Handing of credentials to Estonian President Arnold Ruitel.
 Photo: Israeli Embassy in Finland |
Shemi Tzur
Born: January 21, 1945
Spouse: Mrs. Orit Shem Tov, 3 children
Career:
1964-1967 Israeli Defence Forces, Signal Corps.
1973 Joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
1974-1979 Second Secretary, Embassy of Israel, Pretoria
1981-1982 Vice Consul, Israeli Consulate, Istanbul, Turkey
1985-1989 Consul, Israeli Consulate, Sydney, Australia
1988 Acting Ambassador, Suva, Fiji
1989 Political Counsellor, Information Dept., Foreign Ministry
1991 Attended the Middle East Peace Talks in Madrid, Moscow.
1993 Washington as a member of the Advisory Staff
1992 Charge d'Affaires ad interim of Israel, Uzbekistan
1994-2000 Ambassador of Israel to the Republic of Cyprus, Nicosia
1995 Received Award for Excellent Performance, Foreign Ministry
2000-2003 Director of Human Resources Dept., Foreign Ministry
2003 Ambassador of Israel to the Republic of Finland, Helsinki
Ambassador of Israel to the Republic of Estonia, Tallinn
Education:
1973-1974 Cadet Course, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
1968-1971 Studied Jewish history, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
� Inna Rogatchi, Rogatchi Productions & Communications Ltd., 2004
http://www.guide2.co.nz/politics/news/israel-names-new-envoy-to-wellington/11/12413
Israel Names New Envoy To Wellington
Tuesday, 10 November 2009 - 3:44am
Wellington, Nov 10 NZPA - Israel has named its first envoy to New Zealand since its Wellington embassy was closed in 2002.
Shemi Tzur, a former ambassador to Cyprus, Finland and Estonia, was expected to take up the post next year, Israeli news agency, the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA), reported.
Israel's embassy in Wellington was previously closed as part of global cost-cutting measures.
Since Ambassador Ruth Kahanov departed New Zealand in 2002, Israel's ambassador to Australia, headquartered in Canberra, has served as non-resident ambassador to New Zealand.
Relations between Israel and New Zealand chilled after two reported Mossad agents, Eli Cara, 50, and Uriel Kelman, 31, were caught and jailed for trying to illegally obtain New Zealand passports in 2004.
A third suspected Mossad agent was a former Israeli diplomat based in Europe, Zev William Barkan, 37, who stole the identity of a tetraplegic Aucklander to fraudulently obtain his passport.
NZ police also sought a fourth person, in New Zealand.
Barkan worked as a diplomat in both Austria and Belgium.
Then Prime Minister Helen Clark said there was no doubt the men were Mossad operatives and suspended high-level diplomatic relations for more than a year until Israel apologised in 2005.
The JTA reported bilateral relations had since thawed, "helped in part by the defeat of Helen Clark and her largely hostile Labour Party at the 2008 polls".
The new Prime Minister, John Key, was the son of a Jewish refugee from Austria who had family living in Israel, it said.
Tzur, 64, was involved in a Middle East peace conference in Madrid in 1991. He is also a former diplomat in South Africa, Turkey, Australia, Fiji and Uzbekistan.
Tzur's appointment must be approved by the NZ government.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/key-keen-build-ties-with-israel-38043
Key keen to build ties with Israel
New Prime Minister John Key has pledged to continue rebuilding strong ties between New Zealand and Israel.
"Israel is a country that I haven't had the opportunity to visit, but one for which I definitely have a great respect, especially in its economic growth and high-tech strength," Mr Key said in a telephone interview with Israel Radio on Tuesday.
The Mossad spy affair involving forgeries of New Zealand passports four years ago which led to a prolongued suspension of ties, "should be put behind us," Mr Key said.
"We want the relations to be on a strong foundation and a strong footing to allow us to move forward. That's my intention."
He spoke of his "historic connections" to Judaism and Israel. "I have a Jewish mother and grandmother who lived in Israel for some time and I have relatives there, whom I have not seen since my own childhood.
