Ally

by Michael B. Oren

  But that story never made the mainstream American media. The headlines, rather, called attention to the alleged erosion of human rights in Israel, its oppression of Palestinians, and misuse of military force. And with alarmingly few exceptions, those stories were authored by Jews.

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  Among the most common anti-Semitic canards is that Jews control the press. A pernicious myth, it nevertheless reflects the disproportional number—relative to their share of the U.S. population—of Jewish journalists. Most days, the op-ed pages of leading newspapers can look like a quarrel between members of a raucous Jewish family, a mishpoochah. One could imagine Thomas Friedman arguing with David Brooks, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Charles Krauthammer or Roger Cohen taking issue with Richard Cohen, Paul Krugman, or Frank Rich, with Mort Zuckerman occasionally joining the fray. Television is no different, with nationally known names like Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer, Barbara Walters, and Jon Stewart proudly identified as Jews.

  But the presence of so many Jews in print and on the screen rarely translates into support for Israel. The opposite is often the case, as some American Jewish journalists flag their Jewishness as a credential for criticizing Israel. “I’m Jewish,” some even seem to say, “but I’m not one of those Jews—the settlers, the rabbis, Israeli leaders, or the soldiers of the IDF.” The preponderance of Jews in the U.S. media often means, simply, that Israel is subjected to scrutiny and standards imposed on no other foreign nation.

  Of the multiple press critiques of Israel that confronted me each morning, a high percentage were mounted by Jews. Reporting about the Women of the Wall in December 2012, Times bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, a friend and fellow member of my Jerusalem synagogue, linked the issue to the Diaspora Jewish objection to Israel’s settlement policies and “laws that are seen as antidemocratic or discriminatory against Arab citizens.” The article appeared on the front page, as did an investigation into tax-free American donations to settlements—printed purposely on the morning of Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington—and a “scoop” on Israel’s dominance in the human organs trade. These and other unflattering dispatches were written by Jews working for a paper long under Jewish ownership.

  But The New York Times, which historically displayed a conflicted approach to Jewish issues—during World War II, it infamously played down the Holocaust—was scarcely the only platform for American Jewish criticism of Israel. The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, both Jewish-edited, rarely ran nonincriminating reports on Israeli affairs. Jews throughout the American media were generally more disturbed by the accidental killing of Palestinians by the IDF than by the bombing of Iraqi or Afghani civilians by their own army. My experience with 60 Minutes’s Bob Simon showed me how opposition to settlements could move an American Jew to damage Israel strategically.

  Still, the majority of American Jewish journalists would not, I discovered, define themselves as anti-Israel. On the contrary, they cared intensely about the Jewish State but were increasingly troubled by its policies. Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, a member of the synagogue I attended as ambassador, exemplified this attitude. Her columns dealt exclusively with domestic affairs, yet she devoted one of them to Ultra-Orthodox discrimination against Israeli women. The cases, though indeed disturbing, were localized and even had parallels in Orthodox neighborhoods in New York. But Ruth’s op-ed precipitated several others on the topic, painting the image of an Israel steeped in intolerance. Referring to these reports, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton evoked the legacy of Rosa Parks, the young African-American woman who stood up for civil rights in the racist South. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a personal and pain-filled call to me. “I have always defended Israel and always will,” he said, “but not if our common values are compromised.”

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  The pinch I felt reading articles censorious of Israel sharpened into a stab whenever the names on the bylines were Jewish. Almost all of the world’s countries are nation-states, so what, I wondered, drove these writers to nitpick at theirs? Some, I knew, saw assailing Israel as a career enhancer—the equivalent of Jewish man bites Jewish dog—that saved several struggling pundits from obscurity. Others seemed to disdain Israel the way upper-class American Jews of German ancestry once scorned the poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Yiddish-speaking “rabble” who allegedly made all Jews look bad. Others still, largely assimilated, resented Israel for further complicating their already-conflicted identity. Did some American Jews prefer the moral ease of victimhood, I asked myself, to the complexities of Israeli power? Was no Israel better than an Israel that fell short of their dreams?

