WASHINGTON The very quality that helped get Susan Rice in hot water with some in Washington is what many pro-Israel groups have come to appreciate she is a vigorous and reliable defender of the Obama administrations foreign policies.
Rice, the US ambassador to the UN who is widely seen as a leading candidate to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has garnered plaudits from Jewish communal leaders over her defenses of Israel at the world body.
She has proven herself as an ardent defender of major Israeli positions in an unfriendly forum, said Abraham Foxman, the ADLs national director.
And Im more comfortable with the person I know than the person I dont know. She is close to the president and thats important in that position if you have someone you can relate to and understands us.
If Obama nominates Rice, however, she would likely face opposition from Senate Republicans.
She has been under fire from Republicans since September, when she blitzed Sunday talk shows misleading information suggesting that a deadly attack on a US diplomatic outpost in Libya began with a spontaneous protest.
Media reports have suggested that Rice had been eager to go on the talk show circuit to defend the administration, which was facing strong criticism over its handling of the attack and its public explanations of what happened.
President Obama has vigorously defended Rice, although he has not said whom he will nominate to succeed Clinton when she steps down early next year.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, also is a leading contender, while several other names of potential nominees have been cited in media reports.
RICE, 48, began her career as a youthful protégé of Madeleine Albright, who served as secretary of state under President Bill Clinton.
Albright landed Rice an influential position on the National Security Council as Africa adviser.
Rice has been a key player in pitching Obamas foreign policy, notably using friendships forged at the UN particularly with Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to create space for some of Obamas key international initiatives.
These have included enhanced sanctions targeting Irans nuclear weapons program and the effort that helped topple Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffi last year.
A blunt and forceful speaker in private, Rice has bonded with the president over basketball, a shared passion.
Jewish groups see Rices trajectory at the UN from tussles over Israels settlements and membership on the Human Rights Council at the outset of her term four years ago to close cooperation more recently as reflective of the Obama administrations evolving approach to Israel.
One thing important to point out is that the votes have reflected administration policy, said Daniel Mariaschin, Bnai Brith Internationals executive vice president. By contrast, he said, a secretary of state is more a shaper of policy than just its messenger.
Still, Mariaschin said, Rice as UN ambassador has demonstrated an understanding of Israels difficulties in the international arena.
There are ways of explaining your vote and ways of explaining your vote, he said.
Mariaschin noted that Rices explanation of the US no vote last week when the UN General Assembly elevated Palestine to non-member state status incorporated many of the talking points conveyed to her by pro-Israel groups.
She made kind of a good end to an otherwise disappointing day, Mariaschin said.
Rice in her post-vote explanation was dismissive of whatever hopes that the lopsided vote 138 for, 9 against and 41 abstentions might have engendered for the Palestinians.
Todays grand pronouncements will soon fade, she said, and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Rice routinely meets with Jewish groups.
We had a meeting right before the General Assembly, and we covered the wide range of prospects, Hoenlein said.
I cant say there were big areas of disagreement and where there might have been, shes always been forthright and honest.
SOME Jewish conservatives, however, have warned against Rice being elevated to secretary of state, citing disagreements related to Israel from the first part of Obamas first term.
They have criticized Rice over the US decision to join the UN Human Rights Council, a body that has disproportionately targeted Israel for criticism, and over her criticism of Israels settlements in explanatory remarks after the US vetoed a Security Council resolution in February, 2011 that would have condemned Israel for its settlement policy.
A Nov. 29 pp-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Anne Bayefsky, who directs Touro Colleges Institute of Human Rights and the Holocaust, and Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general under President George W. Bush, noted two issues, among others, in questioning her moral fitness for the job of secretary of state.
Though the president, not the UN ambassador, makes foreign policy, one is entitled to ask how a Secretary Rice would view the acts and omissions of Ambassador Rice, they wrote.
David Harris, the American Jewish Committees executive director, said he had come around to the idea that joining the Human Rights Council was a reasonable decision after having earlier opposed the move.
The decision to go back in was understandable, Harris said, adding that in retrospect, he accepts that the determination that influence was probably best achieved from inside rather than outside.
Regarding the speech on settlements, leaders of Jewish groups said that Rice was reflecting the policy of the Obama administration, which later retreated considerably from its approach of publicly criticizing Israel over its settlement policy.
It was a concern at the time, but in the context of this question, was this a decision that Susan Rice made or was this a speech made by the Obama administration and that she had to carry out? Harris said.
US ambassadors, when they speak on issues of importance, dont do so without full consultation with the administration.
