Daniel Charles Kurtzer (born June 1949) is an American former diplomat. He served as U.S. ambassador to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

during the term of President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (Birth name, né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 ...

, and was the U.S. ambassador to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

from 2001 to 2005 during the term of President

George W Bush George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Pres ...

Biography

Daniel Charles Kurtzer was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Nathan and Sylvia Kurtzer. He received his PhD from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

, and served as the dean of his alma mater, Yeshiva College.

Family

Daniel Kurtzer is married to Sheila Kurtzer and has three children and eight grandchildren. One of his sons is the American Jewish public intellectual

Yehuda Kurtzer Yehuda Kurtzer is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He has written and lectured widely on Jewish history, Jewish memory, leadership in American Jewish life, and the relationship between American Jews, Israel and Zionism. ...

Publications

Kurtzer is the co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the middle east; co-author of The Peace Puzzle: America's quest for Arab Israeli peace, 1989–2011; and editor of Pathways To Peace: America and The Arab-Israeli Conflict. He is also a frequent contributor of academic articles and opinion pieces.

Diplomatic career

Kurtzer joined the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

and was serving as a junior officer at the American Embassy in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...

when

Anwar Sadat Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...

was assassinated in 1981. He served in Israel between the years of 1982 and 1986, then became Deputy Director of the State Department's Egypt desk in Washington, D.C. He later served on the Policy Planning Staff, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. When asked why he was drawn to the Middle East, he later replied: "The work never seems to be finished in this region. It is not a place where tuxedos and cocktail parties characterize diplomacy." Kurtzer joined the staff of Secretary of State

James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...

. He helped write Baker's noteworthy speech to

American Israel Public Affairs Committee The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States. One of several pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the United Stat ...

in May 1989. The speech was originally drafted by

Harvey Sicherman Harvey Sicherman (1945–2010 was an American writer and foreign policy expert. He served as the President and Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, located in Philadelphia, from 1993 until 2010. His interests lay in the analysis of ...

, who used uncontroversial pro-Israel language in his text. Kurtzer's revisions included an attention-getting line that encouraged Israel and its supporters to abandon the

Greater Israel Greater Israel ( he, ארץ ישראל השלמה; ''Eretz Yisrael Hashlema'') is an expression, with several different biblical and political meanings over time. It is often used, in an irredentist fashion, to refer to the historic or desired b ...

idea. According to

Aaron David Miller Aaron David Miller is an American Middle East analyst, author, and negotiator. He is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy. He previously was vice president for new initiatives at the W ...

, he and Kurtzer wrote short memos for Baker on issues at hand, rather than longer, strategic papers. Kurtzer was also part of the Clinton administration's team of advisers on the Arab–Israeli peace process. According to Miller, Kurtzer left in 1994 because he "felt shut out by" the Special Middle East Envoy,

Dennis Ross Dennis B. Ross (born November 26, 1948) is an American diplomat and author. He has served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill C ...

. In 2006, he retired from the State Department and the U.S. Foreign Service with the rank of Career-Minister and assumed a chair in Middle East policy studies at the School of Public and International Affairs at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

. He co-chaired, with Scott Lasensky, the Study Group on Arab-Israeli Peacemaking, a project supported by the

United States Institute of Peace The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American federal institution tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training to individuals in diplomacy, mediation, and other pea ...

. They published their recommendations in a 2008 book. In 2007, Kurtzer served as the commissioner of the

Israel Baseball League The Israel Baseball League (IBL; Hebrew: ליגת הבייסבול הישראלית, ''Ligat ha-Beisbol ha-Israelit'') was a six-team professional baseball league in Israel. The first game was played on June 24, 2007. League structure The six ...

, a league discontinued after a single season. He endorsed then-Senator

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

's successful candidacy for the presidency. Kurtzer, James Steinberg, and Dennis Ross were among the principal authors of Barack Obama's address on the Middle East to AIPAC in June 2008, which was viewed as the Democratic nominee's most expansive on international affairs.Jay Solomon
"Obama's Mideast Experts Emphasize Talks"
''Wall Street Journal'', June 16, 2008; Page A7

References

External links

Daniel Charles Kurtzer
at the U.S. State Department *

Dana Milbank, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...