Amira Oron named ambassador to Egypt after yearlong hold-up
Oron will be Israel's first female ambassador to Cairo. A Middle East expert, Oron is fluent in Arabic and headed the Foreign Ministry's Middle East Economic Relations Department in recent years.
By LAHAV HARKOVThe sphinx at the Great Pyramidsof Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo.(photo credit: MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY/REUTERS)
The cabinet voted to approve veteran diplomat Amira Oron as Israel’s new ambassador to Egypt on Sunday, over a year and a half after her appointment was announced.The Foreign Ministry confirmed Oron’s appointment in October 2018, and she was supposed to begin work in Cairo in the summer of 2019.There has not been an Israeli ambassador in Egypt for the past year, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to appoint former communications minister Ayoub Kara to the position after he did not make it into the Knesset.Nine former ambassadors to Egypt wrote a letter to Netanyahu to protest Kara’s possible appointment, calling on him to send a professional diplomat and not a political appointee.Oron will be Israel’s first female ambassador in Cairo. A Middle East expert, Oron is fluent in Arabic and headed the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Economic Relations Department in recent years. She was Israel’s ambassador to Turkey from 2014-2016, though Turkey had lowered the status of that position to charge d’affaires. She was the first woman to head an embassy in Ankara.She is also the former deputy director of the media department in the Arab world at the Israeli Embassy in Egypt.The cabinet also approved Bat-Eden Kite as Ambassador to Turkmenistan. She was previously deputy ambassador to UN institutions in Vienna, among other positions.Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi congratulated Oron and Kite and wished them luck, calling them “experienced, professional and esteemed diplomats.”“I am convinced they will promote Israel’s bilateral relations with the countries they will serve, to significant achievements,” Ashkenazi said.
