Michael Oren | The American Task Force on Palestine

Clinton sounds upbeat on Israeli-Palestinian talks
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Arshad Mohammed, Andrew Quinn - February 25, 2010 - 12:00am

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday she hoped Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would resume "shortly," sounding more upbeat than usual for a U.S. official. Separately, Israel's ambassador to the United States told Reuters if negotiations resumed after being frozen for more than a year they would start as indirect "proximity talks," with U.S. envoy George Mitchell shuttling between the sides.

Unfairly throwing the book at the 'Irvine 11'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Mark Levine - (Opinion) February 22, 2010 - 12:00am

The 11 students who each briefly disrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's speech last week at UC Irvine have no 1st Amendment protection for their actions and deserve to be punished, writes my colleague, law school Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, in his Feb. 17 Times Op-Ed article. Reading Chemerinsky's piece, you'd think a group of hysterically angry Muslim men prevented Oren from speaking at all. But the situation, as a look at a video recording of the event makes clear, was much more complicated.

UC Irvine's free speech debate
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Erwin Chemerinsky - (Opinion) February 18, 2010 - 12:00am

College campuses, especially at public universities, are places where all ideas should be expressed and debated. No speech ever should be stopped or punished because of the viewpoint expressed. Of course, there must be rules to regulate the time, place and manner of such expression to preserve order and even to make sure that speech can occur.

Counsel-General attends J Street event
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - February 11, 2010 - 12:00am

Three months after Ambassador to the US Michael Oren pointedly turned down an invitation to attend J Street’s first annual convention in Washington, Israel’s consul-general attended one of the group’s functions last week in Boston. The Jerusalem Post has learned that the consul-general, Nadav Tamir, went to the event only after seeking, and getting, a green light from the Foreign Ministry. The Post learned that Tamir was told by the ministry that he could attend the event, but not be one of its speakers.

In Shift, Oren Calls J Street ‘A Unique Problem’
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward
by Josh Nathan-Kazis - December 9, 2009 - 12:00am

Breaking with his previous restraint, Israel’s ambassador to the United States delivered an unprecedented blast against J Street, the new dovish Israel lobby that has made waves in Washington and throughout the Jewish community. Addressing a breakfast session at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s biennial convention December 7, Ambassador Michael Oren described J Street as “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It’s significantly out of the mainstream.”

Oren navigates waters among Israel, U.S. government and American Jews
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - August 16, 2009 - 11:00pm

Tweeted, a diplomat’s job would look something like this: Explain home abroad, explain abroad home. In recent weeks, it’s seemed as if the job description for Israeli envoys would encroach on the 140-character limit: Explain home abroad, explain abroad home, explain Jews abroad home, explain home to Jews abroad, explain, explain, explain. Michael Oren, the new Israeli ambassador to Washington, has had a busy six weeks, and he acknowledges that some of his difficulties have had to do with a debate within his government about whether to even engage with liberal American Jews.

Israeli derision at mufti-Hitler link
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Australian
by John Lyons - July 23, 2009 - 11:00pm

ISRAEL'S colourful Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has sparked another controversy with an order to all Israel's overseas missions that they draw attention to a picture taken in Nazi Germany in 1941 showing Adolf Hitler with a Palestinian religious leader of the time. The order has been greeted inside the Israeli Foreign Ministry with derision, with one source telling The Australian it was met with "laughter, scepticism and a sense of misplaced communication that this doesn't help one bit the real argument".

Envoy to U.S.: Differences on settlements to be resolved soon
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
July 21, 2009 - 11:00pm

There is no crisis in relations between Israel and the United States, despite a lingering dispute - which will be settled "soon" - over settlement construction in the occupied territories, Israel's new ambassador to Washington said Wednesday. "There is no crisis in Israel-U.S. relations. Here we are talking about disagreements over certain subjects, very, very specific," Michael Oren told Israel Radio.

Jerusalem ‘crisis’ reveals U.S.-Israel communications breakdown
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Ron Kampeas - July 21, 2009 - 11:00pm

The summoning of an ambassador usually signifies a crisis. So what does it mean when the ambassador isn't summoned? That's the question that had U.S. officials scratching their heads after last week's mixed signals over whether the State Department had summoned Michael Oren, Israel's new ambassador, for a dressing-down over a Jewish plan to build 20 apartments in Sheik Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. Israeli officials had leaked the reports of a "summons" to the media -- except Oren was never summoned, JTA has confirmed.

'US, Israel rift on settlement issue to be resolved soon'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
July 21, 2009 - 11:00pm

Israel's Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren said that the disagreement between America and Israel on the settlement issue would be resolved soon. In an interview with Israel radio Wednesday, Oren claimed that there was no confrontation and no tension between the two countries. This was Oren's first interview since he presented his credentials on Monday to US President Barack Obama.