While I solicited Sallai’s counsel, others proffered their own. One octogenarian American Jewish leader pulled me aside and whispered, “Obama has no real principles. Stick to your positions and he’ll cave.” Several Washington pundits characterized the administration’s attitude as a combination of arrogance and ignorance. Congress members Howard Berman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first a Democrat and the second a Republican, both of them friends from the past, called to offer me partisan advice. The awkwardness of some of these conversations was compounded by my newfound circumspection in conducting them. Others were likely listening in, our security people warned me, and not all of them allies.
Much of that period would stay blurred in my memory, a mélange of twelve-hour flights during which I graded my students’ term papers and dodged questions from curious passengers. The most distinct recollection remains a mid-May trip to Israel in which I landed only to take off the next day as a “special advisor” to the prime minister’s entourage. Our destination was only a few miles from our Georgetown apartment.
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A visiting Israeli prime minister, requiring maximum security, merits the third-largest motorcade in America. If the president’s is the longest, whose then is number two? I later posed this trivia question to several people who gave varying answers—the vice president, Chinese leaders, even rock stars—but never the right one. The pope. The morning of May 18, though, my only question was the one I put to myself. Was I really speeding through stoplights with sirens wailing in the elongated cavalcade of sedans conveying Netanyahu to his first visit to Obama’s White House?
The drill that later became routine was thrillingly new that day. The swoop of our cars into the crescent driveway, the Marine guards stiffening to attention, the surprisingly modest foyer in the world’s most powerful home. Around a lunch table near the Lincoln Room, we waited, shifting our weight, until the door swung open and he entered.
Successive years of controversy and disappointment would invariably dull its sheen, but Obama’s image then was near blinding. Here was the leader who, like a deus ex machina, had just allocated $787 billion to stimulate the American economy while pledging to reduce his nation’s deficit by one-half. He announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by 2011, revealed his ideas for far-reaching health-care, educational, and energy reforms, and unveiled his plan for worldwide nuclear disarmament—all in his first one hundred days. But this was also the president who, according to press reports, was gearing up to tell Netanyahu that the era of unconditional U.S. support for Israel had ended. And here was the Israeli prime minister who—perhaps insensitively—presented him with a mint edition of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, about naïve Americans blundering across the Middle East.
Introduced as the incoming ambassador, I shook Obama’s hand and noticed his long and elegant fingers, fit for an El Greco painting. Rather than the distant man I expected, he seemed gracious, blessed with impeccable comic timing even when joking—surprisingly—at his own expense. His movements were effortless. This is a man, I later told my ex-dancer wife, at ease in his body.
The conversation was relaxed as well. Over lunch and a dessert that Obama never touched, we discussed the major regional issues. The president’s team included the taciturn national security advisor Jim Jones and the far less reserved Rahm Emanuel, along with Dan Shapiro, the NSC’s Israel and Middle East expert, whom I first met during Obama’s campaign stop in Israel. Netanyahu was bracketed by his advisors, among them Yitzik Molcho and Uzi Arad, General Jones’s Israeli counterpart.
Both sides seemed eager to avoid disagreements, until they reached the subject of Gaza. Obama had already come out against Israel’s blockade and allocated $300 million for restoring Gaza’s war damages. Now the president reiterated Israel’s need to end the embargo on civilian goods and alleviate the Palestinians’ suffering. Previously silent, I interjected and related how, during the Gaza operation, we learned that Hamas had ten times more smuggling tunnels than estimated. These served as conduits for arms as well as food. “There is no way to separate the rockets from the flour,” I explained, “and no way to ensure that construction materials won’t be used to make bunkers.” Obama nodded intently as I spoke and yet he remained, I sensed, unpersuaded.
