Israel's ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem, is living proof of the fundamental change that currently discombobulates the pleasant profession of diplomacy.
WikiLeaks blew the idea of diplomatic discretion out of the water. Not only did Israel's man in Canberra make front-page news courtesy of Julian Assange for telling US officials his country saw Kevin Rudd as an important ally, but Israel's use of Australian passports in the Dubai assassination of a Hamas leader last January and the Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last May undoubtedly turned Rotem into one of Australia's most prominent foreign diplomats.
He says that the fame has done him no harm and is not ruling out a political career.
Rotem is used to attention. He was a media darling in his previous posting in Los Angeles, thanks not only to the proximity of Hollywood's influential Jewish population. He shot to prominence after two people were murdered at the El Al counter at Los Angeles international airport in 2002, and maintained the profile by reaching out to poor communities in East Los Angeles, especially Hispanics, and through his Howard Hughes-like habit of employing Mormons, a practice continued in Canberra.
Here, Rotem is reaching out to Aboriginal communities, and his embassy has funded the Allira Aboriginal Knowledge IT Centre in Dubbo, which opened in September and aims to help local elders record their oral history and traditions.
Groups of influential Australians are taking guided tours of Israel, proof, Rotem believes, of the continuing strength of the bilateral relationship despite interruptions over the passports and the flotilla action.
''Israel unfortunately needs to address many threats from different places, different countries and different levels,'' Rotem says. ''And sometimes there is a need, I believe, for friendly countries to acknowledge and to understand that we have, when there is a need for us, to defend ourselves or protect ourselves from those who wish us ill.
''Given the fact that Australia has been a constantly friendly country to Israel … there was an issue. We took note of the Australian position and we both realised that we needed to move forward.
''The beauty of this relationship between our two countries is that even if we have an issue we know how to overcome, we know how to move into repairing and reconstructing this relationship. I think that the fact that we have so many visits from Australia to Israel is to some extent an indication and a test for good relationship … if it was not on good terms, it would be more difficult to go back to business.''
The Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, is in the tent, although his blunt call for inspections of Israeli nuclear facilities while visiting a nation that persists in refusing to confirm ownership of nuclear weapons caused some to wonder whether he had momentarily stepped outside.
Bob Carr is along, too. An inveterate blogger, the former NSW premier has, on his blog Thoughtlines, been on praise overtime since he was in Israel last month, leading an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce delegation. Various media representatives have toured, and
a group of Liberal backbenchers passed through in recent weeks.
Post-Holocaust Israel was widely regarded in the West as a heroic endeavour, but it is not so clear cut any longer. What happened?
''It is a very fair question. But it is a question faced also by the Americans, the British and the French. The era has changed the world. Your enemy is not an army of a neighbouring country. Your enemy can be faceless. Your enemy can be in a cave. Your enemy can be using unknown cheque accounts and be trained in undisclosed locations. Despite all your efforts … there may be 16, 17, 18 or so cuckoos who are trying to undermine your way of life.''
Born in Tel Aviv in 1959, Rotem studied political science and international relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, went to Georgetown University and then worked as an aide to Democrat Congressman Richard Gephardt. He joined the diplomatic corps in 1985. In the years ahead he was chief spokesman of the Israeli mission to the United Nations and to the consulate-general of Israel in New York, senior adviser to former minister of foreign affairs Ehud Barak and chief of staff to both his ministerial successors, David Levy and Benjamin Netanyahu. He spent five years as Consul-General of Israel in Los Angeles and at 43, in 2003, became his country's youngest ambassador.
Four years later he was appointed Ambassador to Australia.
One of his first Australian experiences was the felicitous discovery of a missing branch of the family tree.
A January 2007 interview appeared in the Australian Jewish News written by the journalist Jason Frenkel about the new ambassador.
Israeli diplomats are required to change to Hebrew surnames. Although his surname today is Rotem, his original family name is Frenkel and the diplomat told the journalist about his family and the town of Pyotrekov in Poland where his paternal grandfather
had been born. Rotem's grandfather was one of 16 children who followed two brothers to Palestine in the 1920s.
Twelve remained in Poland; only one survived. Rotem had searched for family for years, at one stage even seeking help from the Mormon archives in Salt Lake City. It was all to little avail.
''Red Cross documents showed only one survived the Holocaust and he had come to Australia in 1949,'' Rotem says. ''I asked my mother and she said, 'Sydney, it must be Sydney.' It was the only thing she knew about Australia.
''Now the Jews of Melbourne are primarily Polish. And the Jews in Poland used to be more traditional and orthodox in their affiliation. You go to Sydney and the Jews overwhelmingly come from Hungary and Czechoslovakia. They were already secular before the war and they kept their secularism about them when they came to Australia.
''How do you know this? How many kosher butchers do you have in Sydney? One. Twelve in Melbourne.''
The day after the Australian Jewish News interview, the journalist's father, Morry Frenkel, rang from Melbourne. They were cousins: the two long-separated branches had found each other.
Globalisation has a tendency to erode the differences between peoples but perhaps alone among the diplomatic corps, Israeli ambassadors are charged with maintaining the differences that have shaped the destiny of Jews. It is, Rotem says, a difficult job in an era that many think is the best time for the Jewish people in many thousands of years.
''The question today is what it means to be Jewish. They came over here because they wanted to be away from Europe, to be away from a continent that had brought them so much suffering. This country allowed them to write a new page, a new chapter in their new life … but there's a paradox here. In many places like Israel and Australia the community would like you to be consumed by them almost exclusively. I mean that in a positive way - because there are so many elements of Jewish life, cultural, arts and business, philanthropy - not just for Israel, they are very proud Australians.
''But in the end it is only a part of my work. Most of the dimension is physically advancing Israeli affairs in Australia, in many areas from politics to people, and identifying issues that may resonate, for example, water, the economy, mining.
''I did not visit Western Australia during the first years of my term. It was one of the most strategic mistakes I have made. I was so preoccupied with the east coast, but it was a mistake. In the last 11 months I've been to WA six times. Being in WA exposed me to ways of advancing Israel's interest in Australia.''
In August Rotem took 40 Israeli companies and their water technology solutions to see if their strength in technology, science and IT could be useful to West Australian miners.
Rotem developed a reputation for being outspoken during his Los Angeles posting. His blogging sometimes teetered on the undiplomatic and was frequently overtly partisan about homeland politics. Did a political career lie ahead?
At first, Rotem talks about his children, two boys aged 21 and 17, and a girl, 15, saying he has observed politicians in Israel, the US and Australia and seen the toll their jobs take on families. He then notes the changing background of politicians in Israel and says politics could be a possibility, especially as at 50 there is ample time for a career change.
''I don't want to rule it out. The main source of recruitment to politics came from the security forces. That has changed. It is still important, but if you take a look you can see more and more Israeli diplomats are bringing a very much different element into Israeli politics.''
Besides, his apprenticeship at the side of three future Israeli prime ministers taught him much about the nature of politics.
''The difficult three months we had over the passport issue tested my ability to work in a very difficult time under very difficult circumstances. Not only to contain the issue, but to put in place the infrastructure before the story was over, so that the day after, we could start to take off - if you don't sit close to a politician not every diplomat may be able to produce that.
''There are lots of outstanding diplomats in Canberra but the more impressive ones are the ones who typically engage or have been close to work with some politicians.
''A diplomat thinks a certain way; a politician thinks in a certain way, too. If you can bridge the gap you can definitely be a more effective diplomat.''
