Ally

by Michael B. Oren

  And Israeli eyes once again rolled. Again I received calls from Defense Ministry advisor Amos Gilad questioning the Americans’ reasoning. Again I had to explain that, for the United States, protecting democracy was similar to Israel’s commitment to saving endangered Jewish communities abroad. To administration officials, I described Israel’s inability to understand why they would support an antiliberal, antiwomen, antigay movement approved by a negligible majority in what was clearly a one-man-one-vote-one-time election. True, Morsi had cooperated in arranging the latest Gaza cease-fire, but he remained a radical opposed to virtually all of America’s and Israel’s fundamental ideals. Their reply was “Democracy means respecting the people’s will, even if it’s not to your liking.” I thought—but did not say—“I wish you applied that same principle more often to Israel.”

  Coincidentally, just as I had been in the White House at the moment of Mubarak’s demise, I was there again just as Morsi fell. The atmosphere was totally different. In place of the high-fives and exhilaration came distraught faces and silence. Al-Sisi’s success in suppressing al-Qaeda cells in Sinai and clamping down on Hamas in Gaza—both deeply appreciated by Israel—went unheralded in Washington. Instead, the United States suspended the $1.55 billion in military assistance given to Egypt each year since it signed the peace accord with Israel. For the first time since Henry Kissinger extracted Egypt from Russia’s orbit in the early 1970s, Cairo’s leaders went arms shopping in Moscow.

  —

  By the summer of 2013, Obama’s visit to Israel the previous March began to look like medieval history. The pace of events, especially in the Middle East, outstripped the ability of most decision makers—and much less the general public—to process. The resumed and accelerated peace talks, the new Iranian leadership, chemical attacks in Syria, and political upheaval in Egypt—each posed immense regional challenges. And each threatened to strain the U.S.-Israel alliance in yet incalculable ways.

  Surprises

  My term in office, initially for two years and then twice extended by the prime minister for an additional year, was one of the longest of any Israeli ambassador to Washington. Throughout that period, I was often frustrated, exasperated, and stressed, but not for a second did I feel anything less than fulfilled. And I was never bored.

  My day could begin at 7 A.M. with an interview on Morning Joe and proceed to a breakfast briefing with The Washington Post’s incomparable commentator Jackson Diehl. From there I might rush to Congress and meet with the heads of the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, and Appropriations committees, and then hurry over to the White House for an update on the latest Middle East crisis. Lunch could be a snack with the eminent justice Stephen Breyer, followed by a Supreme Court hearing on the legality of terrorist fund-raising in the United States, or a quick bite with Jarrod Bernstein, President Obama’s superresourceful liaison with the Jewish community. After I plunged into the Aquarium, Chief of Staff Lee Moser would seek my decision on always-urgent embassy issues, while Major General Ya’akov Aysh, our first-class defense attaché, furnished news on military events in Iraq and Syria. Afternoons were spent giving speeches to evangelical or progressive groups or meeting with disabled U.S. veterans.

  One daily schedule brought me to the Treasury to witness the signing of billions of dollars of U.S. loan guarantees for Israel; another shows me slipping in a moment to issue a statement supporting the appointment of my friend Samantha Power as America’s ambassador to the UN. In the car between functions, I telephoned my kids or tapped out an op-ed on my laptop. Washington’s social calendar filled my evenings with formal balls or costumed Purim bashes or soirées with the radiant arts patron Adrienne Arsht, who alone could get me to sing “I Get a Kick Out of You,” in front of her guests. Starting at midnight, the calls could come in from morning-time Jerusalem.

  Yet, somehow, I was not tired. Lighter by twenty pounds, I was in better shape than at any time in years. Much of that fitness was due to my quiet morning row, which could also contain surprises. Once, while sculling past a small fishing boat, I called out “Good morning” to the captain, who responded less amiably. “You went over my line,” he screamed, “you fat, liberal, gay fuck!” Americans are nice until they aren’t, I remembered. But I merely shrugged at him and pouted, “Fat?”