  Pondering these questions, I could not help questioning whether American Jews really felt as secure as they claimed. Perhaps persistent fears of anti-Semitism impelled them to distance themselves from Israel and its often controversial policies. Maybe that was why so many of them supported Obama, with his preference for soft power, his universalist White House seders, and aversion to tribes. After all, the cover of a late 2011 edition of New York magazine crowned Obama “The First Jewish President.” That was true if being Jewish in America meant recoiling from military power, territorialism, nationalism, and a sense of tribe.

  And yet, for all my disappointments and frustrations with some American Jews, I could never let my emotions interfere with my job. In addition to the spiritual ties, the shared values, and common strategic interests, the bonds between Israel and the United States rest on American Jewish–Israeli solidarity. I not only believed that “we are one,” I had to ensure that we remained so.

  So, while reaching out to diverse ethnic communities, I extended both hands to my own. I met with the progressive rabbis of the Bay Area, some dressed in multicolored robes, and with Ultra-Orthodox leaders who were uniformly garbed in black. I met with groups who refused to sing “Hatikvah” either because it failed to mention the Palestinians or because it omitted reference to God. I was the first Israeli ambassador to greet gatherings of Israeli immigrants to the United States. As one who had given up his U.S. citizenship to pursue an Israeli dream, it was strange to address those who, for financial or family reasons, had forfeited that dream to become Americans. But they remained avidly committed to Israel, and Israel, I believed, should embrace them.

  The “American Jewish community,” I came to realize, is a misnomer. American Jews belong to many communities, not all of them mutually accepting. And just as I strove to reach out to various ethnic groups, so, too, I worked to bring American Jews into dialogue not only with Israel but, firstly, with one another. The result was a series of tisches—“tables,” in Yiddish—convened at Israeli consulates around the United States. Under these neutral Israeli auspices, Jews from all religious and political movements could candidly, if sometimes loudly, interact.

  At the same time, I visited dozens of synagogues of all orientations, always bringing the same message. Pursue Tikkun Olam, I said; fix the world, but do it together—American and Israeli Jews—providing food for the hungry and hope for the chronically ill. I talked frankly about what we could expect from one another. American Jews, I held, should uphold Israel’s right to defend itself and to exist as the Jewish State. They should respect the responsibility that Israelis bore by choosing their leaders democratically. Israel, for its part, must acknowledge American Jewish pluralism and behave as the nation-state of all the Jewish people. “From one another,” I concluded, “we must expect open minds and compassionate hearts, patience, and a willingness to listen.”

  But how many really heard? For all my hundreds of speeches and innumerable hours of talk, American Jewish criticism of Israel seemed only to surge. Israel’s Orthodox rabbinate appeared to do its utmost to alienate Israel’s nonreligious majority and even to estrange Orthodox rabbis in the United States by refusing to honor their ceremonies. At times, the sheer intolerance of Jew for Jew made me want to scream, “J’accuse!” echoing Émile Zola’s anguished attack on French anti-Semites during the Dreyfus trial. I wanted
to rail at those Jews who failed to recognize that they belong to the luckiest Jewish generation in centuries, who live at a time when our exiles have been repatriated, our prisoners freed, and our two great nations allied. I wanted to accuse them of that most narcissistic of sins: ingratitude.

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  I was grateful, then, whenever I entered an auditorium filled with American Jews who cheered me as Israel’s representative. I had to remind myself that, though not published on front pages or featured on the nightly news, this solid majority of Jews still stood united behind our State. And occasionally, I needed no reminder, such as with the extraordinary people at Temple Beth ‘El.

  I traveled there on a rainy weekend, at the request of Rabbi Capers Funnye, Michelle Obama’s cousin who often advised me on Israel’s relations with African-Americans. “You’ve done so much for me,” I said to him over coffee in his native Chicago. “What can I do for you?” Heftily built with a gaze as heartwarming as it was strong, Rabbi Funnye smiled at me and asked whether I would visit Philadelphia’s Temple Beth ‘El, which was celebrating its sixtieth anniversary. He smiled again when I unhesitatingly replied, “Done.”