After lunch, Obama and Netanyahu adjourned to the Oval Office for their one-on-one talk, while the teams chatted in the adjacent Roosevelt Room. I stood alone under the portraits of an avuncular FDR and a bullish Teddy charging up San Juan Hill, and was all but ignored. I was too new to the relationship for most of either the Americans or Israelis to take notice. “Slowly, slowly,” I told myself, “this will take time,” while the advisors interacted around me. Thankfully, after an interminable ninety minutes—thirty more than scheduled—a protocol officer invited us to join the principals.
Like much of the White House, the Oval Office is understated, appointed with comfortable rather than magisterial furniture, washed in soothing colors and the South Lawn’s satiny light. Obama and Netanyahu sat on armchairs angled to enable them to address both each other and the press. Their remarks again seemed designed to defray any hint of friction. Israel, Obama opened, was a “stalwart ally of the United States, the only true democracy in the Middle East,” and “a source of inspiration and admiration for the American people.” Maintaining Israel’s security as a Jewish state was a “U.S. national security interest,” he continued, and reaffirmed his determination to prevent Iran from threatening Israel with nuclear weapons. Netanyahu extolled his host as a “great leader of the United States, a great leader of the world, a great friend of Israel,” and affirmed that America and Israel faced the same terrorist threats and sought the same goal: peace.
The bonhomie continued that evening at an intimate meal with Hillary Clinton. During his term as prime minister in the late 1990s, Netanyahu had a famously strained relationship with President Clinton, who greeted Netanyahu’s electoral defeat to Ehud Barak by trumpeting, “I’m as excited as a kid awaiting a new toy.” The Clinton-Netanyahu connection, I would later learn, was much more complicated, but still I anticipated some friction at dinner.
To my relief, the prime minister and secretary of state spent the night bantering like old pals. In the State Department, a stunningly bland building with upper floors refashioned in Early American motif, we dined by candlelight, on colonial china and cut crystal, and reminisced. I first met Hillary in 1995 when I worked as the inter-religious affairs advisor for the Rabin government. Back then, the keenness of her mind astonished me, as did the cobalt-blue color of her eyes. Now, at sixty-one—“it’s the new thirty,” she said laughing—she had lost none of that acuity. Hillary emphasized the need for Arab gestures for peace, and applauded my idea for holding a summit of Israeli and Arab leaders in Riyadh. When told that the worst word one could call an Israeli was freier—Hebrew slang for a sucker—and that Israelis could never be seen as the freiers of any peace deal, the secretary practically roared. “I’ll have to remember that!”
By all outward appearances, and to me at least, Netanyahu’s first meeting with Obama went smoothly. But the press was quick to emphasize the tenseness of the two leaders’ body language and their presumed disagreements. Obama insisted on the cessation of all settlement activity, opening Gaza’s borders, and creating a Palestinian state, but Netanyahu said only that the Palestinians should govern themselves. Obama reaffirmed his intention to reach out to Iran and put no time limit on the negotiations, while Netanyahu merely thanked him for keeping “all options on the table.” Face-to-face, I later heard, Obama had demanded that Netanyahu cease all building not only in the territories but also in the disputed areas of Jerusalem. “Not a single brick,” the president purportedly said. “I know how to deal with people who oppose me.”
An outsider still, I was not yet privy to that kind of information. Yet the visit introduced me to that world in which a cordial discussion between allies could be interpreted by the press—or be spun to the press—as a t
rain wreck. “There wasn’t a single blister that Obama didn’t step on,” one leading Israeli columnist wrote, “and Netanyahu didn’t seem to care.”
Only a few weeks had passed since Netanyahu’s phone call congratulating me on my appointment, but it felt as if I had endured another yearlong basic training. Now, emerging from that boot camp, I knew at least what was required to survive in this complex and potentially hazardous diplomatic world. I would have to master its nuances, its pitfalls and twists. I would have to learn the full meaning—and the limits—of that deceptively straightforward word, ally.
Metamorphic Month
Once approved by the Israeli government, my appointment as ambassador was submitted for acceptance by the United States. Though rarely withheld, this agrèment took several weeks, during which I was forbidden to fly back to Washington. This gave me the opportunity to pack up our Jerusalem apartment and to witness the three events that, in a single month, shook the Middle East.
