In December, the Israeli Foreign Ministry drafted a list of 16 diplomatic missions abroad that might close in 1997 as a result of supplementary budget cuts. Ten of those offices will be eliminated to help the foreign ministry trim $13.7 million, or 5 percent of its total budget.
“It is all unofficial, but there is a strong understanding that of the three American consulates on the list, San Francisco should be taken off,” Barkan said.
The list wasn’t publicly released but Israeli officials said it includes consulates in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami and Shanghai. Embassies on the list, as first reported in the Jerusalem Post, include those in Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Nepal, New Zealand, Panama and Paraguay.
Last month, Barkan would not publicly disclose whether the San Francisco office was even on the list.
But after hearing details from a foreign ministry committee’s first meeting on the matter Dec. 22, Barkan decided to speak openly.
“Personally, this is not an issue for me,” Barkan said on Thursday of last week. “Professionally, I thought it would be a mistake.”
Barkan, who became the consul general here in mid-1995, said he will return to Israel this summer as part of routine diplomatic rotations after working five years in the United States.
He credited fellow Israeli diplomats and foreign ministry professionals, as well as a Bay Area fax campaign, for influencing the committee.
The committee also has at least one particularly strong advocate for the S.F. consulate — Harry Kney-Tal, the consul general here from 1988 to 1993 and now head of the foreign ministry’s policy planning in Israel.
At the Dec. 22 meeting, Barkan said, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, a former deputy director general of the foreign ministry and foreign ministry professionals unanimously supported keeping San Francisco’s consulate open.
“They made it overwhelmingly clear,” Barkan said.
The fax campaign “underscored the analytical comments made by professional people. It gave them the weight to prove they weren’t just talking out of thin air,” Barkan said.
The fax campaign, coordinated by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council, was a short but intense effort to get letters of support from about 20 organizations and individuals. The letters were faxed to Foreign Ministry Director General Eitan Bentsur and Foreign Minister David Levy between Dec. 17 and 19 — before the committee’s first meeting.
Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive director of the JCRC, said his organization decided to act before knowing exactly how accurate the first news reports were on the issue.
“We didn’t feel we should leave anything to chance,” he said. “We wanted to make sure the sentiments of leaders in this community be shared prior to that meeting.”
Kahn called the consulate “indispensable in terms of the benefits the Israeli government and we receive from it.”
The San Francisco consulate serves the Pacific Northwest including Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. If the San Francisco consulate were to close, it’s likely the territory would be handed over to the Los Angeles consulate.
The JCRC’s letter emphasized the significance of the consulate’s geographic area, which comprises 35 House of Representative districts and 12 Senate seats. The Bay Area includes U.C. Berkeley and Stanford — “two of the nations greatest universities” — and a dozen other major campuses, it said.
The letter also focused on the Bay Area, including the Silicon Valley, as “a national trendsetter in shaping American culture and attitudes.” In addition, the letter stressed the consulate’s “excellent relationship” with the local Jewish community.
“We believe…that eliminating this Consulate would come at an enormous cost to the interests of the State of Israel,” said the letter, signed by Kahn and JCRC chair Judith Chapman.
By late last week, Kahn said he hadn’t received a response from the foreign ministry.
Wayne Feinstein, executive vice president of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, also joined the fax campaign.
“Closure of the San Francisco Consulate will send the wrong message to our communities; that is, that Israel cares less about these Jewish communities,” he wrote.
His letter included a reminder that the Bay Area has the fourth largest radio market and fifth largest television market in the United States.
“Having lived in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, believe me that Israel’s public relations requirements cannot be and will not be effectively interpreted from a Consulate in Los Angeles only,” Feinstein wrote.
The foreign ministry committee is expected to make a final decision by the end of January, Barkan said.