WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush is poised to name Daniel Kurtzer, an Orthodox Jew serving as U.S. envoy to Egypt, as ambassador to Israel, U.S. officials told the Jerusalem Post, confirming earlier reports in WorldNetDaily.com.
Bush is expected to announce the appointment in the coming days or weeks, but Kurtzer would not take up the job until the summer, when U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk completes his term, according to the Jerusalem Post. Indyk, who twice filled the job under Clinton, was the first Jew to hold the coveted position.
Kurtzer was former President Clinton’s choice to be ambassador to Egypt and earlier helped shape Middle East policy for President Bush’s father’s administration.
Kurtzer was confirmed as ambassador to Egypt by the United States Senate in November 1997 and is unlikely to face much opposition in the Senate now, despite concerns in some quarters that he is too closely tied to Clinton’s failed peace efforts in the Middle East.
While no official announcement has been made, Kurtzer immediately emerged as a key player for the Bush team on Middle East policy. He made no secret of his desire to become ambassador to Israel even before Bush was inaugurated.
Kurtzer, of Silver Spring, Md., has been in the Foreign Service since 1976. He began in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, where he worked on U.N. political, economic, humanitarian and development issues. Subsequently, he left the State Department to take up an appointment as dean of Yeshiva College, the undergraduate men’s college of Yeshiva University in New York. He was reappointed to the Foreign Service in 1979 and was assigned as second secretary for political affairs at the American Embassy in Cairo.
In 1982, he was appointed first secretary for political affairs at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel. Kurtzer returned to Washington in 1986 to successive assignments as deputy director for Egyptian affairs and as speechwriter and member of the secretary’s policy planning staff. In 1989, he was appointed deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, with responsibility for the Middle East peace process and U.S. bilateral relations with Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians. In 1994, Kurtzer was appointed principal deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and research and became the acting assistant secretary in May 1997.
An observant Jew, Kurtzer was born and raised in Elizabeth, N.J. He received his B.A. in 1971 from Yeshiva University and two master’s degrees and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1976.
Those who would like to see the U.S. take a firmer, more unequivocal stand in support of Israel may be disappointed in the selection of Kurtzer, who is an advocate of the failed peace process that has led to more conflict in the region.
However, he is well respected by the Washington political establishment and is expected to be supported by both Republicans and Democrats.
“I have worked on the Middle East peace process for many years — in fact, for a period of about eight years it was my full-time job to try to move the Middle East peace process forward,” Kurtzer told a Washington-area audience last June.
“We registered some significant progress during that period, including getting to the Madrid peace conference, bringing about the Jordan-Israel peace treaty and helping create the circumstances which allowed for the Oslo agreement between Israel and the PLO. We got both bilateral and multilateral negotiations started. Having worked on this for many years, I have to confess to you that I am an optimist — in a sense, you can’t work on the peace process without being an optimist. You always have to have a sense that tomorrow or the next day or the day after will bring some kind of a breakthrough that will allow us to make progress.”
Just months after Kurtzer’s optimistic assessment, the latest Palestinian intifada, or uprising, broke out in and around Jerusalem — the worst level of violence in years.
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