In December, in a Tel Aviv restaurant, while I sat casually discussing my successor at the State Department with my dinner companions, I mentioned Hannah Rosenthal's J-Street affiliation, suggesting that this affiliation concerned me. Nearby sat a former US Foreign Service officer who upon the conclusion of her meal took it upon herself to -- quite rudely -- interrupt our meal to inform me in front of several other people, that in her opinion, J-Street was "a friend of Israel, not an enemy." She then ran off out of the restaurant in a huff, shooting me a dirty look as she left. As publicly offensive as this woman proved to be, her rude declaration seemed to suggest a bothersome arrogance. Worse was the very public repetition of this effrontery by Ms. Rosenthal, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism when she publicly criticized and insulted Israel's Ambassador to the United States for purely political reasons.

Ms. Rosenthal suggested that Ambassador Oren "could have learned something" by attending the recent J-Street conference, which he refused to attend due to his differences over policy with the group. She attacked him in an Israeli newspaper in her official capacity, a position which dictates that she fights anti-Semitism, not breed it by openly picking a fight with Israel's Ambassador to the United States, thereby aiding and abetting anti-Semites around the world.

This episode only reinforced my early fears about her views. Her failure to see that today's anti-Semitism is so heavily dominated by anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism. Ms. Rosenthal entirely misses the point that by attacking Israel's Ambassador, for such reasons, suggests that criticism of Israel as the "Jew among the nations," or as the collective Jew, is not off limits. If the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism can do it, then why can't anyone else?

In my term as the Special Envoy, I found the issue of Israel overwhelming in nearly every meeting. Wherever I went, denials of anti-Semitism were abundant from those I encountered. Yet, these same parties were all too willing to easily slide into denunciations of Israel to my face and then proceed to blame Jews collectively for Israel's actions next. For example, in 2008 in Jakarta, Indonesia, I met with several members of the Ulama (Muslim religious council). My hosts immediately denounced Israel and for good measure, mocked the Torah, calling it "illegitimate." They then asked that "no more Jews come to Indonesia."...[Read the rest.]