Britain's outgoing ambassador, Sherard Cowper-Coles, blended straight talk and sympathy to build bridges during his stay in Israel
A month after Sherard Cowper-Coles took up his post as British ambassador in Israel in the fall of 2001, he recalls writing a letter to London describing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a man "capable of making peace."
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"I was accused by my colleagues of `going native,' of suffering from a nasty case of what we diplomats call `Localitus,'" says Cowper-Coles, speaking to Haaretz this week in an exclusive interview to mark the end of his term in Israel. Less than two years on, as Cowper-Coles runs from one goodbye party to another before heading off to his new posting as ambassador to Saudi Arabia - a significant promotion in British Foreign Office ranks - he clearly feels vindicated. Last week British Prime Minister Tony Blair hosted Sharon for a private dinner at his flat on Downing Street. "Only one other leader has been invited there to dinner - certainly not Bush, Schroeder or Chirac - so it was a real kavod [honor]" reports Cowper-Coles, employing his trademark smattering of Hebrew. He describes Sharon's three-day stay in London as "very good - it was something I'd been working towards for a long time." Cowper-Coles says that Sharon was invited by London with the explicit goal of putting "the misunderstandings of January behind us," referring to Blair's fury when Sharon barred Palestinian representatives from attending an international conference on Palestinian Authority reforms in London.
"There was a very positive atmosphere [at last week's meeting] and we are hoping to keep up the kesher [connection]," he says. Indeed, Cowper-Coles' term of office has been far from plain sailing - both bilaterally and personally. In addition to the row over the conference in January, Blair met with then-Labor prime ministerial candidate Amram Mitzna, but snubbed then-foreign minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Relations deteriorated further when Blair openly pressured U.S. President George Bush to demand that Israel accept the road map; various comments by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw did little to smooth the ride. Cowper-Coles himself was roundly criticized when comments he made in a private meeting last October, describing the West Bank and Gaza as "the biggest detention camp in the world," were leaked to the Israeli press (some reports replaced `detention' with `concentration,' which Cowper-Coles flatly denied). He angered Palestinians when he was quoted as saying, "Dealing with Arafat is like wrestling with a jelly," and at times, he riled the Foreign Ministry with his frankness. "Sometimes he spoke like a member of the family at the Friday night dinner table," said one source. "It's not what everyone wants from a British ambassador."
These hiccups aside, few diplomats finish their terms of office with stronger personal relationships than those of Cowper-Coles and his wife Bridget. The reasons are clear: There is his determination to learn and use Hebrew - including during countless interviews with the local media. There is his palpable compassion for terror victims - many remember that he arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport at 5 A.M. one September morning last year to meet the family of Scottish teenager Yoni Jesner, who was critically wounded and later died after a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Numerous members of his and his wife's family visited Israel again and again, including during the most intensive periods of terror attacks. Add to this the couple's charm and memory for names, and perhaps most of all, the ambassador's apparent passion for Israel - his addresses to Jewish Israelis are sometimes reminiscent of Zionist fundraisers.
Dream job
While some speculate that Cowper-Coles' overidentification with Israelis is the reason for his early departure, others point out that sending him straight off to Riyadh would be a somewhat creative punishment for this well-known diplomatic disease. According to Cowper-Coles, the only gaps remaining between Blair and Sharon that were evident in last week's meeting were "differences of analyses based on different readings of intelligence, where reasonable men can disagree."
He says these include issues like the best way of strengthening [Palestinian Prime Minister] Abu Mazen for example, or promoting reform inside the PA, or ending state- sponsored terrorism. "There were no disagreements," he says of the meeting. "They share the objectives of promoting peace and fighting terror. Both sides merely set out their slightly different interpretations of the evidence. There wasn't even an agreement to disagree."
But there were some unexpected opportunities for bonding. "Somebody suggested it had been arranged that both prime ministers should have major rows with the BBC just before they met as a confidence-building measure," he says with a smile.
Cowper-Coles would not comment directly on the Israeli government decision to bar its official spokesmen from giving interviews to that network, but he tellingly chose to quote the French philosopher Voltaire: "I may disagree with every word you say, but I defend your right to say it."
Cowper-Coles once described his post in Israel as his "dream job." His unorthodox preparation for the role is well documented - intensive Hebrew lessons while living in a North West London Jewish suburb in the home of an Israeli beautician for five weeks. But he says there is one aspect of life in Israel that surprised him when he first arrived - and continues to surprise him: "just how insecure, worried and frightened - existentially - people here feel ... It's something that is difficult to take seriously from the outside," he says. "We see Israel as a regional superpower, with a thriving economy - and although it's going through a difficult patch at the moment, it's still a quite extraordinary economy. But people still feel insecure and frightened for this country's existence. They literally lie awake at night worrying - not so much about their own future, but about their children's and their grandchildren's future. It's something that policy-makers and people who pontificate about the peace process have to address first and last."
He also adds, after apologizing that it may sound like a cliche, that it is impossible to "underestimate or overstate the importance of the Shoah in understanding why Israelis and Jews want a normal country of their own - where they can have sanctuary and safety after so many years of persecution and pogroms." He says this goes to the heart of Israelis, which is reflected in "the worried e-mails I get about incitement, about some statement from an Arab leader or ghastly opinion column in some paper. It's at the heart of this problem and it's at the heart of solving it as well."
Before finishing the interview, Cowper-Coles has only one unsolicited comment to make and it is about Haaretz. "It is a tribute to Israel that a newspaper of such world-class quality has kept going - and keeps going - through bad times as well as the good times," he says. "We talk a lot about hasbara [Israeli public relations] and we worry about hasbara. Haaretz, and in particular its English- language Web site, is of inestimable value in showing the world the values that lie at the heart of Israeli democracy. It shows not only that Israel is part of Europe, but also that Europe is part of Israel."
Cowper-Coles, who hosted a large goodbye bash at the British Embassy residence in Ramat Gan last night, has already devised some typically innovative preparations for his next posting: After spending two weeks in London "relearning" Arabic - converting his Egyptian colloquial Arabic into Gulf colloquial Arabic, he plans to spend a week in a Bedouin village in Jordan.
"I'm the first Arabist to have come here [from Britain] as ambassador," he says proudly, adding he is probably the first ever ambassador to be posted in Riyadh directly from Tel Aviv. And he expects some antagonism as a result. "But we're packing our Hebrew books to take with us to Riyadh and we're jolly well going to have them with us. I think it's very good that the Foreign Office has decided to take the plunge. Maybe in a small way, it's a symbol of change.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
