Report: Obama to appoint anti-Israel adviser

Daniel Kurtzer

JERUSALEM – President-elect Barack Obama is considering appointing his top Mideast adviser, Daniel Kurtzer, as U.S. envoy to the Middle East, a senior Israeli diplomatic source told Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, long has been seen in Jerusalem as one of the Jewish state's greatest foes in Washington. He has been identified by Jewish and Israeli leaders, including prime ministers, as biased against Israel and is notorious for urging extreme concessions from the Jewish state.

The Haaretz report follows WND articles quoting officials in Jerusalem who stated Kurtzer was likely to become Obama's envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Kurtzer came under fire last summer when he traveled to Damascus where he reportedly urged Syrian officials to fast-track negotiations with Israel aiming at an Israeli withdrawal from the strategic Golan Heights. Kurtzer at the time stressed he was not in Damascus as part of Obama's campaign but instead visiting as a private expert attending an international lawyers conference.

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Obama's transition team did not immediately return a WND e-mail and phone message seeking comment on Kurtzer's possible appointment. Haaretz noted Obama's purported decision to appoint a special envoy to the Mideast reporting to him directly, rather than to the secretary of state, indicates the president-elect attaches special importance to the region.

Kurtzer long has been identified by Israeli leaders speaking on the record as one of Israel's greatest foes in Washington, and his appointment as a primary Mideast adviser to Obama first raised some eyebrows in the pro-Israel Jewish community.

"We oppose the appointment of Kurtzer, because of his long, documented record of hostility to and severe pressure upon Israel," said Zionist Organization of America National Chairman Morton Klein.

Kurtzer has been blasted by mainstream Jewish organizations, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

He has angered Israeli leaders many times for pushing Israel into what they described as extreme concessions to the Palestinians.

"With Jews like Kurtzer, it is impossible to build a healthy relationship between Israel and the United States," Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted saying in 2001 by Haaretz.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Kurtzer "frequently pressured Israel to make one-sided concessions to the Arabs; he constantly blamed Israel for the absence of Mideast peace, and paid little or no attention to the fact that the Palestinians were carrying out terrorist attacks and openly calling for the destruction of Israel."

Morris Amitay, former executive director of the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2001: "Kurtzer ... will use his Jewishness as a protective cover for his anti-Israel views."

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The ZOA points out Israel's leading daily, Yediot Ahronot, editorialized on Kurtzer's negative influence against Israel: "Possibly more than any other U.S. State Department official, Kurtzer has been instrumental in promoting the goals of the Palestinians and in raising their afflictions to the center of the U.S. policymakers' agenda."

Kurtzer first rose to prominence in 1988 when, as a State Department adviser, he counseled the Reagan administration to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat. The PLO had carried out scores of anti-Western attacks, but in the late '80s Arafat claimed to have renounced violence.

In 1988, Kurtzer was noted as the principal author of a major policy speech by then-Secretary of State George Shultz in which the U.S. government first recognized the "legitimate rights" of the Palestinians.

Haaretz reported in 2001 that Kurtzer had a "vocal conflict" with an Israeli government official in Philadelphia in the summer of 1990 after Kurtzer "attacked the Israeli government for refusing to include the PLO in the peace process [and] said that this constituted the main obstacle to peace."

To interview Aaron Klein, contact M. Sliwa Public Relations by e-mail, or call 973-272-2861 or 212-202-4453.