  The modest structure, located in a less-than-fancy section of Philly, indicated little about the spiritual opulence inside. Sally and I ran through the wintry drizzle and into an ecstatic reception led by Rabbi Debra Bowen and her husband, Earl. The daughter of Beth ‘El’s founder, Debra lovingly led a congregation unlike any I had ever encountered, and not only because it was entirely African-American. Both men and women were dressed mostly in white, and remained in the synagogue throughout the entire Sabbath, worshipping, singing, feasting, and studying. Though a rock band accompanied many of the prayers, the ritual followed Jewish tradition and the young people—unlike me at their age—read from the Torah in flawless Hebrew. Their joy in their Jewishness was unbridled. Stirred by their elation, I told Rabbi Bowen and her community that we, as one people, shared a sacred homeland that no one could ever take from us. We danced together and davened together. Sally and I departed, hoarse and emotionally speechless, leaving behind an enlarged, framed photograph of elite IDF soldiers in training. Two of them were African and next to them, with gritted teeth, ran Noam, our son.

  I later hosted Rabbi Bowen and Earl at our Residence and escorted them to a White House reception. They persisted in believing that I had done some favor for them and Beth ‘El, but the reverse was true. They gave me fortitude and reinforced my faith. They reminded me, if I had momentarily forgotten, that we are indeed one.

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  Jewish unity grew even more essential as Israel faced its most fearsome challenge in decades. The Iranian nuclear program was still accelerating and nearing a point where fateful decisions might have to be made. Yet American Jews for the most part remained impassive. Three young women from a New Jersey Jewish high school mounted a button-and-poster campaign called “No Nukes for Iran.” Hoping to rekindle the activism of the Free Soviet Jewry movement that electrified me as a youth, I brought these intrepid teenagers to Capitol Hill, introduced them to Netanyahu, and supported their efforts nationally. The American Jewish response was largely silence.

  So, too, was that of the American rabbis whom I asked to address the Iranian threat in their sermons. Some of the rabbis said that the issue was too “divisive” to raise at services—as if the threatened annihilation of millions of Jews could somehow be contentious. I asked them to plant a “No Nukes for Iran” banner on their synagogue lawns, beside those proclaiming “We Stand with Darfur.” Again, the rabbis demurred. One of them, a world-renowned scholar, inquired—without irony—“And if I fly such a flag, who will protect my congregation?”

  Zones of Immunity

  “Who will protect the embassy?” I asked Netanyahu on October 11, 2011. The prime minister had just informed me by phone of a foiled Iranian plot to bomb the Israeli legation. The terrorists also targeted Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, planning to murder him with a bomb while he dined at his favorite restaurant, Cafe Milano. Posing as a drug dealer, an undercover U.S. agent asked the ringleader, an Iranian-American named Manssor Arbabsiar, whether he cared about the innocent guests who would also be killed at the popular Georgetown bistro. “They want that guy done,” Arbabsiar replied, “and if a hundred go with him, fuck ’em.”

  The “they” cited by Arbabsiar was Iran’s elite al-Quds Force, in charge of overseas operations directly authorized by the regime’s Supreme Leader. In a conspiracy plausibly lifted from a boilerplate spy novel, payment for the assassinations passed through an Iranian-American used car salesman to hitmen working for a Mexican drug cartel. Felicitously, the FBI managed to thwart the bombings in time, but untold threats still lurked. Who, I wondered, would protect my staff?

  “Don’t worry,” Netanyahu promised me, “we’ve got you covered.”

