is all too eager to look for excuses to demonstrate to the “Muslim World” that he’s not four-square behind Israel. The Obama team thinks that a “charm” offensive will be sufficient, and looks to do the least possible in defense of Israel without provoking American Jewry. And Jewish leaders privately grumble and rage over Obama’s assaults on Israel, but dare not make their fury public — for they might lose access to the White House, as well as their liberal members.
The Kabuki dance, however, matters less than reality. Israel’s foes see the separation between the U.S. and the Jewish state. Iran sees Obama’s unwillingness to consider military force to thwart its nuclear ambitions. The Arab nations see that America is an unreliable ally, and consider lining up with the Iran-Syria axis, which is growing in prestige as ours diminishes. In sum, Israel’s foes and ours are not fooled; they understand all too well the “tectonic rift” between the U.S. and Israel.
Perhaps, it is time, at least in the U.S., for Israel’s friends to be candid about the depth of the problem and to devise a strategy for challenging the president, whose foreign policy is so antithetical to Israel’s interests that its ambassador can only reveal his true sentiments in private.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The University of California, Irvine, has suspended a Muslim student group for at semester quarter because of a protest that disrupted a talk by Israel's ambassador and led to the arrests of 11 students.
The university on Monday released a letter from a student affairs disciplinary committee to Muslim Student Union leaders. It says the group was found guilty of disorderly conduct, obstructing university activities and other violations of campus policy.
The Muslim Student Union condemned Ambassador Michael Oren's appearance in February. It has insisted it did not organize the protests, but the committee found it did engineer the protests and instructed participants to lie about its involvement.
Muslim Student Union spokesman Hadeer Soliman did not immediately respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press requesting comment.
Watch DemoCast's original video of the incident here.
Ambassador Michael Oren to Speak at the 2010 AIPAC Policy Conference, March 21-23
Amb. Oren will address more than 6,000 conference delegates.
The Honorable Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, has confirmed that he will address a plenary session at AIPAC Policy Conference 2010, which will be held March 21-23 in Washington, D.C. Oren joins a list of others who have confirmed their attendance, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Quartet Representatitve Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Col. Richard Kemp and Prof. Alan Dershowitz. View a full Policy Conference program and register for the pro-Israel community's pre-eminent annual event. Below, view DemoCast's original video of Amb. Oren withstanding antagonists from Univ of Calif Irvine's Muslim Students Union who marched out in the midst of his address.
No charges were filed against the students.
In an open letter published in the UCI student newspaper New University Mon 8 March, Amb. Oren has offered to fly to meet the students who interrupted him as long as the tone stayed civil. Here is an excerpt:
I was saddened by the loss of this opportunity to exchange ideas with those who disagreed with me and, at the very least, to introduce them to different perspectives.
Since then, videos of the incident at Irvine have proliferated on the Internet and attracted significant media attention. I have received heartfelt apologies from UC President Mark Yudof and Chancellor Drake. The response has been overwhelmingly favorable in defense of my right to free expression on campus and the students’ right to hear those remarks.
Still, I am not satisfied. I came to UCI for the opportunity to exchange ideas — a reasonable intention that was hijacked by a minority of students. The disruptive measures exhibited by these students only underscore the importance for dialogue, especially on the frontline of higher learning. I would willingly return to your campus and meet with those individuals whose views may not agree with mine as long as we respect the decorum of dialogue and free speech.
(KPCC Wire Services) IRVINE — Assemblyman Chuck DeVore sent a letter to UC Irvine's chancellor asking him to ban the Muslim Student Union from campus following several of the group members' arrests while disrupting a speech by Israel's ambassador to the United States.
DeVore, (R-Irvine), who is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., also accused the Muslim Student Union of "passing the hat'' for Hamas at a fundraiser for the "terrorist organization'' last year.
"It's time to ban this organization from campus,'' DeVore said. "It's not contributing anything of value to the campus.''
