 |
| Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, talking to
journalists about the crisis in Gaza, Nov. 21, 2012. Rice, who
reportedly is being considered for secretary of state, has earned
plaudits from Jewish groups for her U.N. role. |
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The very quality that helped get Susan Rice in
hot water with some in Washington is what pro-Israel groups have come to
appreciate -- she is a vigorous and reliable defender of the Obama
administration’s foreign policies.
Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who is widely seen as
a leading candidate to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton, has garnered plaudits from Jewish communal leaders over her
defenses of Israel at the world body.
“She has proven herself as an ardent defender of major Israeli
positions in an unfriendly forum,” said Abraham Foxman, the
Anti-Defamation League’s national director. “And I'm more comfortable
with the person I know than the person I don't know. She is close to the
president and that's important in that position if you have someone you
can relate to and understands us.”
If Obama nominates Rice, however, she would likely face opposition from Senate Republicans.
She has been under fire from Republicans since September, when she
blitzed Sunday talk shows with what turned out to be misleading
information prepared by intelligence agencies suggesting that a deadly
attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya began with a spontaneous
protest. Media reports have suggested that Rice had been eager to go on
the talk show circuit to defend the administration, which was facing
strong criticism from Republicans over its handling of the attack and
its public explanations of what happened.
President Obama has vigorously defended Rice, although he has not
said whom he will nominate to succeed Clinton when she steps down early
next year. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 Democratic presidential
nominee, also is considered a leading contender, while several other
names of potential nominees have been cited in media reports.
Rice, 48, began her career as a youthful protege of Madeleine
Albright, who served as secretary of state under President Bill Clinton.
Albright landed Rice an influential position on the National Security
Council as Africa adviser.
Rice has been a key player in pitching Obama’s foreign policy,
notably using friendships forged at the United Nations -- particularly
with Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador -- to create space for some
of Obama’s key international initiatives. These have included enhanced
sanctions targeting Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program and the
effort that helped topple Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi last year.
A blunt and forceful speaker in private -- she once famously gave the
finger to diplomat Richard Ho
lbrooke during a staff meeting when both
were serving in the Clinton administration -- Rice has bonded with the
president over basketball, a shared passion.
Jewish groups see Rice’s trajectory at the United Nations -- from
tussles over Israel’s settlements and membership on the Human Rights
Council at the outset of her term four years ago to close cooperation
more recently -- as reflective of the Obama administration’s evolving
approach to Israel.
“One thing important to point out is that the votes have reflected
administration policy,” said Daniel Mariaschin, B’nai B’rith
International’s executive vice president. By contrast, he said, a
secretary of state is more a shaper of policy than just its messenger.
Still, Mariaschin said, Rice as U.N. ambassador has demonstrated an
understanding of Israel’s difficulties in the international arena.
“There are ways of explaining your vote and ways of explaining your
vote,” he said. Mariaschin noted that Rice’s explanation of the U.S.
“no” vote last week when the U.N. General Assembly elevated Palestine to
non-member state status incorporated many of the talking points
conveyed to her by pro-Israel groups.
“She made kind of a good end to an otherwise disappointing day,” Mariaschin said.
Rice in her post-vote explanation was dismissive of whatever hopes
that the lopsided vote -- 138 for, 9 against and 41 abstentions -- might
have engendered for the Palestinians.
“Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said, “and the
Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about
their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have
only receded.”
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Rice routinely
meets with Jewish groups.
“We had a meeting right before the General Assembly, and we covered
the wide range of prospects,” Hoenlein said. “I can't say there were big
areas of disagreement -- and where there might have been, she's always
been forthright and honest.”
Some Jewish conservatives, however, have warned against Rice being
elevated to secretary of state, citing disagreements related to Israel
from the first part of Obama’s first term. They have criticized Rice
over the U.S. decision to join the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body
that has disproportionately targeted Israel for criticism, and over her
criticism of Israel’s settlements in explanatory remarks after the U.S.
vetoed a Security Council resolution in February 2011 that would have
condemned Israel for its settlement policy.
A Nov. 29 Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal by Anne Bayefsky, who
directs Touro College’s Institute of Human Rights and the Holocaust, and
Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general under President George
W. Bush, noted two issues, among others, in questioning her “moral
fitness” for the job of secretary of state.
“Though the president, not the U.N. ambassador, makes foreign policy,
one is entitled to ask how a Secretary Rice would view the acts and
omissions of Ambassador Rice,” they wrote.
Foxman was furious with the Bayefsky-Mukasey Op-Ed, saying it was an
unseemly attempt to drag the Jewish community into a political fight.
“People may differ about the effectiveness of certain tactics or, as
we have often done, even seriously question whether bodies like the U.N.
Human Rights Council will ever give Israel a fair hearing,” he wrote in
a letter to the Journal that it has not published. “But no one should
use the U.N.’s anti-Israel record to cast aspersions on Ambassador Rice.
She has earned her reputation as a fighter for Israel’s equality in a
hostile forum where an automatic majority reflexively expresses its bias
against Israel.”
David Harris, the American Jewish Committee’s executive director,
said he had come around to the idea that joining the Human Rights
Council was a reasonable decision after having earlier opposed the move.
“The decision to go back in was understandable,” Harris said, adding
that in retrospect, he accepts that “the determination that influence
was probably best achieved from inside rather than outside.”
Regarding the speech on settlements, leaders of Jewish groups said
that Rice was reflecting the policy of the Obama administration, which
later retreated considerably from its approach of publicly criticizing
Israel over its settlement policy.
“It was a concern at the time, but in the context of this question,
was this a decision that Susan Rice made or was this a speech made by
the Obama administration and that she had to carry out?” Harris said.
“U.S. ambassadors, when they speak on issues of importance, don't do so
without full consultation with the administration.”
