Ally

by Michael B. Oren

  More disconcerting still was my confidential briefing of Israel’s nine consuls general in the United States. Carelessly falling back into my historian’s mode, I quoted a State Department comment to the effect that Israeli building in East Jerusalem threatened the future of U.S.-Israel ties. The last time this happened, I reminded the consuls, was in 1975, when a disagreement over the peace process led then-president Gerald Ford to “reassess” America’s relations with Israel. Several listeners on the line hurried to call Haaretz, which rushed to headline “Oren: Worst U.S.-Israel Crisis in 35 Years.” Another disleak, it leapt into the American media.

  Sunday came and, with it, the morning talk shows. Dennis Ross had indicated that the administration would use the occasion to defuse the crisis atmosphere. But when asked by NBC’s Tom Brokaw to comment on Israel’s construction of “1,600 new settlements,” David Axelrod called them an “insult” and an “affront.” Pressed by interviewer Jake Tapper as to whether he regarded Israel as an asset or a liability, Axelrod simply ducked the question.

  In his indifferent attire and bushy mustache, Axelrod could pass for a high school science teacher. Behind the avuncular exterior, though, lay a take-no-prisoners political mind closely aligned with the president’s. Appreciative of that access, I sought a conversation with him at that week’s Gridiron Club dinner. Notorious for its off-color musical sketches put on by the press corps and for the lacerating speeches delivered by party leaders and sometimes by the president himself, the Gridiron is also renowned for between-the-tables politicking. So, when Virginia’s copacetic governor (later senator) Tim Kaine volunteered to help, I asked him to arrange a sidebar with Axelrod.

  We met in the shadows of the kitchen exit, each of us in a white tie and tux. I urged him to find a way out of a situation that I feared might become dangerous for Israel, but Axelrod calmly brushed this aside. Instead, he accused me of urging congressmen to hold on until 2012, that Obama would never get reelected. The charge of interfering in internal American politics could have rendered me persona non grata and resulted in my expulsion from the United States. “That’s utterly untrue,” I repeatedly responded, but Axelrod ignored my denials.

  “I wouldn’t take it too seriously,” Senator Joseph Lieberman said the next day, quieting me with warm counsel and a cold beer. “It’s just Chicago politics.” In the basement of Joe’s Georgetown house, between walls covered with comforting photographs of his wife, Hadassah, and their children and grandchildren, among the mementos of his thirty-five years of public service, I found solace and wisdom. Originally a Democrat, a 2004 candidate for vice president, he was the only American Jew ever to be nominated for national office. Nevertheless, Lieberman had angered some of his supporters by becoming an independent and joining Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham as one of the “Three Amigos,” pursuing a muscular foreign policy. For me, there was no substitute for a personal friendship with Joe, a man who knew Washington thoroughly and cherished Israel—“founded by Jews,” he once quipped, “who weren’t going to take crap from anyone after the Holocaust, not even from each other.” Now, still shaken by my conversation with Axelrod, I reminded the senator of Truman’s famous adage, “If you want a friend in this town, get a dog.” Senator Lieberman clinked his beer bottle on mine and smiled his half-sagacious, half-mischievous smile. “Well, I guess that makes me your dog.”

  Other officials called in to lend support. “Don’t take that bullshit,” New York senator Chuck Schumer said to bolster me. “Stick to your guns and don’t give an inch.” But the press ridiculed Netanyahu, labeling him arrogant and inept. The New Yorker again claimed that he called Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod “self-hating Jews,” while the Republicans railed against Obama for abandoning Israel. In an attempt to soften the onslaught and restore some bipartisanship, I agreed to write an op-ed for The New York Times. My deadline was in four hours, two of which I spent gazing bleary-eyed into a blank screen. Where to begin? I had to uphold the alliance, deny it was experiencing its worse crisis in thirty-five years, recall the moratorium, restate our position on Jerusalem and our dedication to peace, and remind readers that even the best of friends can sometimes disagree—all in eight hundred words.

