RUTHFULLY YOURS

Just Another Jersey Guy – Matti Friedman On Michael Oren

Posted By Ruth King on June 24th, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10248257991490323845504581021542789179806

When Michael Oren met Yitzhak Rabin as a teenager in 1970 he had never visited Israel. But he vowed to become its ambassador to the U.S.

In Romain Gary’s celebrated (if now forgotten) memoir “Promise at Dawn,” the author recalls an announcement from his mother. “You are going to be a French ambassador,” she tells him. It was the 1920s; Gary was a child. He and his mother were Lithuanian Jews, and they were nowhere near France. But by the time he wrote his memoir in 1960, Gary was a successful novelist with an appreciation for the narrative power of an unlikely dream realized. He was also a French ambassador.

In his memoir “Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide,” Michael B. Oren remembers traveling to Washington, D.C., with a Zionist youth group in 1970 and shaking hands with the Israeli ambassador, Yitzhak Rabin. “Silently, I vowed, ‘That is what I’ll be someday—Israel’s ambassador to America,’ ” writes Mr. Oren. At the time, he was a New Jersey teenager who had never even visited Israel. What follows is a “quintessentially American story of a young person who refused to relinquish a dream irrespective of the obstacles,” Mr. Oren writes, culminating in—well, I wouldn’t want to spoil it.

Mr. Oren, who was Israel’s envoy to Washington between 2009 and 2013, is the author of a superb history of the Six-Day War and the definitive overview of America’s involvement in the Middle East, “Power, Faith, and Fantasy.” Now living in Israel, Mr. Oren has embarked on a political career as a member of a centrist party. “Ally” is correctly read as a statement of intent from someone moving from diplomacy into politics; the author is, as an ambassador might say, presenting his credentials. Mr. Oren pops up in every major event in the life of the Jewish people since 1980 or so, garners praise from others (duly quoted), and correctly predicts the course of the American war in Iraq, Barack Obama’s approach to the Middle East, and much else. His wife is heroic; his children are very good-looking.

ENLARGE

There is much that is interesting here about Mr. Oren’s years in Washington, and many tidbits of inside information that will satisfy those who have followed the deterioration of American-Israeli ties since Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu took office six years ago. We hear about Mr. Oren’s frantic attempts to put out diplomatic fires as two leaders who don’t like each other pursue divergent policies, feud, make up, fall out again, undo years of trust and surprise each other with policy announcements like new West Bank construction (Israel) or the public endorsement of a key Palestinian negotiating demand (America).

Early on, the Obama administration misidentifies settlements as the key driver of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, placing that issue at the center of peace talks, and Mr. Oren watches as it derails the talks. White House officials publicly assert Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran; privately they say “Don’t you dare.” The Iranians persist with their nuclear program and their calls for Israel’s destruction, publicly labeling the U.S. “the root of world terrorism.” Meantime the White House continues its policy of “meaningful dialogue.”

“I had to swear that American and Israeli leaders were on the same page regarding Iran,” recalls Mr. Oren, “when, in reality, they often worked from different books.” In 2011 he watches as President Obama drops Hosni Mubarak of Egypt after a three-decade alliance, a move that ushers the Muslim Brotherhood into power. When news comes that Mr. Mubarak has been overthrown, the author is with National Security Council officials who exchange high-fives.

I found the account to be a useful recap of the journey I and other admirers of America in the region have traveled—from optimism about a fresh approach on the part of a new kind of president, to concern that the Americans are misplaying their cards, to a suspicion that the Americans don’t know what the cards are, to the realization that they are playing Go Fish at the poker table.

One of the most interesting tensions on display here is largely implicit. Mr. Oren is Israel’s ambassador to America, but he’s also an American—a Civil War buff and a football fan. We learn that Susan Sher, Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, is a family friend. Bruce Springsteen signs a poster for Mr. Oren, referring to him as “another Jersey guy.” The former Israeli ambassador is an adept navigator of U.S. politics and culture because they are his own.

It is worth noting that the worst years of the American-Israeli relationship in recent memory have been years in which the Jewish state has been led and represented, in a way that is unprecedented, by Americans. Mr. Netanyahu attended high school outside Philadelphia, graduated from MIT and speaks American English. One of his key claims to public support in Israel is the idea that this background makes him a good international statesman, particularly in the U.S. Mr. Netanyahu appointed Mr. Oren, and then chose as his replacement Ron Dermer, a Florida native who assisted Frank Luntz as he designed the “Contract With America.”

This abets the tendency of some Americans to see Israel less as a foreign ally than a kind of 51st state. After Mr. Netanyahu’s controversial speech to Congress earlier this year, I heard repeatedly from many Republican supporters not that Mr. Netanyahu was a foreign leader they liked, but rather that he was the kind of leader they thought America should have. They seemed to imagine our country as a better version of their own. This strikes me as a double-edged sword for Israel. Israelis are not at all American. Our national character is Middle Eastern. People here think and act in ways that are foreign to Americans, as any visitor to this country understands by the time they reach passport control.

If presenting an American face to Americans has a positive influence on some in the U.S., it boomerangs on others. It’s easier to judge people harshly if you think they’re exactly like you, and we know what familiarity breeds.

There is no doubt that Mr. Oren is talented and deeply committed to his adopted homeland (he gave up his U.S. citizenship when he became ambassador). He has shown that he can operate on Israel’s behalf in America. But can he operate with similar success in the tumult of Israeli politics? Will he be as adept at shaping history as he has been at writing it?

Mr. Friedman, a writer based in Jerusalem, is the author of “The Aleppo Codex.”

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