Ally

by Michael B. Oren

  But the Israelis remained, working well past midnight to assess the day’s events. Though still unwilling to specify a trigger for an American strike against Iran, Obama reinforced his position that Israel had the right to decide when and how to defend itself—perhaps a yellow light for Israeli action. “Yes, but at Israeli intersections, the yellow light precedes green,” Ron Dermer reminded us. “In America, it precedes red.”

  I reported on my preparation talks with White House officials. Once again I inquired about the “diplomatic deliverable” the president would most appreciate receiving while in Israel, and the answer, again, was: an apology to Erdoğan for the 2010 flotilla incident. This sparked a knotty debate. The autocratic Turkish leader had never ceased denouncing Israel and, most recently, had called Zionism “a crime against humanity.” Theologically close to Hamas, he supported the terrorist organization both diplomatically and militarily, and saw himself as the Sunni savior of the Middle East. Saying sorry to him would not alter his animus toward the Jewish State.

  Yet here was an opportunity to give Obama a victory and the U.S.-Israel alliance a much-needed boost. Consequently, I came down on the conciliatory side, as did Dermer and Amidror. But Defense Minister Ya’alon pointed out that saying sorry meant admitting that our naval commandos had committed some offense when, in fact, they were merely protecting themselves. “We politicians would be off the hook,” he said, “and our boys left holding the blame.” Netanyahu, for his part, reserved judgment.

  The question of whether Israel would grant Obama’s wish remained open through the next day, which began, poignantly, with rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel. The terrorists’ attempt to disrupt the visit failed, though, as attention fixed on the president’s tour of the Shrine of the Book. The alabaster, amphora-shaped structure housed the Dead Sea Scrolls, written by Judean Jews more than two thousand years ago. More than any other, this was the event I had pressed for, which unequivocally proclaimed Israel’s rootedness in the Middle East.

  Emerging from the shrine, visibly moved by the sacred texts he had viewed, Obama proceeded to the nearby Israel Museum. There the winners of a contest for Israel’s most cutting-edge innovations waited to display their inventions. Robotic waiters invented by high school students delivered Passover matzah to the president and a mechanical worm, designed to locate earthquake victims trapped under rubble, nuzzled his arm. A female veteran of the Vietnam War, a paraplegic wearing a high-tech exoskeleton called ReWalk, stood and stepped toward Obama. The moment moved John Kerry, himself a Vietnam veteran, to tears.

  Obama then left Jerusalem for Ramallah and meetings with Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad. The president reiterated his commitment to ending the occupation and providing hope and dignity to the Palestinians. More contentiously, he drew a comparison between the opportunities once forbidden to young African-Americans such as his own daughters and those still denied to Palestinian youth.

  The remark went largely unnoticed, though, and my energies remained concentrated on the proposed Erdoğan apology. Ensconced in the Prime Minister’s Office with Ambassador Dan Shapiro, Ron Dermer, and the NSC’s newly appointed Middle East expert, Phil Gordon, we pored over various drafts. Much of the language had already been worked out in previous talks with the Turks. Israel would apologize for possible tactical mistakes made by the IDF during the flotilla operation and offer to compensate the families of the Turkish nationals who were killed. In return, Erdoğan would return Turkey’s ambassador to Tel Aviv and drop all present and future war crimes charges against Israeli commanders. This exchange would take place in Obama’s presence, casting him as a peacemaker.

  Contacts with Turkey continued that afternoon for what was billed as the trip’s centerpiece. Visiting heads of state usually speak before the Knesset. Nearly twenty years earlier, I had listened to Bill Clinton render the rowdy Israeli parliamentarians spellbound with the story of his childhood pastor who made him promise never to abandon the Jewish State. But Obama’s advisors recommended against a Knesset address, fearing that radical members might boo him. Instead they opted for a much grander appearance at Jerusalem’s Convention Center, before an audience of more than two thousand Israeli college students.

