Daniel Charles Kurtzer (born in June 1949 in Elizabeth, New Jersey in the United States) served as the United States ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005. He had been serving as U.S. ambassador to Egypt, to which post he had been appointed by Bill Clinton, when he was tapped for the Israel posting by George W. Bush.
Kurtzer's parents are Nathan and Sylvia Kurtzer. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, and served for a time as the dean of his alma mater, Yeshiva College.
Kurtzer joined the State Department and was serving as a junior officer at the American Embassy in Cairo when Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. He served in Israel between 1982 to 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."[1]
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 Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.[2] In 2007, Kurtzer served as the commissioner of the Israel Baseball League.
He ardently endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama's successful candidacy for the presidency.[3] 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.[4]
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Edward S. Walker, Jr. |
U.S. Ambassador to Egypt 1997–2001 |
Succeeded by C. David Welch |
| Preceded by Martin Indyk |
U.S. Ambassador to Israel 2001–2005 |
Succeeded by Richard Jones |
| Sporting positions | ||
| Preceded by Precedent |
Israel Baseball League Commissioner 2007 |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
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