DeVore's letter to UCI Chancellor Michael Drake requesting the ban of the Muslim Student Union follows the arrest of 11 students after allegedly disrupting a Feb. 8 speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at the campus.
UCI Media Relations Director Cathy Lawhon said the university's response to DeVore's letter is that UCI officials are considering the allegations against the 11 students and the Muslim Student Union. The students and organization face a range of discipline from a warning to expulsion, but it is not known when officials will decide on punishment, Lawhon said. None of the 11 students who were arrested have been charged, according to court records.
The university is also still investigating the Muslim Student Union's fundraiser last year that critics say benefited Hamas.
The university has been roiled over permitting an anti-Semitic climate to fester on campus over the past several years.
Ambassador Michael Oren addressed an overflow audience on US-Israel relationship and global affairs at the Univ of Calif Irvine. He discussed the Zionistic element (support for the return of the people of Israel to their ancestral homeland) within America's founding and maturing, from John Adams, through Abraham Lincoln, to Harry Truman. He discussed Americans' widespread spiritual and social support for democratic Israel, the only land where rule of law guarantees free-speech in the Middle East. He discussed the evolution of the multi-faceted ties between the US and Israel- which strategic relationship began towards the end of the 1967 Six-Day War.
Amb. Oren noted the U.S. and Israel's shared values - spiritual and democratic, and their shared interests- economic and political - from allying to resisting Communism, to resisting Islamic-extremism, today.
He discussed the state of the current relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, vis a vis the Obama's administration's pressure to force the creation of a state of Palestine. He discussed Israel's considerations regarding the conditions of Palestinian sovereignty and prioritizing it over stopping nuclear proliferation within the Islamic world - which would extort the West with threats to leak nuclear-weapons into Islamic-extremists' hands.
U.C. Irvine, with a large Muslim enrollment, has been criticized for fomenting a climate of aggressive anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism through its Muslim Students Union. The M.S.U. organized a stream of students disrupting through the speech, ignoring appeals from Chancellor Paul Drake and Political Science Dept Director Mark Petraca. Police Chief Paul Hensley did not elect to position a uniformed police deterrence between the disrupting Muslims' seating sections and the Ambassador at the podium following repeated outbursts- and Muslim students continued to disregard faculty appeals- creating 10 disruptions. Amb. Oren walked out briefly, but Rabbi David Eliezrie relates that he elected to return on his dedication to the attendees, his Jewish perseverance, and the promise of his hosts to suspend or expel further disruptors.
Eleven students in total were arrested and charged with a misdemeanor- eight from U.C. Irvine and
three from U.C. Riverside. Irvine disruptors arrested: Joseph Tamim Haider, Osama Ahmed Sabry Shabaik, Mohamed Mohy Eldeen Abdelgany, Ali Mohammed Sayeed, Asaad Traina, Mohammad Qureashi, Aslam Akhtar, and Hakim Nasreddine Kebir.
Shalom Elcott, President and CEO of Jewish Federation Orange County, said the highly-orchestrated disruptions by the President of the Muslim Student Union (MSU) - who was arrested, along with one MSU board member and 10 other student protesters - constituted an embarrassment to the University and an insult to the broader community. “While we had hoped the administration would have been better prepared to thwart groups or individuals trying to harass Ambassador Oren, we do commend the University police for making arrests and taking action to escort the perpetrators out of the room,” says Elcott. “And, we are proud of the Ambassador not letting the disruptions stop him from completing his address. We will intensely monitor what actions the University administration will take in response to this evening’s event and will report our findings to the community,” says Elcott.
Palestinian political refugee, Ghazi Brighith, denounced the Muslim agitators' behavior as deplorable and un-Islamic.
Israeli-American activist, Nurit Greenger, called upon Chancellor Michael Drake in a written appeal to seek full prosecution for those arrested students, including expulsion from UCI, and deportation of those who are here student visas. "They are not welcome here to try distorting our culture and way of life. We want civility restored at UCI and nothing less will suffice," Ms. Greenger wrote.