  Even this proved controversial. The U.S. embassy chose the attendees from essays they submitted on Obama and America-Israeli relations, but only from those enrolled at universities located within the 1967 lines. Students from Ariel University, situated in a settlement bloc, demonstrated their exclusion outside the center, alongside protesters demanding Jonathan Pollard’s release. The event nevertheless proceeded, and to wild applause and a flurry of American flags, Obama strode onto the stage.

  I sat in the front row, awkwardly positioned between several right-wing ministers and a group of young Arab women with their heads traditionally covered. Obama began with an insider Israeli joke about how all the talk about tensions between Bibi and him were merely scripts written for Eretz Nehederet, a popular TV comedy show. But then he grew serious and almost poetic, comparing the ancient Jewish yearning for freedom to that of antebellum African-American slaves. He traced the “journey of…countless generations” that wound through “centuries of suffering and exile, prejudice, pogroms, and even genocide” before culminating in the State of Israel. And those who denied Israel’s right to exist, Obama warned, “might as well reject the earth beneath them and the sky above, because Israel is not going anywhere.” He praised Israeli democracy and innovation, and, of course, mentioned Tikkun Olam. But the most moving passage was one that, I, too, might have proclaimed. “The dream of true freedom finally found its full expression in the Zionist idea,” Obama maintained. “To be a free people in your homeland.”

  Again and again, the students rose in applause—all except the Arab women, who continued to sit impassively. But Obama also praised the Palestinians for preserving their vision of statehood, and denounced the humiliation and the violence bred, he said, by the occupation. For the first time, a U.S. president called not only for self-determination for the Palestinians, but for “justice.” The word, laden with historical associations, was no doubt deliberately picked; whereas Israelis traditionally want peace, the Palestinians always demand justice. Then Obama went further, urging the students to go out and protest against the policies of their democratically elected government. “Political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do,” he asserted. “You must create the change that you want to see.” Yet even these provocative lines spurred standing ovations from all those present—apart, paradoxically, from both the Israeli rightists and the Israeli Arabs. Obama concluded on an exalted note, in Hebrew assuring these young Israelis who had known only war, “Atem lo levad,” you are not alone.

  Could this be a transformative moment? I wondered. Could Obama see that, three years after the Cairo speech, Israel was the only place in the Middle East where he could still give a speech and be cheered? Did he appreciate how eagerly these students embraced his loving message, even when its love was tough?

  The crowd swarmed toward the stage, still applauding. Only the Arab women remained in their seats, hands folded in their laps, silent. “Why didn’t you clap?” I asked them. “The president of the United States just called for justice for Palestine.” The women merely glared at me and one of them said, “That was a terrible speech. Totally Zionist.”

  Israelis, too, overlooked the pro-Palestinian segments of the speech and seized on its Zionism. Their feting of Obama continued that night at a gala state dinner hosted by Shimon Peres. The entire presidential entourage arrived, including prominent Jewish Congress members. I was trading political insights with New York’s Eliot Engel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz when my cellphone rang. From Washington, my vigilant chief of staff, Lee Moser, called to warn me that microphones lined the area and everything we said was heard on international TV. Fortunately, I made no indiscretions and, more cautiously, went back to chatting.

  Peres reciprocated the Presidential Me
dal of Freedom award he received from Obama by bestowing on him Israel’s own Presidential Medal. More speeches followed, with boisterous musical interludes that had one White House aide complaining to me, “Don’t you guys believe in quiet songs?” There were more speeches, more toasts, and photographs with Yityish Titi Aynaw, a tall and dazzlingly beautiful immigrant from Ethiopia who was recently crowned Miss Israel. I applauded the performances, posed with Yityish, all the while thinking: one more day to go.

  This was to be the climactic day. It opened in Jerusalem with Obama ascending to Mount Herzl—Israel’s equivalent of Arlington—to lay a wreath on its namesake’s grave. No less than his viewing of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the gesture was dense with meaning. Theodor Herzl, Zionism’s founding father, authored the book The Jewish State, published half a century before the Holocaust. By paying homage to Herzl, Obama again reminded the world that the United States regarded Israel as the Jewish State with origins predating the Final Solution. Watching the two of them—the president and Netanyahu—standing over the dark gray tomb again gave me hope that this trip might be a game changer.

