July 18, 2002 — No international story has been more controversial in the last couple of years than the Middle East conflict. Israel’s outgoing consul general to New England, Itzhak Levanon, has been in the center of it.

During his five-year tenure in Boston, Levanon has seen firsthand the twists and turns in efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. When Levanon, a former spokesman for Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek and long-time diplomat, first came to Boston in 1997, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still forging peace agreements with Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority. Peace efforts picked up speed under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who went so far as to offer Arafat much of the West Bank, Gaza, and shared control of Jerusalem — only to see the offer rejected. Finally, for the last 21 months, Levanon has represented Israel in Boston since Arafat decided to unleash a wave of terror as a ploy to get a better deal — or, as some suggest, to destroy Israel altogether. I recently visited Levanon at his leafy Boston-area home to discuss politics, the media, the peculiarities of Boston, and the Middle East.

Levanon contends that the almost-weekly suicide bombings in Israel, coupled with the September 11th terrorist attacks, have sensitized Americans to Israel’s plight. "There is substantially stronger support for Israel’s positions than when I came," says Levanon.

Still, Levanon finds that, since last fall, much of his time has been devoted to two tasks: monitoring press coverage in Boston’s newspapers and battling an upsurge in anti-Israel activity on local college campuses. When the Boston Globe, for example, ran a photo of a bleeding man underneath an angry Israeli policeman waving a baton, and wrongly identified the man as an injured Palestinian {http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/alert/tuvia-up.html}, Levanon took action. (The wounded man was actually an American Jew from Chicago, Tuvia Grossman, who had been beaten by Palestinians. "I was aggressive in this regard. I said ‘I won’t accept a small correction,’" Levanon recalls. As a result of the fracas the Globe ended up running a longer story on the whole underlying incident, including its own mix-up.

Interestingly, when it comes to Boston’s media scene, Levanon worries about more than just the traditional Boston dailies, the Globe and the Herald. He also concentrates energy on the Christian Science Monitor, which is, it is sometimes forgotten, an important daily newspaper also published in Boston. For Levanon, the Monitor, with its two correspondents in Israel, is particularly important. "The paper has a relatively small circulation directed to a certain segment of the American public, Christian liberals," says Levanon. "I think we need to pay attention to that."

One of Levanon’s most effective gambits during his Boston years was to upgrade Israel’s annual anniversary celebration. Before Levanon came along, the consulate held the event in the bottom floor of a Holiday Inn. Levanon came up with the idea of holding it at the more high-profile John F. Kennedy Library overlooking Boston Harbor. Not only did it begin to draw more attendees, it started to garner high-profile philanthropists and politicians, such as Bob Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, and Tom Menino, mayor of Boston. By tying Israel to the Kennedy Library, which plays a large role in Boston’s image of itself, Levanon helped remind the public of President Kennedy’s historic support for Israel.

As for Boston itself, Levanon came to know it well, traipsing over to South Boston for Stephen Lynch’s St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast — before the state senator became a congressman — and immersing himself in the city’s academic culture, something that makes Boston unique among destinations for international diplomats. Levanon says he will advise his successor, Meir Shlomo, to pay attention to the universities. "You have the possibility to create and influence leaders of the world here," he says, referring to the international network of students who attend area schools.

While pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel is sentiment is growing on college and university campuses, Levanon says he was pleasantly surprised that a petition calling on Harvard and MIT to divest themselves of stock in companies that do business in Israel, sponsored by MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, failed to resonate. An opposing petition, he points out, garnered more than ten times the number names as the Chomsky initiative. Levanon also worked against the divestment measure by convening personally with university officials, such as Harvard president Larry Summers. "When I left the meeting I had the feeling the issue of divestment was over," he says.

When Levanon returns to Israel in August, he’ll find a country marked by the return of widespread violence since he departed a half-decade ago. However, he’ll leave behind a city changed by his touch, if only a little.