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Last update - 11:41 24/06/2008 Israel Affairs No love lost By Paul Gross Tags: United Nations, Jewish World  Gregory Levey's account of his short career working for Israel abounds with funny anecdotes but is mired in antipathy for the country itself Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government,by Gregory Levey Free Press, 267 pages, $24 First things first: This is a seriously funny book. Gregory Levey's account of his brief career as a speechwriter, first at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations in New York, then at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, is an often hilarious series of observations and anecdotes, told with a mixture of incredulity and confusion. He introduces a cast of characters who appear to make the job of defending Israel in the diplomatic sphere as difficult for themselves as possible. Throughout it all, Levey struggles valiantly to make sense of the chaotic world he finds himself in, and to do his job -- while avoiding a seemingly endless array of pitfalls. A bored law student studying in New York, Levey decided to apply for an internship at Israel's UN mission while he waited for his chance to volunteer for a year in the Israel Defense Forces. As things transpired, the mission needed a new speechwriter, and Levey, a Canadian citizen with no connection to Israel beyond his secular Jewish upbringing and armchair Zionism, and with negligible Hebrew half-remembered from his years at a Jewish day school, found himself with an unexpected, permanent job working for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Before starting work at the UN, and after an extensive background security check, Levey underwent several interviews by Israeli security personnel. As I reached this point in the book, I began to recall my own experiences working at the Israeli Embassy in London. Like Levey's, my own security interview was mostly memorable for the bizarre direction that some of the questioning took. Levey recounts the personal questions about his love life, which seemed entirely devoid of any security context. I well remember a similar line of questioning. After being asked if I was single, my response that I had recently broken up with someone was met with a series of follow-up questions about the circumstances of the break-up that seemed to be leading to some kind of relationship advice, rather than any kind of conclusion regarding my security clearance. Levey's immediate boss at the mission was the deputy ambassador, Arye Mekel (currently the Foreign Ministry's spokesman), a man with a penchant for dirty jokes, who would sit at his desk with his legs twisted into increasingly impossible positions ("his left leg this time resting on the floor but pushed out far to one side and his right leg on the desk and bent so that his knee was almost touching his shoulder. I was pretty impressed with his flexibility"). The UN itself, as Levey describes it, is a place of both high diplomacy and high farce. There was serious work to be done, not least by Levey himself, who was entrusted with drafting speeches for Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman. Not that Gillerman did not occasionally ad lib -- in one case almost causing a diplomatic incident by implicitly comparing the international organization with a lunatic asylum. My ambassador in London, by contrast, tended to stick to the script, which I would draft after a meeting with him, during which he would set out the messages he wanted to convey. He was however, inclined to insist on jokes in almost every speech, which occasionally were more than a little risque. Yard-sale furniture Levey has his own misgivings about the way things work at the UN. In one instance, at a debate in which Levey has been sent to represent Israel, the Iranian delegate, in a breach of UN protocol, changes seats to avoid sitting next to him. Such pettiness by Israel's diplomatic foes is in fact exploited by the Israeli diplomats, who relieve the tension of their work by deliberately attempting to shake hands with representatives from states that do not recognize Israel, who can only respond by awkwardly refusing. Meanwhile, within the externally impressive UN building, conditions leave much to be desired ("The paint was peeling off the walls, the carpets were old and dirty, and the furniture looked like it had been purchased at yard sales"). Many a UN critic might view this description as an apt metaphor for the organization itself. The second half of the book sees Levey leaving New York after a year and a half for Jerusalem, having been offered a job too good to refuse -- writing speeches for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. If anything, this period was even more replete with comic characters and episodes than his time at the UN. The star of the show was Ra'anan Gissin, who, as Sharon's English-language spokesman, was Levey's boss at the PMO, and whom I remember well from his appearances on television in the U.K. during Sharon's premiership. Gissin was far from the ideal person to represent Israel in the British media, coming across as impatient and confrontational. I recalled this as I read Levey's description of their first phone conversation, when Gissin shouted at him for no