Israeli Foreign Ministry investigating consulate in L.A.

The Inspector General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is investigating an employee matter at the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, although officials will not confirm the nature of the inquiry. 

Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, would not comment on the validity of specific accusations reported in a Jan. 9 article on the Israeli website Ynet, which cites allegations of sexual harassment between two consulate employees.

“I will not confirm for you what is the subject of the investigation,” Nahshon said in a phone interview with the Jewish Journal on Jan. 12. “The Israeli article actually covered a wide range of issues. Some of them have to do with reality and others are being investigated, but I’m not in a position to tell you what are serious issues and what are just inventions or imagination.

“The only thing that I can confirm is that the Inspector General of the Foreign Ministry [Jacob Keidar] has been looking into certain allegations regarding the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, but nothing more than that,” he added. 

Officials from the local consulate general, including a spokesperson for Israel’s Consul General in Los Angeles David Siegel, have declined to comment on the Ynet article, which reported that the investigation has been going on for the past two months. Nahshon, for his part, said that Siegel was not the focus of the investigation. 

“Those examinations or inquiries had nothing to do with David Siegel, as a person or as a consul general. [They had to do] with other employees, with frictions, difficulties with other employees — with regard to other employees — but not with regard to David Siegel,” Nahshon said. “His professional and his personal behavior was not under such an examination, and he is certainly not suspected of anything, and there is absolutely no shadow cast on his behavior. … He is an excellent diplomat and an excellent consul general.”

The office, located in West Los Angeles on Wilshire Boulevard, is staffed by several Israeli diplomats and many nondiplomatic locals. 

The Ynet article, without disclosing identities, describes the person accused of sexual harassment as an HIV-positive male, a “local [non-Israeli] worker, an American citizen, who holds a central position at the consulate as a foreign domestic worker … who has worked at the consulate for several years.” It reported that the accuser is a female worker who eventually withdrew her complaint after the Foreign Ministry began its investigation. Ynet also reported the Foreign Ministry was ready to fire the accused but that he has claimed it would be unlawful because of his medical condition. 

While the Ynet article reported that the Foreign Ministry intended to hold severance negotiations with the accused worker, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nahshon said, “I am not aware of conclusions and actions following this [overall] inquiry.”