  At a different dawn, however, the river fog parted to reveal an American bald eagle. Perched on a half-submerged stump, it eyed me, and I eyed back, for several moments without flinching. Finally, I smiled at the magnificent bird and said the first thing that came to my mind. “Morning, ally.”

  Such stimulation, for an ADHD person, was gratifying. So, too, was the realization—remarkably still astonishing—that I was Israel’s representative to the United States. Whenever exiting the Eisenhower Executive Office Building I would pause and gaze at the First Division Memorial and the Washington Monument beyond, backlit by a sunset worthy of the Hudson River School. Amazed, I would wonder, “Am I really here?”

  But I also missed Israel. With an almost aching frequency, memories recurred of Shabbat morning brunches with my family, hikes in the Jerusalem hills, and praying quietly in my neighborhood synagogue, where nobody questioned me about policy. I had done my best, I believed, and made a difference in far from uncomplicated circumstances. The time had come to return home.

  Ron Dermer had expressed an interest in becoming the next ambassador, and we set a date for his arrival in the fall. My hope was that the intervening months would pass in relative tranquility. Yes, there would still be natural disasters, such as the tornados that ripped through Kansas and Oklahoma that spring, and the periodic shooting sprees that required immediate condolence notes from the prime minister. Israel, too, would have its crisis points, especially as the Palestinian prisoners—divided into four “tranches,” each timed to keep Abbas at the negotiating table—were released. Still, over the years, my skin had thickened and my resilience steeled. Never again could I be surprised.

  Or almost never. Like that time that Jeffrey Goldberg—whose life read like an excerpt from Ripley’s Believe It or Not—was sunning on Martha’s Vineyard and received a phone call from Fidel Castro inviting him to Cuba. “Sure,” Jeff replied, and flew off to Havana. The visit, uproariously recalled in The Atlantic, had one serious side: the aging communist strongman and longtime supporter of Palestinian terror assured Jeff that he rejected Iranian attempts to deny the Holocaust and recognized Israel’s right to exist. This remark, intended probably to shore up anti-embargo sentiment in Congress, reached the Prime Minister’s Office. Someone there saw Castro’s statement as an opportunity to drive a wedge between the European left, which idealized him, and their Islamist allies. Netanyahu merely had to write Castro a personal note welcoming his words and a threatening anti-Israel front would be splintered.

  “Are you kidding?” I practically shouted at Ron Dermer on the phone. “The Cuban caucus in Congress is among our best friends. That letter will infuriate them.”

  “Gotcha,” Ron replied. “I’ll tell them to tear the letter up right away.”

  I hung up the phone only to be dumbstruck again. Moments later, Ron learned that his father-in-law had passed away, and he rushed home to join his wife. The letter from Netanyahu to Castro went out.

  The result arrived within days. While riding with Sally to a black-tie event, my cellphone rang with a call from Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. The daughter of Cuban refugees, Ileana was passionate in her hatred of Castro. On the wall of her House office hangs a black-and-white photo of a disheveled man framed by stone-faced police. When I asked her why that, of all photographs, was on display, she said flatly, “That’s Che Guevara being taken out for execution. The happiest day of my life.”

  Though short of stature, Ileana, when provoked, can instill fear. We befriended each other more than a decade earlier when, as a reserve officer accompanying Congress members on a visit to the Golan Heights, I watched her tell a brawny IDF general that he talked too much. Now the dis
tinguished representative from South Florida lambasted Israel’s perfidy. “For years, our community has done nothing but support you,” she roared, “and you repay us by stabbing us in the back!” The tongue-lashing lasted roughly thirty minutes, until another Cuban caucus member called to complain.

  My duty was to deliver the bad news to Netanyahu, who immediately understood and allowed me to arrange a reconciling conversation with Ileana. The incident was fortunately forgotten and the lesson learned. Several years later, when Obama lifted America’s fifty-four-year-long embargo of Cuba, Netanyahu conspicuously refrained from praising the move.

