Ally

by Michael B. Oren

  But other tremors were indeed rattling the relationship, and their epicenter—to use Jim Jones’s word—was once again the peace process. Abbas rejected the moratorium on Israeli building in the West Bank because it did not include Jerusalem and criticized Obama for no longer demanding a total freeze. Nevertheless, he was willing to enter into “proximity talks.” This meant that Israeli and Palestinian leaders would not meet face-to-face but only pass messages through an intermediary, Special Envoy George Mitchell. But while the Palestinians insisted on discussing substantive issues—borders, especially—via proxy, Netanyahu would only address them in direct talks with Abbas. The Palestinians wanted to talk about territory first and the Israelis about the security measures that would enable us to safely give up land. Mitchell wanted to tackle territory and security simultaneously and seemed to fault Israel for the impasse. In an interview with Charlie Rose that I suspect he later regretted, the U.S. special envoy suggested that the United States could use a “stick” on Israel by withholding financial aid.

  The Arab states, meanwhile, refused to make even a single gesture toward peace. A request for allowing Israeli airliners to cross Arabian Peninsula airspace, saving hours of flying time to India and China, was denied. Yet the onus for the lack of progress in the peace talks remained permanently on Israel. “The ball is not in our court,” I told the prime minister, “because it’s not a ball. It’s a stake.”

  My sense of foreboding only deepened on January 15, when Obama issued an official statement on Haiti. “Help continues to flow in, not just from the United States but from Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic,” the president declared. Omitted from the list was Israel, the first state to arrive in Haiti and the first to reach the disaster fully prepared. I heard the president’s words and felt like I had been kicked in the chest.

  And still I believed Israel should make every reasonable effort to avoid confronting Obama. “Israel is a strong U.S. ally and I will never waiver from keeping its people safe,” he told students at the University of Tampa on January 28, persuading me that the situation was not hopeless. Yet, for every reaffirmation of the alliance, the administration took steps that disconcerted or even imperiled Israel.

  On February 16, for example, the United States aroused Israeli ire by naming a new ambassador, Robert Ford, to Syria. This ended a five-year suspension of ties in response to the assassination of Lebanon’s pro-Western prime minister by elements close to Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. The son of an air force officer who seized power in Damascus in 1971 and retained it brutally, Assad was proving to be his father’s savage equal. Starting in 2007, he collaborated with North Korea in trying to build a secret military nuclear facility and helped Iran supply tens of thousands of rockets to Hezbollah. Three years later, he smuggled long-range Scud missiles into Lebanon, bringing every Israeli city within range.

  Yet the administration remained reluctant to confirm reports of Syria’s arming of Hezbollah. Instead of a reckless dictator, the White House saw Assad as a pragmatist and potential partner for peace. Ford’s appointment, it claimed, represented another attempt to engage and moderate America’s antagonists in the Middle East. Israel, on the contrary, viewed the move as a reward for abominable behavior and an incentive to all those in the region who emulated it. In diplomacy we say that “no-comment is also a comment,” and when the press asked for a reaction to the renewal of U.S.-Syrian relations, the embassy’s response was: no comment.

  But such silence could not be easily maintained on the subject of Jerusalem. The administration continued to regard any Israeli construction in the city’s formerly Jordanian sectors as a provocation and an obstacle to peace. And Israel kept insisting that Jerusalem was sovereign Israeli territory and the Jewish capital for three thousand years. “Is America’s policy that Israel should stop building in Arab areas?” Netanyahu rhetorically asked me. “But should Arabs stop building in Jewish areas? And what about mixed neighborhoods?” The dissonance intensified and then, at the end of February, threatened to erupt as Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat prepared to unveil a historic renovation project.

  The plan called for transforming a Jerusalem slum into a tourist mall, complete with parks, galleries, and a community center. Overlooking the Old City and arising—according to legend—on the ruins of royal Israelite orchards, the new arcade was anointed the “King’s Garden.” But the slum belonged to an East Jerusalem Arab village where, in order to make room for the overhaul, Israeli bulldozers would have to demolish a number of illegally built structures. The administration would surely explode.