  My optimism rose further when the two leaders joined the Rabin family beside the resting place of the great general and statesman who so inspired me as a teenager. Then, after placing another wreath on the stone of Yitzhak Rabin, Obama allowed the prime minister to take him to another section of Israel’s national cemetery. This time they stood alone, just the two of them, at the grave site of Yoni Netanyahu.

  No state visit can be concluded without a visit to the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem. Obama toured the haunting galleries and then, after the standard prayer at the Eternal Flame, spoke words I never thought he would utter. “The State of Israel does not exist because of the Holocaust, but with the survival of the State of Israel there will never be a Holocaust again.” I recognized the phrase from an article written by Yossi Klein Halevi, and excitedly tried to phone him.

  The excitement of hearing my best friend’s words in the president’s mouth was quickly quelled, though, by an astonishing speech by Yad Vashem’s chairman, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau. He and his diplomat brother, Naftali—who once hosted me for Shabbat dinners when I was a “lone soldier”—were the only members of their family to survive Buchenwald. Lau later became a chief rabbi of Israel and a champion of interfaith understanding. Now, with his untrimmed white beard and all-black attire, he cast a prophetic aura as he turned to Obama and recalled the non-Jewish GI who liberated him in 1945. Many years later, Lau said, that same veteran approached him and begged for forgiveness. “We were too late,” the American cried. “And I say to you, Mr. President,” Lau proclaimed, “do not be too late.”

  An audible gulp rose from the spectators, all of whom understood that Lau’s warning related to Iran. The president also looked startled. But no one was more surprised—and incensed—than Netanyahu. “Who does Lau think we are?” he fumed back in his office, “Concentration camp inmates waiting for the Americans to save us?” A press statement went out asserting that Israel, a sovereign state, could defend itself, by itself, if necessary. The incident quickly passed, though, and attention returned to the closing hours of Obama’s visit. The question remained: would Netanyahu apologize to Erdoğan?

  The main stumbling block remained the issue of war crimes charges against Israelis that Turkey refused to relinquish. “Erdoğan will never concede that,” Ambassador Dan Shapiro cautioned me. Still, Phil Gordon, a Turkey specialist whose mind seemed to work as fast as the pen he incessantly twirled in his fingers, refused to give up, and kept calling high-ranking figures in Ankara. While Obama left for the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem—by car, after a violent sandstorm grounded his chopper—we continued refining the draft. Then, finally, at two o’clock on Friday afternoon, it was time to leave for the airport.

  There, a prefab trailer was set up a short span from where Air Force One awaited its principal passenger. We crowded inside—Amidror, Gordon, Secretary Kerry, and others—elbowing to make room for Obama and Netanyahu. The phone calls continued, but still brought no closure. The time was well past three, with darkness approaching fast. Very soon, Israeli officials would have to return home in order to avoid violating the Sabbath. The chance to give Obama his diplomatic achievement would be lost. Not until the motorcade pulled up to the trailer, with only a few minutes to spare, did Dan Shapiro practically shout, “We got it! It’s a deal!”

  They sat across from each other with a small table and a telephone between them. Obama spoke extemporaneously through a translator and greeted Erdoğan as “my friend, Recep.” Netanyahu, by contrast, read from a script of which we all had copies and followed closely. The necessary ingredients were all there—the apology for tactical mistakes perhaps made by the IDF, the compensation offer, the restoration of full diplomatic ties, and the removal of all war crimes charges. Netanyahu spoke slowly, purposefully, and, I felt, sincerely. The interpreter conveyed Erdoğan’s words: his comments on Zionism were taken out of context and he bore no animosity toward Israel. The apology was accepted.

  Obama and Netanyahu hung up the phone and everyone present sprang to their feet and started cheering. There were high-fives and even hugs. Outwardly, I was jubilant, but inside, torn. The leader of the Jewish State so recently lionized by the president of the United States had just conceded to the Islamist patron of IHH radicals who beat and stabbed our soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara, the strongman who imprisoned journalists and activists for civil rights. Yet, at the same time, here was a prime minister who made a tough decision to place our bonds with America above just about all other considerations.