  The article, “For Israel and the United States, Disagreement Not a Crisis,” appeared the next morning, March 17, but I had no time to read it. Rather, I ran to an interview with Charlie Rose, rushing onto the set without even stopping for makeup. Impeccably thoughtful in his questioning, Charlie probed the depths of the current U.S.-Israel malaise, yet I managed to stay on message. There was no crisis. Period. Yet my appearance said otherwise. “You looked all beat up,” Yossi Klein Halevi phoned from Israel to tell me. My mother sounded more concerned. “Please, Michael, promise me you’ll get some sleep.”

  But rest, much less slumber, remained unthinkable as rumors of an Obama peace plan now proliferated. “The history of Arab-Israel diplomacy is littered with such plans,” I told Dennis Ross, and again I sensed he concurred. Together, we listed ways of averting similar wrangles in the future, among them restoring the “no surprises” principle, preserving direct communications between the president and the prime minister, and pledging to keep all further disagreements out of the public eye.

  Yet the administration seemed uninterested. It still insisted that Netanyahu agree to its demands while, in the press, unnamed White House sources accused Ross of dual loyalty and of acting as the prime minister’s advocate. I, too, was criticized by some in the Prime Minister’s Office for exceeding my authority in trying to find a way out of the morass. Support, though, came from an unexpected source: the defense minister. “A bad ambassador is one who sits and does nothing,” Ehud Barak told me. “You are simply doing your job.”

  Barak’s firgun never felt timelier, for I soon learned that Netanyahu had decided to address the AIPAC conference in Washington on March 22. Obama, compelled by the health-care debate to cancel a visit to Indonesia, would be in the capital that day. The two leaders simply had to meet. I called several senior administration officials and asked them how they would define a successful session between the two. Their answers were uniform: “Bibi should tell the president where he’s going on the peace process—what’s his end game.” But the White House remained noncommittal about scheduling the summit’s time and format. The estrangement became palpable after Netanyahu, to the cheers of ten thousand AIPAC enthusiasts, defiantly declared that “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It’s our capital.”

  Later, the prime minister and his entourage retired to the embassy to await word from the White House. Ehud Barak turned to my young head of office, the effervescent Moriya Blumenfeld, and asked for a glass of whiskey and the biggest lock in the building. This he set to disassembling with a screwdriver while we debated the tenor of the prime minister’s meeting with the president.

  A majority opinion held that the administration had come out swinging at Israel, precipitated a crisis, and appreciated only strength, which Netanyahu should show. My voice was virtually alone in calling for prudence. Responding rashly to the provocations would only play into the hands of those who wanted to transform support for Israel into a partisan issue, I argued. “Your policy should be rope-a-dope,” I said, referring to Muhammad Ali’s boxing strategy of deflecting blows until his opponent wore out. “Ignore the jabs and save your strength for when it really counts.” The discussion dragged on well past midnight, until finally the invitation to the White House arrived, for seven o’clock that evening.

  The limo ride afforded me another opportunity to remind Netanyahu of the need to go the extra mile in placating the president. But the absence of any protocol officers or even Marine guards to receive us outside conveyed a mood of coolness rather than conciliation. The prime minister immediately adjourned to the Oval Office for his face-to-face with Obama, leaving their teams to linger once again in the Roosevelt Room.

  While Barak fiddled perilously with an antique clock, I called my colleagues’ attention to th
e Frederic Remington sculptures of buffalo and George Catlin portraits of Native Americans that oddly recalled the world that America nearly destroyed. Similarly, I pointed out the photographs of the president that lined the hallways and the battle ribbons—Yorktown 1781, Gettysburg 1863, Iwo Jima 1945—draped around every flag. I asked them to imagine the Prime Minister’s Office decorated with pictures of Netanyahu or Israeli banners marked with “Conquest of Sinai 1956” or “Siege of Jerusalem 1948,” but they could not. I asked a secretary for some snacks and received some crackers and cheese—minimal fare that Barak nevertheless devoured.

