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Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Nadav Tamir, Israel’s Consul-General to New England, who made headlines in Israel recently when an internal memo he wrote about US-Israel relations was leaked to the media there.

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. The relationship between the United States and Israel is a close one but the issue of settlements is causing friction. The Obama administration has asked Israel to stop allowing homes to be built for Israelis in the West Bank. Israel’s has balked at that. Recently, Israel’s Consul-General to New England Nadav Tamir weighed in on the issue, not publicly although it ended up going public. He wrote a private internal memo stating that the disagreement over the settlements is damaging Israel’s relations with the United States. The memo was leaked and it became headline news back in Israel. Nadav Tamir you wrote that memo. What did you say in it?

NADAV TAMIR: Well the memo was not meant for the public but I was trying to do what we diplomats are supposed to do, which is to try to improve our decision making and our foreign policy. I felt that there was a lot of media attention to some tactical disagreements while there are so many strategic issues that we have in common so I was trying to suggest how we can strengthen our ability to talk about the more strategic issues while put those small disagreements in perspective.

MULLINS: Can you put some flesh on what you’re saying there in terms of tactical disagreements that are obscuring strategicals? What specifically did you say?

TAMIR: I think there’s a lot of agreement between our governments that we want to move the peace process forward. We want to reach a two-state solution. We want to stabilize the Middle East. We want to stop Iran and its proxies from dominating the Middle East and from acquiring nuclear weapons. In all those issues we’re absolutely in agreement and I hated to see where disagreement on natural growth in settlement is overwhelming the public perception of the relations and I thought that there’s a way to contain those disagreements and move forward with this big strategy of how to bring peace to the Middle East and how to stop the spoilers from destabilizing the Middle East.

MULLINS: So if you were saying something, as you make it sound now very routine and expected of diplomat who’s based here in the United States, then what was all the fuss about?

TAMIR: Well usually those memos don’t go to the press.

MULLINS: What happened in this case?

TAMIR: It was leaked somehow.

MULLINS: Do you know how?

TAMIR: No, I have no idea.

MULLINS: You have no idea?

TAMIR: I have no idea and it’s very hard to know because unfortunately I wasn’t careful enough so I guess too many people saw it. But that’s not the issue. The issue is that I was trained and educated in the foreign ministry to tell my superiors my honest opinion and that’s what I did but I didn’t mean it to go to the public because those issues are very sensitive.

MULLINS: So what’s the problem then that caused you to be called back to Israel? You just got back a couple of days ago to the United States. But who called you back and why?

TAMIR: I was called to discuss the whole situation of the leakage and of the substance of the cable. I had a very good meeting with the director general and we decided to move on and that’s what I’m doing. I’m back here to do the work that I was supposed to do.

MULLINS: So you were not asked to resign? You were not taken to the wood shed as we might say here?

TAMIR: Not at all. Not at all.

MULLINS: Did you have any response to the public discussion that went on in Israel? This has been news. It hasn’t been colossal news but it is being talked about there. Did anyone on the street address you about it? Were you surprised at the extent that people are talking about it?

TAMIR: I was surprised. I’m not used to it and it created media attention but I wasn’t part of it because I wanted to just come back here and do my job.

MULLINS: Let me just ask you this. How long have you been in the position that you’re in now as Consul-General to New England?

TAMIR: Three years.

MULLINS: Three years. So you spanned from the administration of George Bush to President Obama. How would you describe US relations with Israel now? Any different from the way it was when you first came to the job?

TAMIR: You know there are always nuances. But in general the special relations are bipartisan. We had great relations when republicans were in the White House when democrats were in the White House. And we see it in opinion polls it’s based on an affinity between the people, a feeling that we do have shared values and interests. So there are nuances of course but you know on the strategic level it’s very much the same.

MULLINS: Alright. Nadav Tamir is Israel’s Consol-General to New England. He joined us here in our studio. Nice to have you here, thanks.

TAMIR: Thank you very much for having me.

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