We, Israeli Citizens & the American Jewish Community, Don’t Deserve to be Embarrassed by Danny Danon
Over the last 36 hours, I watched the Hebrew writers on my Facebook feed erupt in a combination of black humor and disbelief at the appointment of Danny Danon as Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations. Worse, has been the reactions of the American Jewish Leaders I have interfaced with where I am sitting in NYC. They are expressing disgust at the way Bibi, and by extension, the Israeli Government, is relating to the UN, Foreign Governments and the US Jewish Community, all of whom the new Israeli UN Ambassador will interface with.
Make no mistake, most involved Jews I am talking with in New York this summer do not have a high regard for the UN nor its approach to Israel. I certainly don’t. However, the UN is the game that is currently played on the field. You need to play it at the highest level even if you are not enamoured with its outcomes or processes. The man called the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations matters in the media. That title matters to the US Jewish community and to friends of Israel and it should matter to the Israeli Prime Minister and Government. Embarrassing yourself and your country in these forums with an amateur, prone to mis-statements and buffoonery, is worse than irresponsible. It is disrespectful.
As Yoaz Hendel pointed out, Bibi released this news on a Friday because he wanted to bury it in the Israeli press. However, Facebook and America work on Friday. Everyone went into the weekend thinking about Space Cadet Minister Danon speaking on CNN while viewers sympathetic to Israel cringe in their recliners. I don’t even think that Fox News can save Danny Danon from himself nor the State of Israel from the embarrassment of this incomprehensible appointment.
Everyone looking at Danon’s appointment knows that Bibi is playing backyard politics here, sending a political pain-in-the-neck to exile in New York. However, for us, the citizens of Israel, it is our country and not the Likud Central Committee. For American Jews, Israel is a place to look for inspiration and kinship and not petty politics. This appointment has longer term negative ramifications than one painful night in the Likud Central committee.
The Government of Israel and the Knesset must beat Prime Minister Netanyahu to his senses on this senseless appointment. All of us, who have unending belief and optimism about the State of Israel and our people, deserve better. We, the citizens of Israel are capable of so much and we should not be embarrassed and negatively reflected upon by this neophyte and his political puppeteer. If Bibi can no longer see this, it is time for him to go home as well and stop embarrassing us.
