Netanyahu and Israel's Crisis of Democracy
Ben Caspit discusses how a recent incident involving Israel's representative to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, reflects an increasingly oppressive atmosphere in Jerusalem, where critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to remain silent.
Ron Prosor is one of the most distinguished ambassadors in the history of the Israeli Foreign Service. He was the No. 3 man at the embassy in Washington. He was director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Silvan Shalom; he was a highly respected ambassador to the United Kingdom, and he is now in charge of Israel's public diplomacy efforts as Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations.
These days Prosor has another political edge: He is a right winger. Par excellence, articulate, free thinking. He doesn't belong to the ideological right. He's not a settler and is not religious, but he is a proud, sane and eloquent member of the Israeli right. In other words, an asset to Israeli public diplomacy, an asset to the Israeli right, and an asset to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who appointed him to his current position.
