Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has summoned Israel Consul General in Boston Nadav Tamir to meet urgently with Yossi Gal, the minister’s general-director, following statements by Gal criticizing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s policy vis-à-vis the United States.

Tamir stated that the policies emanating from Jerusalem are damaging US-Israel relations on a number of critical fronts. Persons close to Lieberman are quoted by the daily Yediot Achronot as stating Tamir may be dismissed since it is “intolerable” that members of the professional diplomatic corps opt to release their own opinion which contradicts the policy of the government. Such action it is explain contradicts the basic tenets of diplomatic protocol.

Opponents of Lieberman are less understanding, calling it part of the minister’s hard-hand policy against those who do not support him, denying a senior diplomatic corps official freedom of speech. Supporters of Tamir add that leaking his words to the media in no way delegitimize what he said, explaining he was sent to Boston to evaluate the situation as he views it, and that is what he did, releasing his comments within a ministry forum, not to the general public.

Opponents of the foreign minister add that even if Mr. Lieberman disagrees, the matter should have been handled internally and not in a fashion that involves the media.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)