  Subsequently, my security detail doubled, but so, too, did my anxiety. By selling drugs internationally and laundering the profits through used-car dealerships, Iran had financed terrorist attacks in twenty-five cities throughout the world. Now that list included America’s capital. Such brazen aggression should have precipitated an instant U.S. military response. Instead, President Obama called the Saudi king—not Netanyahu—telling him, “This plot represents a flagrant violation of fundamental international norms, ethics, and law.” Such abstractions, I assumed, did not appease the desert monarch. And they certainly failed to mollify me. If the administration balked at retaliating for an attempted massacre only blocks from the White House, I asked myself, would it strike nuclear facilities six thousand miles away?

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  All Israelis wrestled with that question. Would—or, rather, could—Obama act? They read how the president told Jeffrey Goldberg—his go-to journalist on issues of Jewish concern—that “[w]e’ve got Israel’s back.” They read how he pledged to Goldberg, “When I say we’re not taking any option off the table, we mean it,” and “I don’t bluff.” They heard administration spokespeople say that the U.S. military was fortifying its presence in the Persian Gulf and developing offensive plans so that the president would have “every possible arrow in his quiver.” Sensitive to such nuances, Israelis registered the change in the administration’s official line, from “a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable to the United States” to “the United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.” In our intimate dialogue with American officials dealing with Iran, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman reassured us that the administration was placing “a constant squeeze on Iran’s major economic artery,” and pursuing “an unrelenting crescendo of pressure.” Ardent about her work, proud of her Jewish heritage, Sherman promised us that “Iran won’t get a ‘get out of jail card’ free.”

  Such guarantees satisfied a large number of Israelis, including major public figures and most of the press. President Peres asserted that “Obama is not just saying this to keep us happy. This time we are not alone.” Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, interviewed by The Jerusalem Post, précised every Israeli’s question: “If we are not going to trust the U.S. president, then who are we going to trust?”

  And some Israelis had a categorical answer. “We cannot bind our security to America’s willingness to act,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak confided to interlocutors at the White House. “The greatest danger is self-delusion.” While appreciative of our intimate dialogue with the United States, Israel security officials still assumed that it doubled as a chibbuk—a hug—to keep us close. Wendy Sherman, some of those same officials recalled, presided over the 1994 Framework Agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program. This “good deal,” as President Clinton called it then, based on intrusive international inspections, “made the world safer” and enabled North Korea “to rejoin the community of nations”—precisely the words Obama used with Iran. Eight years later, Israelis remembered, North Korea exploded its first nuclear weapon.

  Against the mostly verbal evidence that Obama would
use force against Iran, skeptical Israelis adduced his promises to reach out to its regime and to end Middle Eastern wars. For every denial that the president was not bluffing, the administration signaled its reluctance to tussle with Tehran. A month after the Cafe Milano episode, Iran and Hezbollah reportedly arrested and executed at least twelve CIA agents in Lebanon, and the administration again reacted with silence. By contrast, when assassins eliminated another Iranian nuclear scientist—the deed similarly ascribed to the Mossad—the White House quickly issued a statement that “condemned this kind of violence.” No sooner did Newsweek report that the United States sold fifty-five “bunker buster” bombs to Israel than a high-ranking U.S. military official denied that the ordnance was meant for Iran. Anonymous sources leaked to The New York Times the outcome of a secret war game in which an Israeli assault on Iran caused “hundreds of American casualties.” Others accused Israel of negligently exposing to Iran the codes for secret U.S.-Israeli cyberattacks. “Sonofabitch,” Times reporter David Sanger quoted Vice President Biden exclaiming. “It’s got to be the Israelis. They went too far.”

  Most damaging to the “Obama will do it” argument was a series of interviews given by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta early in 2011. After revealing that Iran might be no more than a year away from producing a nuclear weapon, Panetta told The Washington Post’s David Ignatius that his “biggest worry” was the likelihood of an Israeli attack. This, he indicated, would likely take place in the spring. And when it did, the United States might not come to Israel’s aid. “We would have to be prepared to protect our forces in that situation,” Panetta told CBS’s Face the Nation. “And that’s what we’d be concerned about.”