  I first met Nir Barkat when he was a sprightly paratrooper commander in Lebanon in 1982. Thirty years later, he was still Dorian Gray–like in his youthful energy, a successful high-tech entrepreneur who sought to apply proven business models to the religiously riven Holy City. I enthusiastically endorsed his candidacy for mayor and we remained in close touch. But his right-of-center politics put him at loggerheads with the White House, which viewed him as a loose—and loaded—cannon.

  The administration was already livid over a building project in Sheikh Jarrah, in East Jerusalem, where Jews reclaimed the deeds to land captured by Jordan in 1948 and then liberated by Israel in 1967. The site became a flashpoint for weekly confrontations between Israeli police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators, and a magnet for international condemnations. Now the State Department learned of Barkat’s plans to proceed with the King’s Garden. “Hillary nearly blew her top,” one senior American official informed me. “We practically had to scrape her off the ceiling.”

  I tried to explain the delicacy of the situation to Barkat, but he remained obdurate. Israel could rightfully build anywhere in Jerusalem, he said, and praised the King’s Garden as a win-win proposition for both Arabs and Jews. Knowing that Obama did not recognize that right and that a lose-lose situation loomed for U.S.-Israel relations did not deter Barkat. The groundbreaking ceremony was set for March 1, a few days away.

  Fortunately, Uzi Arad, our national security advisor, was in Washington, and I took the occasion to inform national security advisor Jim Jones of the unveiling. In his office, together with a distraught Dennis Ross and a nail-biting Dan Shapiro, Jones told Arad that inaugurating the King’s Garden project would doom the indirect “proximity talks” between Israel and the Palestinians. Arad, aware suddenly of the danger, called Molcho, who in turn updated the prime minister. I never learned what transpired next, only that Barkat delayed the ceremony. The State Department noted appreciatively “that the mayor is going to continue his discussions with [Palestinian] residents before proceeding with the plan.” The Americans thanked me, but I felt no sense of accomplishment. What may have been a diplomatic victory for us was undoubtedly a cultural and economic loss for the people of Jerusalem.

  And the proximity talks went nowhere. George Mitchell continued to shuttle the five-mile stretch between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and Ehud Barak made his almost-monthly stops in Washington, but zero progress ensued. The focus, rather, switched to the impending tour of Israel by Joseph Biden, America’s irrepressibly upbeat vice president.

  Blood and Treasure

  Concerted effort is required not to be charmed by Joe Biden, the rare politician who truly adores politics, who enters a roomful of eight hundred people and seems to say to himself, “Wow, eight hundred people, I’m going to meet them all!” He always greeted me warmly—after hugging Sally—and reiterated his love for Israel. That affection arose from Biden’s firm religious faith as well as the backing he had long received from Israel’s American supporters. He first visited Israel in 1973 and met Prime Minister Golda Meir. “We Jews have a secret weapon,” she told the then-freshman senator. “We have nowhere else to go.” I would hear that Golda story many times.

  Biden similarly retold his aphorisms, most of which began with “as my father always said…” Unusually, perhaps, for a Jew, I especially liked “As my father always said, never crucify yourself on a small cr
oss.” But the administration expected precisely that of Netanyahu. Freezing settlements and stopping construction in Jerusalem were small crosses that could cost him an election well before he faced the biggest cross of all, creating a Palestinian state.

  Biden again waxed aphoristic during an intimate conversation on the eve of his Israel visit. Inviting me into his White House office and seating me before a roaring fire, Biden stressed the president’s seriousness on the peace and Iranian issues and the depth of Obama’s commitment to Israel. That dedication would not be weakened, even by differences over settlements. “Israel could get into a fistfight with this country and we’d still defend you,” he said. Yet he urged Netanyahu to accommodate Obama, whatever their differences—“One comes with baggage and the other without bags,” he said—and assured me that the president would win a second term. I responded by urging the administration to restore the traditional U.S.-Israeli intimacy. The vice president nodded and said, “We must have no daylight between us.” This reaffirmation of our alliance’s central pillar heartened me, and I asked if his coming trip signaled a larger role for him in the peace process. No, Biden responded, that would remain the State Department’s bailiwick. “As my father always said, never mow another man’s lawn.”