The first occurred on June 4, when Obama met another group of Middle Eastern students, this time in Cairo. More passionately than ever, he described his personal connections with Muslims and his conviction that “Islam is part of America.” He reiterated his vision of a new era of understanding between the United States and Muslims based on “mutual interests and respect” and the shared American and Quranic values of “justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” Then, with unprecedented detail, Obama spelled out his Middle Eastern policies.
“No system of government can or should be imposed on one nation by any other,” he said, eschewing Bush’s democracy agenda. “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons,” he said, and envisioned a world in which all countries, Iran included, could enjoy peaceful atomic energy. Yet the lion’s share of the speech dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Describing American-Israel bonds as “unbreakable,” he also demanded a halt to the building of “illegitimate” Israeli settlements. The Palestinians, for their part, should never resort to violence, but neither should they “endure the pain of dislocation [and] the daily humiliations…that come with occupation.” Americans, Obama vowed, “will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspirations for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”
Since his first day in office—presidential advisor David Axelrod later wrote—Obama had contemplated making a statement that transformed America’s relations with Islam. The Cairo speech was indeed revolutionary. As in his inaugural address, Obama spoke to a body of believers, only now not from the Capitol steps but from a venerable Muslim capital. He spoke to a Muslim world without borders while at the same time signaling an end to American pressure on repressive Islamic regimes. To an unrivaled extent, Obama identified American interests with the Palestinians. And, for the first time, America recognized Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power.
Despite this unprecedented outreach, reactions in the region were mixed. Most tepid were the Arabs, who, while praising Obama’s tone and Quranic quotes, preferred concrete acts to rhetoric. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reminded Obama that “the nations of this part of the world…deeply hate America.” Surprisingly more welcoming were Israeli leaders, from Shimon Peres’s “a brave speech, full of vision,” to Netanyahu’s “We share President Obama’s hope…to end the conflict and…[achieve] Arab recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.”
I listened to the speech in the Kiriyah, the IDF’s headquarters, along with several senior commanders. Their reactions typified that of a great many Israelis. They scoffed at what they regarded as Obama’s inexperience with the Middle East, where magnanimity is often seen as weakness. They cringed at his tendency to equate America’s moral foibles with the honor killings, human trafficking, and the suppression of women, foreign workers, and indigenous minorities rampant in many Muslim societies. Yet none of the officers downplayed the seriousness of Obama’s embrace of the Palestinian cause and his demand for a settlement freeze. True, the president introduced Israel’s validity into the heart of the Arab world, but he then linked that legitimacy to the Jews’ “tragic history” in the Holocaust.
That linkage seemed to me to be the most damaging part of his speech. The Arabs had long complained that they were forced to pay the price of the Jews’ near eradication by Europe, which dumped the survivors in Palestine. That narrative denied three thousand years of unbroken Jewish connection to our land. It overlooked the fact that Jews had always lived in the country and that millions of Israelis hailed not from Europe but from Africa and the Middle East. Yet that Arab narrative was now America’s. And why should the Arabs make peace with a country that even its ally, the United States, seemed to label alien? As if to fortify that impression, Obama’s Middle East tour skipped over Israel. Instead, the president flew with Elie Wiesel to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp.
No sooner had Obama returned to Washington than, on June 13, large-scale protests racked Tehran. Tens of thousands of students and unemployed workers took to the streets challenging Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection and demanding democratic reforms. This “Green Revolution”—the color of the defeated opposition—for the first time raised hopes of toppling one of the world’s most extremist regimes. Aptly, that regime responded with beatings by its thuggish Basij henchmen and gunfire that killed as many as 150. A young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan bled to death in front of the cameras.
