Michael Oren was born in 1955 in upstate New York and raised in New Jersey. He moved to Israel in 1979 and is currently a professor in the Jewish civilization program at Georgetown University. Oren is a well known author and his writing can tell us much about what to expect from this new Israeli ambassador, especially in the wake of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with President Obama. Oren is the author of the highly regarded books Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East and Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present as well as a number of articles about Israeli foreign policy.
One of Oren’s most recently published articles is “Seven Existential Threats” (http://tinyurl.com/ccwpsa), in which he writes about the unique condition of the State of Israel and the confluence of threats to its existence that it is forced to consider and confront on a daily basis. Oren leads the article with the threat of the loss of Jerusalem. This section is reminiscent of Natan Sharansky’s article published a couple of years ago in Haaretz titled “The Temple Mount is more important than peace” (http://tinyurl.com/chhja). Oren goes on to write about the threats of demographics, delegitimization, terrorism, a nuclear-armed Iran, the failure of Israel to exercise sovereignty over large sections of its territory and population, and corruption.
In another article, titled “Jews and the Challenge of Sovereignty” (http://tinyurl.com/qfubl9), Oren examines whether the phrase “Jewish state” is a contradiction of terms.
Other articles by Oren include “The Second War of Independence” (http://tinyurl.com/db9e3t), “Did Israel Win the Six Day War” (http://tinyurl.com/pc4tcm) and “Zohan and the Quest for Jewish Utopia” (http://tinyurl.com/qn6arc).