  If caught off guard by the Castro episode, I was utterly unprepared to be sued for libel by the Knesset’s most prominent Arab member, Ahmad Tibi. In a Foreign Policy article on the robustness of Israeli democracy, I had cited Tibi’s praise for Palestinian “martyrs”—a well-known Arabic synonym for suicide bombers—and suggested that such support for the terrorist murderers of one’s fellow citizens would, in most open societies, result in disbarment or worse. Committed to free speech, though, Israelis kept Tibi in office. But Tibi, a former advisor to Yasser Arafat, denied he had made the statement and demanded restitution in court. Lamentably for him, a transcript of his homage to the families of “martyrs” in Ramallah was available. I would have welcomed the chance to ask Tibi, on the stand, whether or not he regarded a Palestinian who blew himself up on a bus and murdered dozens of civilians—my sister-in-law, for example—as a martyr. Fearing precisely that question, perhaps, the Knesset member dropped the case.

  Dodging one sting did not mean I could evade them all, as I soon learned while addressing the Marines. As the son of a U.S. Army veteran, I made a special effort to visit military bases across the United States. From the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, to the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I met with officers and troops and spoke about Israel, America’s ultimate ally. At the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, an honor guard of cadets stood in line to greet me. Glancing at their name tags, I asked, “You guys are all Jewish, aren’t you?” The young soldiers beamed at me and snapped, “Yes, sir!” Yet the one military facility I always wanted to see, the Marine Corps Training Base at Quantico, Virginia, though located near Washington, repeatedly eluded my schedule. Toward the end of my service, then, I made a point of visiting Quantico.

  I went to the base—a sprawling, wooded campus the size of most cities—but in fact saw very little. A second before entering the main headquarters, I paused to take a phone call in my car. The last thing I remembered was a rectangular black object fixing toward my eyes. I woke up sometime later on the lawn, an ice pack numbing half of my face, and my entire head throbbing in pain. A Marine corpsman explained that I had been stung by a wasp—my cheeks were still smeared with venomous goo—and that I should nevertheless consider myself lucky. The stinger just missed my right eye. Sally was with me and asked if I wanted to go the hospital, but I said no. Eight hundred officers were waiting inside, and I was damned if some bug would prevent me from meeting them.

  I vaguely remember speaking about the alliance again—dismayingly, someone told me it was my best lecture yet—and answering questions. Later, I chatted with the base commander and toured the Marine Museum, where I received a vial of volcanic sand from Iwo Jima. My skull, my teeth, my brain, it seemed, pounded, and my vision was blinkered by swollen cheeks. Yet I managed to thank and salute my hosts, and even to squeeze off a few shots on a rifle range, before departing for my doctor.

  There was trauma, true, but also serendipity. A chance reunion with Elan Blutinger, a friend I had not seen since the eighth grade, now a successful Washington businessman, led to a fourteen-hour round-trip drive to Woodstock, New York, where we made a sick call to another middle school friend. There was the gala where Plácido Domingo, the famed Spanish tenor and conductor, greeted me in Hebrew, explaining that he began his career with the Tel Aviv opera, and the screen idol of my youth, Bo Derek, told me that she was my biggest fan.

  The most rewarding surprise, though, occurred in my last month in Washington, when my schedule took me to a three-star hotel. Descending to the basement, I pushed through double doors into a fluorescent-lit hall and strode ahead of my security guards to a makeshift stage. Turning, I faced the crowd of fifteen-year-olds, members of an American Zionist youth movement on its annual visit to the capital. “On behalf of the State of Israel, thank you for your commitment and support,” I started to say, but the words were lost in song. “Heveinu Shalom Aleichem”—we welcome you in peace—the activists sang. They clapped and stomped their feet, and, forgetting my speech, I dropped off the stage and approached them. Many hands thrust toward me, and recalling that single shake that changed my life, I gratefully grasped them all.

  —

  Of all the surprises, none was more startling than the White House’s response to the use of chemical weapons by Syria. Reports of unconventional attacks—and the administration’s reluctance to confirm them—continued throughout the summer. Until August 21, that is, when sarin gas–exuding shells crashed into a rebel-held suburb of Damascus. As many as 1,500 civilians, almost a quarter of them children, choked to death.

