Friday, April 24, 2009

Oren says he hasn’t been offered ambassadorship

(JTA).Michael Oren says he'd be honored to serve at Israel's ambassador to the United States, but has not been offered the job.

Oren was responding to a flurry of media reports in recent days speculating that he was a leading candidate for the ambassador post. A Maariv article earlier in the week (link in Hebrew) said, without citing any named sources, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had selected Oren, and on Tuesday Laura Rozen at ForeignPolicy.com reported that "sources in Israel and Washington" said Oren was the choice. Rozen updated the story on Wednesday, though, with a Yediot Ahronoth story which cited sources in the Prime Minister's office saying that Oren was one of a number of candidates for the job and that Dore Gold was considered the leading contender for the ambassadorship.