By Shmuel Rosner
Last Update: 20/09/2005 15:30

WASHINGTON - On a warm Tuesday night, about 200 guests gathered at the residence of the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon, to partake of miniature egg rolls, chicken skewers and wine. At first they crowded into the living room and later, when they wanted to breathe, they went outside to crowd in the yard. Two cabinet secretaries were there, but not the most senior, and one friendly senator, a few former ambassadors and bureaucrats of various ranks. All of them came to say good-bye to Dick Jones, who is leaving here at the end of the week to serve as the United States' new ambassador in Israel.

The hosts evinced maturity and kept the speeches short: a few jokes, a few bits of advice, as is customary. Jones apologized that he would not remember everyone he had met that night. An appropriate apology; it is likely he will not remember any of them.

It was a strange and laden foreign relations week in America. Hundreds of leaders of countries are gathering in New York and many of them are also dropping in for talks in the capital. The president is making time for the president of Iraq and the prime minister of Israel. The secretary of state hasn't been seen in Washington for a week now; she is busy with meetings in New York. All her aides are with her there too - therefore they did not come to bid farewell to Jones properly at Ayalon's residence.
Advertisement

But all this is happening outside the range of reception of the general public, which is zapping between New Orleans and Capitol Hill - between the president's efforts to repair the damage caused by Katrina and the efforts of the candidate for chief justice of the Supreme Court to maneuver between the landmines that are hiding in the hearing being held for him in the Senate. In the meantime, big things are happening: a failure in the compromise efforts at the United Nations, which have engendered a lukewarm document for the leaders to sign, and the president's warning to Syria at a joint press conference with the Iraqi president, and then his speech in New York, only hours after another fatal attack in Baghdad.

"With this president," noted one Israeli diplomat this week, "you have to pay attention to every word in his speeches. This is a president who doesn't talk off the cuff on foreign policy issues. He does not write speeches himself; he does not add and subtract paragraphs. Every word is weighed 10 times before they put it into a speech. And if it is uttered, it is a sign that the administration means it."

Washington, a mystery

But what exactly does the administration mean, in Iraq, in Syria and in Palestine? This does not always have a good answer. The question of the division of attention engages everyone who is dealing with these issues and the observers who are looking for keys to understanding these things. In how many arenas can the administration act simultaneously? Will Katrina guzzle all the resources, both financial and political, and will the other issues be neglected for a while? Are Iraq and Katrina all there is? Will there be any time and energy left for us? Israelis and others are asking this. Delegations that are coming to hear and try to understand. Indeed, this week Eival Giladi, who is close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's adviser Dov Weissglas, popped over to Washington for a couple of days this week. The deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry, Yoram Ben Ze'ev, has also come here for meetings. Next week he will be joined by the director general, Ron Prosor. And of course, there is the prime minister's large delegation in New York.

Soon everyone will know Dick Jones, the new ambassador, whose appointment they are now trying to analyze. He's a no-nonsense person, they say. He has rich experience in the Middle East - in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iraq - but not in Israel. "He isn't one of those people who has a million friends among us, like some of the previous ambassadors," says a new acquaintance. This means - a professional official, unbiased, sometimes blunt. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to put in the forward position facing Sharon; someone who will not be frightened by him, who will get things done unsentimentally.

Altogether, say senior people in Israel, an interesting phenomenon is being noted in the relations between Israel and the administration of President George W. Bush. There is a lot of understanding, a lot of support, there aren't any large disagreements, but - and at certain moments this can be an important "but" - the administration officials don't have many sentiments about us. The senior officials at the State Department are not "friends of Israel," as were some of their predecessors, for example in the Clinton administration (Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross). Rice's aides, Robert Zolick, Nicholas Burns, David Welch - all of them are polite professionals, but they have no special feelings toward Israel. Including negative ones. The new ambassador Jones fits into this pattern well.

A sensitive and volatile issue is lurking here. Anti-Semites will find in it proof for their argument that Jews should not be appointed to key positions. However, says a senior security person, look at how much damage was caused to us by Israel's friend Doug Feith in the big Pentagon war against Israeli-Chinese relations. "Anyone who believes Israel has a real strategic role, that it can bring real benefit to the United States," he says, "has to welcome officials with a matter-of-fact approach."