  A week later, I stood between the paired American and Israeli flags on Ben-Gurion Airport’s runway as Air Force Two taxied to a halt. Biden once referred to Israel as his second home and when he descended the stairs, a beacon of silver hair and gleaming teeth, I gripped his hand and wished him, “Welcome home, Mr. Vice President.”

  The tour began festively. Sally escorted Dr. Jill Biden and Sara Netanyahu on a tour of the Jerusalem YMCA, while I drove in the motorcade to the Prime Minister’s Residence for talks between the Israeli and American teams. Following a two-hour private discussion in his study, Netanyahu and Biden emerged arm in arm and went out to the courtyard for a press conference. The decades-long friendship between them was evident as they piled praise on each other and on the alliance. “Bibi,” Biden colloquially began and proceeded to contradict Obama’s position on the peace talks, “progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.” A clearly pleased Netanyahu presented Biden with a certificate attesting to the trees Israel planted in his mother’s memory. But the frame dropped and its glass smashed on the prime minister’s lectern—the first sign, perhaps, that the visit might go awry.

  A second omen occurred at our next stop, Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial. The lights went out in the middle of Biden’s speech, seemingly for effect but in reality due to a power outage. Squinting in the harsh sunlight outside, I glanced at my cellphone and noticed the publication of Interior Ministry plans to build 1,600 apartments in Ramat Shlomo.

  This was a Jewish area in Northwest, not East, Jerusalem, that Israelis regarded as an integral part of their state. Nevertheless, the neighborhood had been built on former Jordanian land that the Obama administration considered Palestinian. Perhaps some right-wing officials were trying to spoil the vice president’s visit, or some left-wing journalists were trying to embarrass Netanyahu—I would never know. Still, I hoped the Americans would not notice, but, of course, they did. “What the hell is this!” Dan Shapiro practically lunged at me back at the hotel, pushing his BlackBerry toward my face. Dennis Ross would not even look at me.

  The Biden crisis, as the press called it, commenced. All of our explanations—that the announcement had emanated from a midlevel bureaucrat, the prime minister knew nothing about it, and that the apartments would take years to build—failed to dispel the impression that Biden had been deliberately face-slapped. At once, the vice president delayed his dinner with the Netanyahus and his staff canceled their meal with me. Sally and I wandered the dark Jerusalem streets, half in shock, half despondent. Passing a tony Italian restaurant, we considered going inside but then saw former ambassador Sallai Meridor and his wife, Noa, cheerily raising their wine glasses. We did not want to spoil their moment, so we went to eat hummus instead.

  After midnight, I joined the prime minister and his advisors in an attempt to work out a compromise text that Biden could incorporate in his forthcoming speech at Tel Aviv University. The consensus was that Israel could not apologize for building in a Jewish neighborhood in the sovereign capital of the Jewish State. But we could express regret for the announcement’s timing and pledge to prevent similarly embarrassing situations in the future. In an effort to learn the Americans’ expectations, I phoned Dennis Ross, who indicated that Israel should refrain from beginning construction on the homes for several years. This required the cooperation of the interior minister, Eli Yishai, of the Ultra-Orthodox Shas party. He, too, sauntered into the prime minister’s study, seemingly unperturbed. Other officials ran in and out before, finally, close to 2 A.M., Ron Dermer and I ran with a handwritten draft to the hotel lobby where Dan Shapiro waited peevishly. He visibly brightened, though, when he read our assurances. We typed them up in the business center and went upstairs for a few hours’ sleep.

  The air itself felt supercharged the following day as the vice president rose to the Tel Aviv University podium. He spoke about feeling at home in the Jewish State, about the “unbreakable bond…impervious to any shifts,” between it and the United States, which “has no better friend than Israel.” He quoted his father and Golda Meir, and referred to the prime minister as “Bibi.” He called for the release of Gilad Shalit, the IDF corporal held hostage by Hamas, and for peace with the Palestinians—all to exuberant applause. But then he turned to the Ramat Shlomo plan, which, he said, undermined the trust required for productive negotiations. “At the request of President Obama, I condemn it immediately and unequivocally.”