The inspiring scenes of young Iranians risking their lives for freedom was greeted standoffishly by Obama. “It is up to the Iranians to decide who Iran’s leader will be,” the president explained to the press. “We respect Iranian sovereignty.” True to his Cairo speech and other public remarks, the president remained committed to engaging the Iranian regime, not replacing it. “We are not meddling,” he said.
Obama appeared to be referring to the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s nationalist prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, by a CIA-engineered coup. That putsch remained an open wound in U.S.-Iranian relations and was often listed as one of the Islamic Republic’s grievances against America. Consequently, I could understand Obama’s reluctance to interfere in internal Iranian politics. He feared tainting the Green Revolution with red, white, and blue. Yet, following his warm interaction with students in Turkey and Egypt, the president’s indifference toward the murder of Iranian youths was chilling. Israelis were especially distraught by America’s support for a violent regime that clamored for their destruction. Unlike Obama, Netanyahu extolled the Iranian people who faced bullets in defense of democracy. “Something very fundamental is going on,” he observed, “an expression of a deep desire for freedom.”
The Green Revolution, though ruthlessly repressed, presaged the great uprisings that would soon grip the entire region. And Obama’s reaction to the revolt, like his Cairo speech, signaled the thrust of his policies. America would reconcile with Islam, reach out to Middle Eastern adversaries, and rigorously pursue a two-state solution.
This new direction in America’s relations with the Middle East raised fateful questions for Israel. Could we find a common path with Obama and still preserve our vital interests? Conversely, in the face of rising regional threats, could we afford to alienate a globally celebrated president? Such questions preoccupied Netanyahu in those first ten days of June as he prepared to make a groundbreaking statement on peace.
The location for the speech—Bar-Ilan University, the bastion of Israel’s religious Zionists—was deliberately chosen. Known by their knitted kippas, these Israelis regarded the entire Land of Israel, including the territories, as the Jews’ biblical patrimony, and the settlements as the vehicle for redeeming it. Though they made up only a small percentage of all the settlers, most of whom moved to Judea and Samaria in search of affordable housing, the religious Zionists represented an ideological vanguard and a core constituency for Likud. Speaking at Bar-Ilan, the prime minister could address these supporters, reassuring them that he would continue to demand
Palestinian recognition of the Jewish State and oppose the redivision of Jerusalem. He could reassert his commitment to preserve Israel’s security in the aftermath of any peace accord. He could, in short, reaffirm his long-held positions before adopting what was, for him, a radically new one.
With a sense of anticipation, I joined Netanyahu’s motorcade to the Bar-Ilan campus on the night of June 14. Although the tension in the hall was palpable, the prime minister appeared at ease. He took pains to rebuke the Cairo speech, rejecting the connection between the Holocaust and Israel’s founding. “Had Israel been established earlier,” he said, “the Holocaust would not have occurred.” Only then, after taking issue with several of Obama’s statements, did Netanyahu unveil the vision Obama urged him to embrace. Israel would seek peace with the Arab states, including a Palestinian state. “In this small land of ours, two peoples will live freely, side by side, in amity and mutual respect,” he declared. “Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government.”
So Netanyahu became the first Likud leader to come out publicly for the two-state solution. The left predictably lauded him and the extreme right denounced him, but the Israeli center—the solid majority—approved. The press, by contrast, assailed the prime minister for alternatively buckling to Obama’s pressure on the Palestinian state and for rebuffing the president’s demands for a settlement freeze. “If I walked on the Sea of Galilee,” Netanyahu told me, half in jest, “the Israeli papers would write, ‘Bibi Can’t Swim.’ ”
The most critical question, for me at least, was, How would the White House react? Obama acknowledged that Netanyahu had taken “a big step forward” and credited him with making “an overall positive development.” But there was no outpouring of support, no appreciation of the fact that Netanyahu had broken with many decades of right-wing opposition to recognizing any Palestinian rights in the Land of Israel, much less to statehood. Rather, Washington’s reaction was tepid, at best, suggesting that the prime minister had merely performed a long-overdue duty.
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