  After an hour or so, Obama and Netanyahu emerged in pleasant humor. But then the president addressed the prime minister and his team and said, “I have an assignment for you.” By this he meant that we were supposed to work out a schedule for meeting his demands, including the construction freeze. We floated alternative ideas until 9 P.M., when Obama announced that he was retiring upstairs. Michelle and their two daughters were out of town and he wanted to get to bed early. Netanyahu asked if we could remain and work with General Jones, Dennis Ross, and deputy NSC director Tom Donilon. Another two hours passed, and at 11 P.M., Netanyahu requested to see the president again, in private. The president descended from his quarters with rolled-up shirtsleeves and reconvened with Netanyahu for another thirty minutes. The rest of us—Israelis and Americans—remained poring over various drafts until 2:30 A.M.

  That was when, after dragging myself into my car, I heard the radio announce that Israel had been snubbed. The news noted that there had been no official photograph of Obama and Netanyahu, no joint communiqué, not even an official dinner—worse, the headlines claimed, Obama had dined with his wife and daughters, leaving Netanyahu and his advisors to starve. To a ravenous press I had to explain that this had been a working meeting, not a state visit, arranged at the last minute. The first family was not even present in the White House, I added. There was no snub, and no crisis certainly.

  And yet the memory of those crackers, of those unrealistic demands on Netanyahu, needled me. So, too, did the realization that the snub headline, though most likely spun by the White House, could just as well have sprung from Jerusalem. In contrast to the past, when the friendship of the U.S. president augmented an Israeli prime minister’s popularity, Obama’s hostility toward Netanyahu actually bolstered the prime minister in the polls.

  Still, the media harped on Netanyahu’s “shabby” reception at the White House, how he was treated like a “third world dictator,” and “humiliated, demeaned, and devastated.” U.S.-Israel relations, Haaretz editorialized, had reached an ultimate low. In fact, they descended further.

  In pursuit of his nonproliferation agenda—another kishke issue—Obama convened a Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on April 12–13. Forty-seven world leaders attended but not Netanyahu. The nuclear issue was singularly sensitive for Israel. Though our long-standing policy remained that we would never be the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East, Israel feared international pressure to reveal its nuclear capabilities. The administration sought to allay Netanyahu’s concerns, assuring him that Iran, and not Israel, would be singled out for criticism. But the prime minister remained wary of attempts by Egypt and Turkey to pass anti-Israel resolutions at Obama’s summit and unsure of the president’s determination to block them. And so, instead of going to Washington himself, Netanyahu sent Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor—Sallai’s brother—to represent Israel. Meridor and I spent much of the two days chatting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, Jordan’s King Abdullah, and Italy’s rakish prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who raved about a certain Alitalia flight attendant. In the end, Israel was not singled out at this summit. Only at the next one.

  Gathering in New York in May, representatives of the 189 signatory countries of the Non-Proliferation Treaty specifically cited Israel—and ignored Iran—in demanding a nuclear-free Middle East. Israel favored disarming the region of all massively destructive weapons, but only after the achievement of peace. Obama nevertheless hailed the summit for promoting “balanced and practical steps.” Jim Jones, the national security advisor tried to walk the statement back by pledging that “the United States will not permit actions that could jeopardize Israel.” Still, Obama’s initial willingness to support the singling out of Israel on its most delicate security issue seemed to confirm Netanyahu’s deepest apprehensions.

  Trust was further eroded when General David Petraeus, commander of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf and America’s most celebrated soldier, was quoted saying that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians cost America “blood and treasure” in the region. The remarks, purportedly made on the very day that Israeli rescue workers landed in earthquake-stricken Haiti, deeply insulted Israeli civilian and defense leaders. In a later conversation with me, Petraeus denied making the remark. But then, in closing his Nuclear Summit, Obama declared that “the need for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and the Arab states remains as critical as ever,” and “when conflicts break out…that ends up costing us significantly in…blood and treasure.”

  Alone in the embassy’s Aquarium, I agonized over those words. Israel had not only the failure of peace on its hands, according to the administration, but the suffering of America’s unemployed and the sacrifices of its soldiers. The viscous sludge that was just then coating the Gulf of Mexico—the spillage of billions of barrels of BP oil—evoked my own pitch-black mood. I wondered whether I would last out the year in my post.

