Longtime diplomat Charles Redman is rumored to be President Clinton’s top choice to become the next U.S. ambassador to Israel.
News reports this week named Redman, currently the American peace negotiator in Bosnia, as the likely successor to Edward Djerejian, who resigned from the post last month.
Djerejian, who had served as ambassador to Israel for only six months, left the State Department to become director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston.
A White House spokesperson refused to comment Wednesday on whom Clinton might nominate for the position or when the nomination would be made.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Secretary of State Warren Christopher told him Tuesday that no decision on the next ambassador has been made.
Hoenlein quoted Christopher as saying that the nominee would be “someone of the caliber and experience of Djerejian.”
Although his experience with Middle East issues is limited, Redman is said to have vast foreign policy experience. From 1986 to 1989, Redman served as State Department spokesman under former Secretary of State George Shultz.
He later served as ambassador to Sweden. Prior to his role in Bosnia, Redman served last year as the Clinton administration’s special envoy to Haiti.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