Update 26 Feb: Though Police Chief Hensley told DemoCast that the arrested would be referred to the District Attorney for prosecution, none of the 11 students who were arrested have been charged, according to court records as of 23 Feb.
A hypocritical, delegitimizing movement seeking to defeat Zionism and whitewashing Islamist Palestinian-ism has overtaken the media and academia, asserts Israeli sociologist, Ben-Dror Yemini.
Israel, having lost the battle for the moral high-ground of its legitimacy against a pro-Palestinian, history rewriting, disinformation campaign, must prioritize resources to recoup its losses in the psych-ops war - which by capturing the worldview of most media and academia - has infiltrated most popular understanding.
Yemini contends that an "industry of lies" (including the media, academia, and the U.N.) seeks to excommunicate and depose Jewish rule of Israel, in similar fashion to apartheid South Africa. This is an existential challenge more threatening than Hamas, Yemini cautions in his call for action (exclusive to DemoCast at the Herzliya Policy Conference in Israel.)
Rarely in modern history have nations faced genuine existential threats. Wars are waged to change regimes, alter borders, acquire resources, and impose ideologies, but almost never to eliminate another state and its people. This was certainly the case during World War II, in which the Allies sought to achieve the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan and to oust their odious leaders, but never to destroy the German and Japanese states or to annihilate their populations. In the infrequent cases in which modern states were threatened with their survival, the experience proved to be traumatic in the extreme. Military coups, popular uprisings, and civil strife are typical by-products of a state’s encounter with even a single existential threat.
The State of Israel copes not only with one but with at least seven existential threats on a daily basis. These threats are extraordinary not only for their number but also for their diversity. In addition to external military dangers from hostile regimes and organizations, the Jewish State is endangered by domestic opposition, demographic trends, and the erosion of core values. Indeed, it is difficult if not impossible to find an example of another state in the modern epic that has faced such a multiplicity and variety of concurrent existential threats.
# 3 - Delegitimization
Since the mid-1970s, Israel’s enemies have waged an increasingly successful campaign of delegitimizing Israel in world forums, intellectual and academic circles, and the press. The campaign has sought to depict Israel as a racist, colonialist state that proffers extraordinary rights to its Jewish citizens and denies fundamental freedoms to the Arabs. These accusations have found their way into standard textbooks on the Middle East and have become part of the daily discourse at the United Nations and other influential international organizations. Most recently, Israel has been depicted as an apartheid state, effectively comparing the Jewish State to South Africa under its former white supremacist regime. Many of Israel’s counterterrorism efforts are branded as war crimes, and Israeli generals are indicted by foreign courts.
Though the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza clearly contributed to the tarnishing of Israel’s image, increasingly the delegitimization campaign focuses not on Israel’s policy in the territories but on its essence as the Jewish national state.
Such calumny was, in the past, dismissed as harmless rhetoric. But as the delegitimization of Israel gained prominence, the basis was laid for international measures to isolate Israel and punish it with sanctions similar to those that brought down the South African regime. The academic campaigns to boycott Israeli universities and intellectuals are adumbrations of the type of strictures that could destroy Israel economically and deny it the ability to defend itself against the existential threats posed by terrorism and Iran.
America's historical involvement with the Muslim world and Israel, respectively, precedes its recognizing Israel's independence in 1948.
Professor Michael Oren (author of "Power, Faith, & Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present") explains the role that Zionism and the Islamic world have played since America's founding.
The speech is presented to benefit Childrens' Hospital Los Angeles', "Teen Impact" cancer therapy program. Learn more at Celebrate Life with Hope.
Larry Cohler-Esses and James D. Besser write in the NY Jewish Week about Michael Oren's addressing the AIPAC Policy Conference: "Israeli historian Michael Oren set the stage with an analysis suggesting that the roots of American support for Israel date back to the early colonial era—and Protestants who created a theology embracing the concept of a restored Zion anticipating the Zionist movement" http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13793&print=yes