  Some left-wing students clapped at this as well, but other Israelis seethed. Diplomacy provides a word-scale for expressing levels of displeasure, beginning with regret and disapprove and escalating to denounce and deplore. But the harshest of all is condemn. “The administration never condemned Iran for killing its own people,” Ron muttered, “but Israel gets condemned for building homes in a Jewish neighborhood in our capital city.” That sentiment reflected mine as well and yet I still felt a surge of relief. One word seemed a sufferable price to pay to put a damaging crisis behind us.

  Following the speech, Biden and his party drove to Ramallah for a meeting with Abbas. On Dennis Ross’s suggestion, the vice president asked the Palestinian president to look him in the eye and promise that he could make peace with Israel. Abbas refused. The experience left a durable impression on Biden, as did his next item on his itinerary: a helicopter tour of Israel. This revealed the country’s tiny contours, with Greater Tel Aviv only a few minutes’ flight from the West Bank. Biden landed at Ben-Gurion ever more zealous for Israel’s defense. He praised Israel repeatedly as I escorted him across the tarmac, through a hot, sandy wind, to the stairs of Air Force Two.

  We managed to end the trip on a favorable note and, I thought, avert a major collision. My sole regret was that the prime minister had not taken my advice and parted from Biden personally at the airport. “A photo of the two of you shaking hands would have made it hard for anyone to claim that he went away mad,” I suggested. Instead, the vice president shook my hand, after he hugged Sally.

  Air Force Two took off and I turned to tell Israel’s Meet the Press that there was no crisis, that the Ramat Shlomo incident proved yet again how two allies could swiftly overcome their differences. Then I, too, boarded a plane and arrived in the United States at five o’clock Friday morning to learn that Secretary of State Clinton had excoriated Netanyahu for forty-five minutes over the phone, rebuking him for humiliating the president and undermining America’s ability to deal with pressing Middle East issues. “I didn’t enjoy playing the bad cop,” she later recalled, “but it was part of the job.” And then I heard that the State Department, protesting “the deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship,” had
summoned me to an immediate meeting.

  As in the case of the word condemn, diplomacy provides a calibrated lexicon to describe requests for high-level meetings. The scale descends from the amicable “respectfully invited” to the more neutral “asked to come.” The lowest, by far, is “summoned.”

  Before reporting to State, though, I conferred with Lior Weintraub and DCM Dan Arbell at the Residence. I informed them that, while I would continue to adhere publicly to the “all’s well” pose, behind the scenes I would forcibly resist this attempt to fabricate a crisis. “I will give as good as I get,” I said, and feeling rather feisty, departed for Foggy Bottom.

  There, waiting in his not-nice American mode, was Deputy Secretary Jim Steinberg, who proceeded to read me the text of Clinton’s conversation with Netanyahu. This contained a list of demands, including a total building freeze in East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank, most of which would be unacceptable to any Israeli prime minister, much less a Likudnik. Steinberg added his own furious comments—department staffers, I later heard, listened in on our conversation and cheered—about Israel’s insult to the president and the pride of the United States. Then came my turn to respond.

  “Let me get this straight,” I began. “We inadvertently slight the vice president and apologize, and I become the first foreign ambassador summoned by this administration to the State Department. Bashar al-Assad hosts Iranian president Ahmadinejad, who calls for murdering seven million Israelis, but do you summon Syria’s ambassador? No, you send your ambassador back to Damascus. Israelis, then, will see this as nothing but a pretext to arm-twist us and beat up on us.” Steinberg wanted to know if that was Israel’s official response. No, I said, that was my personal observation. Officially, Israel took note of the State Department’s position and assured the deputy of its highest consideration.

  Returning to the embassy, I spent hours on the phone with Netanyahu. He seemed startled and hurt by the administration’s conduct. The calls continued late into that evening—3 A.M., Israel time—and repeatedly interrupted my talk at the Potomac synagogue of my great friend Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt. Rahm Emanuel telephoned as well. “America is Israel’s thin blue line,” he warned; “don’t cross it.” Israel asked for America’s help on Iran, on Goldstone, and all the United States was asking of Israel was a “zoning issue,” he said. I countered by protesting what Israelis saw as a fabricated crisis, but Rahm managed to shoot back, “This isn’t a crisis, it’s a pimple on the ass of the U.S.-Israel friendship,” just as Obama entered his office.