Thursday, December 02, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
The official residences of U.S. ambassadors overseas are almost always prime pieces of real estate: stately mansions in desirable neighborhoods where American diplomats entertain dignitaries, hold high-level meetings and occasionally host presidents.In Israel, for more than half a century, the top U.S. envoy lived just outside Tel Aviv in a luxurious five-bedroom estate with sweeping views of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel gave the land to the United States in the 1950s.Yet President Donald J. Trump sold the property when he moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018. And that has left the newest American ambassador to Israel, Thomas R. Nides, to resort to the rental market for a place to live.Mr. Nides, who arrived in Israel on Monday, has said he will live in Jerusalem to be near the embassy. More than half of the embassy’s staff members, however, still live in Tel Aviv, hampered by Jerusalem’s skyrocketing housing prices and security precautions required for American officials living there. That arrangement will require Mr. Nides to make the hourlong drive several times each week to meet with his own diplomats.
The bias in this article is from omission.
1. For decades, US Embassy staffers had to commute from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to meet with Israeli government officials. The entire reason embassies are located in national capitals is for convenience. But when it comes to Israel, suddenly it is considered inconvenient to mirror what happens in every other country.
2. Jerusalem real estate is indeed expensive. But Tel Aviv was just declared the most expensive city in the world! Every staffer is going to rent, not buy, in Israel, so the argument that Jerusalem's expensive real estate is an impediment for them to move makes no sense.
3. Why is the ambassador commuting to meet his own staffers instead of them commuting to him? Aren't they meeting in the embassy in Jerusalem?
4. An hour-long commute is not unusual in US metropolitan areas. Over 30% of workers in New York and Washington have commute times of over 45 minutes. There are hundreds of people who regularly make the trip between New York and Washington, 3 hours by train and 4 hours by car. Traffic is very bad in Israel but not worse than in many US cities.
5. It's 2021. Isn't there telecommuting to cut down the frequency of travel?
I'm not saying that the fact that the US Ambassador now has to scramble to live in Jerusalem and to find appropriate places to host VIPs is not newsworthy. But when you look at what the article seemingly goes out of its way to ignore, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the entire reason for the article is to say that the US Embassy move to Jerusalem was a mistake, and to only mention facts that support that conclusion.
