by HERB KEINON, Jerusalem Post
Six months after Gavriella Shalev returned from the UN, the Foreign Ministry’s appointment committee on Thursday finally officially named the permanent successor: Ron Prosor, the current envoy to London.
The announcement comes two weeks after the Prime Minister’s Office leaked that Prosor would indeed get the UN post, and that he would be replaced in London by National Security Council head Uzi Arad. This announcement set off a political struggle between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, with Lieberman saying that the Prosor appointment was his idea, but that Arad would not be going to London.
Arad announced earlier this week that was resigning, to return to academia.
Prosor, a former Foreign Ministry director-general, will replace Meron Reuben, who has temporarily filled in at the UN since August. Prosor has also served as the ministry’s spokesmen, as well as in senior capacities in the embassies in the US and Germany.
Now that he has been appointed, the ministry is expected to issue internal tenders for the London post, considered one of the plum positions in the ministry. Among the leading candidates mentioned as possibilities for that job are Jeremy Issacharoff, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for strategic affairs and formerly the No. 2 man in the embassy in Washington, and Mark Sofer, who is currently ambassador to India and has previously served as the envoy to Ireland.
Along with announcing Prosor’s appointment, the ministry also announced the appointment of Alon Ushpiz to New Delhi; Dan Ashbel to Helsinki; Chaim Shacham as consul-general to Miami; and Dan Shaham as ambassador-atlarge to a number of countries in southern Africa.
The nominations are expected to be brought to the cabinet for approval on Sunday, something considered a foregone conclusion.
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