  Earlier that morning, I appeared on CNN’s State of the Union and the host, Candy Crowley, asked me to describe the state of the U.S.-Israel alliance. I smiled at her and replied, “Great!” It was the only response I ever regretted making on TV. Brooding back at the embassy, I wondered whether there was a limit even to diplomatic falsehoods. Just then, Lior Weintraub ambled into the room. Grinning, my chief of staff uttered the only two words that at that lightless moment could have made me laugh, the very words that I should have spoken to Candy Crowley. “Unbreakable,” Lior said. “Unshakable.”

  Fish and Fighters

  “My district already has twenty-five percent unemployment and Israel’s going to jack it up to thirty percent,” Illinois congressman Donald Manzullo, a Republican, practically shouted into the phone. “You’ve impounded nine containers—nine—of our frozen Asian carp.”

  My first year in office had posed successive and seemingly unsurpassable challenges. I had to maneuver through the embassy’s politics, minimize leaks, maintain bipartisan bridges, straddle divisions in the American Jewish community, create a diplomatic persona, and preserve open channels between two governments at odds on multiple issues. I had internalized crucial lessons—be cautious on conference calls, for example, and never go on TV without makeup. My appreciation of Congress as a counterweight to federal criticism of Israel deepened, and I doubled the time I spent weekly on the Hill. But none of the year’s instructive experiences prepared me for this. Fish.

  I tried to calm the congressman, assuring him that I would do my utmost to free the embargoed fillets, but my options were in fact few. America signed its first-ever free-trade agreement with Israel back in 1985, but the treaty exempted certain Israeli products liable to be eradicated by their cheaper American counterparts. Apples, avocados, and oranges fell into this category, and, so, too, did the carp cultivated by Galilean farmers. Which was why four hundred thousand pounds of the frozen Illinois fish were denied entry to the Promised Land.

  Still, in view of the possible diplomatic damage, I thought Israel should make this one exception, and told that to the Ministers of Trade and Finance. Congressman Manzullo, meanwhile, ramped up the pressure. He phoned me incessantly, using increasingly acrimonious tones, and complained to the secretary of state. “You think finding Middle East peace is hard,” Secretary of State Clinton blithely told reporters. “I’m dealing with carp!” Netanyahu called to question me, “What’s all this carp stuff?�
� I urged him to focus on Israel’s critical issues and leave the fish to me.

  Days of effort passed before a compromise was finally achieved. On a one-time, nonprecedent basis, the nine containers were unloaded in Israeli ports. A now-composed Congressman Manzullo called to thank me and to ask, “Why do you Israelis need so much carp?” Realizing that his question was genuine, I explained that the Jewish people would soon celebrate Passover, when they traditionally eat gefilte fish. “Carp, Congressman, is the main ingredient.”

  —

  Gefilte fish, together with matzah and chicken soup, was served at the maiden White House seder, which the Obamas held with senior advisors, selected staffers, and friends. Daughters Malia and Sasha recited the Four Questions reserved for the youngest attendees and searched for the hidden shard of matzah—the Afikomen. The theme of the night, recalling the dreams of antebellum slaves, was the exodus to freedom. The press nevertheless speculated whether, in light of the tension between the administration and Israel, the president ended the seder with the usual pledge, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

  At the Residence, Sally and I also held our first ambassadorial seder, together with my parents and our children. Noam, black-and-blue from his IDF Special Forces training, flew directly from the field to join us. Around the glowing table, we sat with Dennis and Debbie Ross, several ambassadors, and senior Clinton advisor Ann Lewis. We listened to Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, an international authority on Iran whom I first met at Princeton. While visiting her mother in Tehran in 2007, Haleh was arrested by Iranian agents, who charged her with subversion and jailed her for eight months in the notorious Evin prison. The story of Haleh’s modern exodus from captivity to liberation moved everyone around the table to tears. It reminded me of that underground seder I attended in the Soviet Union a quarter century before, of the unafraid Jews who sang “Hatikvah”—“To be a free people in the Land of Zion”—while the KGB led me away.