discernible reason. Their relationship improved with time, but Gissin continued to provide no shortage of comic material, always talking on one of his three cell phones -- when he was not listening to "Dancing Queen" by Abba (bizarrely, his favorite song), or cutting his fingernails during meetings with visiting American rabbis. Though improbable incidents abound in this book, they are entirely believable -- if also entirely selective. Levey's aim appears to be to juxtapose Israel's image as a regional superpower with the reality of the confusion and occasional absurdity of life in the diplomatic and political echelons of the state. This he does superbly. As with his descriptions of the UN, amid the jokes, Levey offers a number of interesting insights about his time in Jerusalem, not least his illustration of the depression that hovered over the Prime Minister's Office in the wake of Sharon's hospitalization and subsequent coma -- initial denial giving way to the grim realization that this indefatigable warrior-politician would not be returning. Most notable about Levey's year in Israel however, is how frustrated and disillusioned he became. He depicts an unwelcoming, self-absorbed powder-keg of a country. Neither is he too enamored of the people ("I was sure there were many wonderful, kind and caring Israelis, but they all seemed to be on vacation"), reserving a special loathing for the cab drivers. The wish to serve Those who choose to work in the diplomatic field on Israel's behalf, generally do so out of a conviction that transcends other ideological considerations, namely the wish to serve the state and to defend its reputation in the international arena. Certainly I was driven to work at the embassy -- and subsequently to make aliyah -- by a deep-seated affinity with the State of Israel and a desire to be personally associated with its welfare. This does not appear to be the case with Levey. Although he originally wished to volunteer for the IDF, by his own admission this was more to alleviate his boredom at law school and to "have an adventure" than because of an overwhelming desire to serve the Jewish State. Levey's memoir is a fine piece of satirical literature, but I was left disconcerted by his own thinking about Israel and the conclusions he reaches. I cannot claim to have agreed wholeheartedly with every single Israeli action that I defended in speeches or articles though during my time at the London Embassy, there was nothing with which I passionately disagreed. I suspect this is not the case for career diplomats, who will work for many different administrations and will occasionally have to hold their noses and speak against their own convictions. (I did meet one who said she would resign from the Foreign Ministry if Avigdor Lieberman ever became prime minister.) Levey's politics are not extreme in any way: The political opinions he expresses throughout the book put him on the left of the Israeli political map, but well within mainstream Zionism: He is opposed to the settlement enterprise and supported the Gaza disengagement. A declared atheist, he is deeply uncomfortable with the religious Zionist rationale, which does not "fit in with my view of Israel as it was founded and as it should be: a democratic, secular home for the long-suffering Jewish people." These views are not radical, and are shared by many Israelis, but by the end of the book, disenchantment with the country seems to be his overriding sentiment. I can relate to much of the author's bemusement with the bureaucracy and workings of the Foreign Ministry, but not to his feelings toward Israel -- ambivalence bordering on antipathy. As someone who made the choice to live here, and who remains content with that decision and positive about my future here, I do not recognize the Israel he describes. Even when his criticisms are valid, they are not balanced by any obvious emotional attachment to the country, the connection that so many Jews feel to their historical homeland. In the end, it's hard to escape the feeling that, for Levey, working for the State of Israel at the UN, and then at the Prime Minister's Office -- prominent and important positions -- were just jobs. Interesting and often exciting (and, as it turned out, excellent material for a book), but in no way labors of love. Essentially, Levey remains a liberal Diaspora Jew, for whom Israel is attractive as a concept, but entirely alien as an actual, physical place. "Shut Up, I'm Talking" managed to make me laugh out loud, but to feel strangely deflated as I finished the last page -- proof that a book can, at the same time, be hilarious in its content and depressing in its vision. Paul Gross worked as a speechwriter and public affairs official at the Embassy of Israel in London for two years, before making aliyah, in December 2007. More Jewish World news and features Bookmark to del.icio.us   Death penalty Iran hands down death sentence to man who spied for Israel. Robot hospital The place where IDF treats droids wounded in the line of fire.   1.   Israel is like life support for the majority of Diaspora Jews 18:05  |  Ed 24/06/08   2.   G. Levey`s unintended chronicle of Israel`s greatest failure 02:27  |  Serge 26/06/08   3.   Whose being disingenuous? 13:36  |  ARTH 02/07/08

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