  “What happened in Syria is both a terrible tragedy and an awful crime,” Netanyahu declared at the opening of his August 25 cabinet meeting. He expressed sadness for the innocent casualties of the attack but also warned Assad that Israel was watching him closely and was prepared to defend itself. “Our finger must always be on the pulse,” he said. “Ours is a responsible finger and, if necessary, it will also be on the trigger.” Contrastingly, Obama’s reaction remained noncommittal. “This is clearly a big event of grave concern…this is going to require America’s attention,” he told CNN. “But that does not mean that we have to get involved with everything immediately.” The president still questioned whether a chemical attack had indeed taken place and whether the United States could retaliate. “Without a UN mandate and without clear evidence, there are questions…whether international law supports it.”

  The evidence nevertheless mounted and quickly became irrefutable. The UN inspectors that the White House insisted investigate the site calculated that the chemical rockets had been fired from government positions. All eyes turned back to Obama and his red line, which could no longer be shifted or ignored. “Anyone who can claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass,” Secretary Kerry finally conceded on August 26. The president would hold Assad accountable, he pledged, and punish “those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people.”

  Over the next few days, as further details of the Damascus attack surfaced, Kerry remained the administration’s point man. His message was that of a country on the cusp of war, a country concerned about maintaining its global credibility and showing its enemies resolve. At the same time, though, the secretary signaled that the U.S. response would be “limited and tailored,” would not involve “boots on the ground” or incur “responsibility for a civil war already well under way.” The image emerged of an administration determined to act forcibly, but not overly so.

  I watched these mixed signals from the sidelines, following instructions to avoid being perceived as a player. Israelis, historically, had lived with the fear of Syria’s unconventional arsenal, and many lined up for state-issued gas masks. For us there seemed no downside to an American military intervention aimed at deterring chemical weapons’ use and weakening a dictator allied with Iran and Hezbollah. Yet Israel had no interest in becoming entangled in an internal American debate between a war-weary public and a president compelled to stand by his word. I watched and remained mute, all the while worrying that a failure to act would be seen as weakness on the part of the United States, a signal of its ally’s vulnerability.

  The Labor Day weekend approached and I assumed it would be a hot one. I canceled
all my plans and instructed my staff to do the same. Both the British government and the Arab League had come out against the proposed U.S. strike, and yet the administration’s own statements committed it to action. I went to bed on the night of August 30, fully prepared to be awakened at 3 A.M. with the news that American Tomahawk missiles were blasting the Syrian capital.

  But the phone remained silent, and the only sound in the Residence the next afternoon was the TV news, which I habitually left on while shaving. The president was speaking in the Rose Garden, reminding the world that the mass gassing of Syrians represented “an assault on human dignity” and “a serious danger to our national security.” The United States, Obama decided, should attack regime targets. Yet that was not his only decision. As “president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy,” he added, “I will seek authorization for the use of force from…Congress.”

  The razor froze in mid-shave. Wiping the foam from my face, I rushed to the embassy. The once-sacred principle of “no surprises” in the U.S.-Israel alliance had fallen into desuetude during the Obama period, but never to this depth and on an issue so vital to our immediate security. The anxiety was audible in the hushed voices of Netanyahu and his national security advisor when I updated them by phone. Even if Congress gave Obama a green light, Assad would have days now to prepare his defenses. And while the president sought congressional cover for his action, Israel remained exposed. The entire Middle East, and especially the Iranians, now knew that America would dither before enforcing an ultimatum.

  Still, my orders were to keep clear of the imminent congressional debate. No one wanted to revisit the experience of the Iraq War, which Israel’s critics in the United States blamed—unjustly—on Israel and its supporters. The Senate, it seemed, was poised to authorize the bombing, along with the House, albeit reluctantly. Even so, if Americans balked at chastising Assad, it would be their business. Israel would grapple with the consequences.