"Many New Zealanders have strong religious beliefs, but I do not consider myself to be overly religious. My mother was very involved with the Jewish faith and synagogue. When we came out to New Zealand I grew up without a high amount of religious instruction but I have great respect for Judaism and those who observe it," he said.
Mr Key does not speak Hebrew. "This is probably something that my mother was remiss in not teaching me. However, it's a language that I hear from time to time when I attend the odd synagogue service and on formal occasions," he said.
He told Israel Radio that he intends to pay a formal visit to Israel.
John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Fran O'Sullivan: Israel visit prickly issue for Key
By Fran O'SullivanJohn Key's political antennae will be acutely heightened as he weighs whether he should make a formal visit to Israel in this parliamentary term after that nation's decision to use lethal force on peace activists in international waters.
An official visit has been on the cards ever since Key won the prime ministership.
But after this week's tumultuous events, Key will want to ensure that any visit to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly hardline state does not cast him in the role of personally endorsing strategies that are leading many in the Western world to increasingly view Israel as an international pariah.
Local Jewish community leaders have been courting Key to visit Israel in his official capacity as leader of New Zealand.
They know that Key's own heritage (his Jewish mother Ruth Lazar escaped Nazi Germany as a schoolgirl to live in Britain) inevitably means he will feel an emotional connection when he finally does get to visit Israel's capital, Jerusalem.
The community has strong hopes that Key will gain a greater understanding of Israel's stance on the Palestinian issue. But there are also hopes that the two small democracies can fashion stronger trading and investment links.
Israel certainly has a lot to offer. Its high-tech industries are among the world's best. It is a leader in the venture capital sector. It also wants to forge scientific links in the agriculture space.
In his previous role as finance minister, Netanyahu, known as "Bibi", turned Israel's economy around with the same ruthless efficiency he once employed as leader of Israel's anti-terror unit.
The firebrand politician credited New Zealand's former Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas as his inspiration. "Sir Roger has bold ideas. He really gets ... to the core of it," he told me in an interview in 2004.
But the political environment is much more tricky now.
A few weeks ago, former Israeli ambassador Nissan Krupsky came to Wellington to check out the atmospherics around the potential for a Key visit. Krupsky was popular during his own ambassadorship here.
A thoroughly decent man, he was also an important back-channel between Wellington and Jerusalem during the lengthy diplomatic stand-off over the Mossad passports scandal.
Helen Clark's Government reacted in robust fashion when police foiled the attempt by Israeli agents to obtain New Zealand passports by forging the identities of Kiwis.
But it took pains-staking diplomacy to pave the way for the warming of relations between the two countries after Israel infringed New Zealand's sovereignty.
It is fair to say the relations between Clark's Government and the Israeli Government were never the same.
But the Key Government has deliberately taken a less reactive approach to Israel.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully announced from Jerusalem in March that young Kiwis and Israelis would be able to take advantage of working holiday programmes. And the relationship was formalised when Israel opened its new embassy in Wellington a week ago.
But that was then. This week McCully called in Israeli Ambassador Shemi Tzur to convey the New Zealand Government's concern and support for an international investigation into the Israeli forces' actions on the aid ship.
It was a relatively anodyne meeting. McCully made no accusations. And the Israeli Embassy said it was regrettable lives were lost.
But, frankly, there is a bigger game at stake here. Kiwis have strong sympathies for the underdog.
In the 1950s and 1960s many young New Zealanders had Israeli pen-friends. Some of the more idealistic - like Labour's leader Phil Goff - trekked off to work on a kibbutz.
But these days Kiwi sympathies are more likely to be with the Palestinians - particularly those cooped up in the open-air camp that is the Gaza.
The Key Government needs to go much further. The blockade has not stopped Hamas - nor will it ever do so. But the lives of ordinary Gazans have been devastated.
The ironies are acute: Israel's decision to fire on activists on the aid ship has been compared to the callous actions the British took to try to stop the Jewish exodus to Palestine.
Even Israel's staunchest ally the United States has failed to persuade the Israeli Government to demonstrate some common sense.
Instead of operating in the backrooms, the Key Government needs to find its voice and call for an end to the blockade and plans to intercept other aid flotillas en route to the Gaza. It's a message John Key is aptly suited to provide - both at home and in Israel.
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