New ambassadorial appointment to London causes stir

The Foreign Ministry's choice of Israel's new ambassador to London has ignited a storm of controversy within the ministry. The workers' committee in the ministry opposes the move, claiming that the new ambassador has never served abroad and never completed a "cadets' course," part of the accepted path to becoming an Israeli diplomat.

On Monday, the Foreign Ministry's senior appointments committee chose Daniel Taub for the position of Israel's ambassador to Great Britain. He will replace Ron Prosor, the former ambassador to London, who was recently appointed as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. Taub, who holds degrees from Oxford and Harvard, has worked at the Foreign Ministry for 16 years, serving for the past few years as its senior deputy legal advisor.

Taub's appointment has provoked a storm at the Foreign Ministry. In a statement issued by the ministry's workers' committee, they "chose to appoint a junior employee who has never served overseas, as is customary in Israel's embassies around the world... Diplomacy is an acquired profession, in which a junior employee must learn the profession before being appointed as a diplomat or ambassador. The problematic move is the result of the refusal by the ministry's management to determine reasonable basic criteria for appointing employees to positions in the foreign service."

A senior manager at the ministry rejected the criticism, saying, "Taub is a professional diplomat, chosen by the appointments committee. This is not a political appointment, and those who are complaining about it are doing so because they believe that people should be promoted based on seniority, and not according to intelligence or capability."

This is not the first time that the appointment of an Israeli ambassador to London makes waves. Several months ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to appoint his senior advisor, Uzi Arad, to the position, but he was rejected by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Meanwhile, the appointments committee chose Hanan Goder-Goldberger, who also serves as chairman of the workers' committee, to be ambassador to Nepal, and Joel Leon, currently the New York Consulate Spokesperson, as the new consul in Montreal.