  “We may have made a mistake,” he admitted to me that evening as we sat, just the two of us, in his office. We watched a television newsman report that the mothers of the Shayetet 13 commandos were accusing Netanyahu of abandoning their sons, and that even some members of his cabinet were criticizing him. A triumphant Erdoğan was bragging about how he had humiliated the Israelis and would humble them further by forcing them to lift the Gaza blockade. The war crimes charges would not be dropped, he vowed. Wearily, Netanyahu repeated, “I think we made a mistake.”

  Perhaps I was too sleep-deprived or was still elevated by the president’s final sendoff to share in his dismay. Protocol chief Capricia Marshall had shoved a pair of official Obama cuff links into my pocket—her way of saying thanks—and John Kerry had clasped my hands in his. “Thank you, Mr. President, for my children” were my parting words to Obama. Operation Unbreakable Alliance, as the Americans called it, succeeded beyond all expectations. Through the fog and deliriousness, I believed that Netanyahu had acted responsibly. Like our common hero, Levi Eshkol, Israel’s prime minister in 1967, he had exhausted all possible diplomatic options—not only toward Erdoğan, but also with Obama.

  “No, you made no mistake,” I assured him. “You did the right thing. The statesmanlike thing.”

  Remaining to be seen, though, was whether the messaging of the president’s visit, and the impressions it left, were permanent. Did Obama make the trip, as some jaded journalists insinuated, just to “check the box,” or was he sincerely seeking to allay his first term’s tensions with Israel? Would he value Netanyahu’s attempted reconciliation with Turkey and the public’s overflowing goodwill? And could Israelis build on Obama’s warmth and willingness to honor some of their most symbolic national sites and place greater faith in him?

  The answers to all of those questions could still be negative, I realized, and the mistrust and backbiting would resume. I recalled how, on the eve of the Six-Day War, when Arab armies assembled on Israel’s borders, President Johnson warned Eshkol, “Israel will not be alone unless it decides to act alone.” Similarly, Obama declared, Atem lo levad—“You are not alone”—but would he, too, qualify that statement? I wondered. Was it up to Israel to decide?

  Kerry Ex Machina

  The secretary of state set out to answer that question the very next day as his plane once again landed at Ben-Gurion Airp
ort. After a stopover with Obama in Jordan, John Kerry returned to Israel to jump-start the long-stalled peace talks. I greeted him as a friend who had dined at my Residence and who treated me to wine and cheese at his summer home in Nantucket. I knew him in his former capacity as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, when he frequently visited Israel or invited me into his office for talks on Middle East issues. Back then he was eager to achieve a breakthrough between Israel and Syria and made some fitful starts at mediating between Damascus and Jerusalem. I encouraged him, even though I doubted Assad’s sincerity or his willingness to defy his Iranian patrons. The ayatollahs were unlikely to watch passively while their best Middle Eastern friend made peace with their worst enemy, us.

  Kerry’s initiative died, along with more than two hundred thousand Syrians, most of them killed by the same regime that he and others judged moderate. Later, I often asked myself, What would have happened if Israel had concluded a deal that brought Syria back to the pre-1967 lines? The answer made me tremble. Black jihadist flags would be fluttering on the Sea of Galilee’s shores.

  Now, as secretary of state, Kerry switched his attention to reanimating the peace process with the Palestinians. “We have to keep working at this,” he said, and inexhaustibly went to work. At age seventy, Kerry was devoid of body fat, capable of bicycling dozens of miles each day, and blessed with that helmetlike hair and Rushmore jaw so admired by Americans. Once, while greeting him at Ben-Gurion Airport, I was shocked to see him with two black eyes and stitches across his nose. “What happened?” I gasped. Kerry explained that he was playing hockey and stumbled over his teammate, actor Tom Hanks. His wounds looked excruciating, but the secretary never dwelt on them or let them interfere with his conversations. He remained, rather, like the godlike figure who, in classical Greek theater, swoops down to save the endangered heroes. So, too, did John Kerry descend onto the Middle Eastern stage to rescue Israel from tragedy.