Michael B. Oren - Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide

Crowded into the basement of a low-budget hotel, we stared at the double doors and counted the seconds. Even now, more than four decades later, I can still feel the anticipation. Along with some fifty other fifteen-year-olds in our Zionist youth movement, I bused from New Jersey to Washington, D.C.my first-ever visit to our nations capital. I suppose we toured the Capitol, the White House, and the sites along the National Mall. My only memory, though, is of that basement glazed in fluorescence and the moment those doors swung open.

He marched in with curt, single-minded strides, ahead of his security guards, who struggled to keep up. A shorter man than the giant I imagined, he climbed onto the foot-high riser that served as a stage. On behalf of the State of Israel, he said, I want to thank you for your commitment and support. Or at least that is what I think he said, for his voice was also surprisingly small, almost bashful, and our cheers drowned him out.

We sang at the top of our teenage voices, Heveinu Shalom Aleichemwe welcome you in peaceand clapped until our hands grew numb. I could scarcely believe that I was seeing him. Here, only yards in front of me, stood the hero of the 1967 Six-Day War, the former commander of the Israeli forces who rescued Jewish dignity from the pall of the Holocaust, who enabled usso American Jews claimedto stand with our backs straight. And now he addressed us as Israels ambassador to the United States, the representative of the reborn Jewish State to the worlds greatest power.

He spoke only for a few minutes and concluded with a reticent smile. He then stepped off the improvised dais so that the guards could hurry him back through the doors. As he passed me, I managed to extend my hand. He accepted itshyly, eyes looking downand gave me a perfunctory shake. But that was enough. Silently, I vowed, That is what Ill be somedayIsraels ambassador to America.

His name was Yitzhak Rabin. And his life remained a model for mine. Following his example, I would devote myself to Israel, fight in its wars, and defend it from critics. I shared his vision of peace in spite of disappointments and bloodshed. Years later, together with countless candle-holding mourners, I filed past Rabins casket. Though I never had the opportunity to tell him about the impact he had on me, I never forgot that encounter in the basement. Or the pledge I made to myself.

Forty years would pass before the day arrived that Ihowever improbablymoved into Rabins Washington residence. With Israeli flags fluttering from its hood, a limousine pulled up and bore me along Pennsylvania Avenue. Through the wrought-iron gates, the limo glided onto the crescent-shaped driveway of the White House. I entered, nodding at the Marine guards stiffening to attention, and proceeded to the Oval Office. There, presenting my credentials to the president, I fulfilled that vow I made at age fifteen. I had become Israels ambassador to America.

If only a few miles, my journey from that Washington hotel to the White House was scarcely effortless and marked by at least as much tragedy as triumph. It took me from baseball fields to battlefields, from work in kibbutz fields to interrogations by the KGB. Burnt-out buses and peace-signing ceremonies, dumb classes and Ivy League halls, orthopedic braces and athletic medals, the scars of racism and lustrous family mementosall lined that path. But the journey did not end in the Oval Office. Exiting that illustrious place, I embarked on the most tortuous and exalting passage yet.

This is the story of that journey. It crosses two countries and spans their extraordinary relationship. The United States and Israel are bound by ideas far older than both, by values they commonly cherish, and interests they have come to share. Theirs is the deepest bilateral friendship that either has sustained since Israels founding in 1948. And the reasons are many-sided and profound.

In addition to a spiritual affinity unrivaled by that between any modern nations, Israel and the United States are akin in their commitment to democracy. Listeners to Israels Declaration of Independence can easily hear the echoes of 1776. In America, Israel has an immensely generous source of diplomatic support and annual defense aid. In Israel, the United States has a stable, loyal, and militarily proficient asseta scientific and technological powerhouseand a pro-American island in an often toxic sea. Surveys regularly show that Americans and Israelis lead the world in patriotism and in their willingness to fight for their country. They are ideologically, strategically, and naturally allied.

Ally is a simple, beautiful word. It evokes warmthindeed, fraternityand its meaning is invariably positive. One may be a partner, but never an ally, in crime. Allys Hebrew counterpart is even simpler and more stirring. Ben brit, literally the son of the covenant, recalls the circumcision rite and, beyond that, the Jewish peoples special relationship with God. Fittingly, a special relationship is said to exist between Israel and the United States. And like its biblical precedent, that brit is both physical and eternal.

Or, at least, in theory. For the reality is that, alongside their immemorial ties, the U.S.-Israel relationship includes bitter differences. The United States does not recognize Israels capital or its claim to large parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland. Israel frequently disagrees with Americas approach to peacemaking with the Palestinians and its friendship with Middle Eastern rulers who are technically or actively at war with the Jewish State. Vocal segments of the American Jewish communitya vital component in the allianceare critical of Israeli actions, while Israel, in turn, does not validate the ways in which many of those Jews practice their religion. Israel is a contentious issue in the American press and on many American campuses. In recent years, public disagreements between the two countries leaders have become commonplace. America and Israel are allies in the most meaningful sense, yet their alliance is scored with divides.

This is the story of that alliance and also its divides, as experienced by one who treasures his American identity while proudly serving the State of Israel. My personal journey intertwines with that story and never more intimately than during the more than four yearsfrom mid-2009 to late 2013that I represented Israel in Washington.

This was a transformative period for America and a time of violent revolutions throughout the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of the regions people were killed, and the lives of millions more threatened. Israel and America grappled not only with the peace process and other complex bilateral issues, but with the terrorism and Iranian nuclearization that imperiled the world. The alliance would be subjected to enormous strains and its future questioned by commentators in both countries. On more than one occasion, the friendships very fabric seemed close to unraveling. At all times, though, it was my taskand my privilegeto hold it together.