In his new book, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide, former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren relates how late one night he received a frantic call from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, alerting him that the Palestinians were preparing to petition the United Nations to recognise Palestine as a state. Netanyahu's message to his ambassador was to immediately start calling US congressmen and urge them to block the move. Congress, of course, was most responsive, with members immediately issuing statements that strongly condemned the Palestinian move, coupled with threats to withhold US aid to the Palestinian Authority. I will get back to what this little story tells us about Israel's relationship with the US Congress and the role that Congress's predictable support plays in shaping Israeli behaviour in a moment. But first I want to set the stage for my observations with a few broader comments about Ally. The book is instructive and disturbing on many levels. First and foremost, I was struck by the arrogance and the sense of impunity with which Ally was written. No one who criticises Israel is spared from Oren's venomous pen. Two targets receive special attention: President Barack Obama and liberal American Jews. Although Oren is a former diplomat and now a member of Israel's Knesset (and a partner in the governing coalition), his attacks on the president of the United States are shockingly brutal and insulting. He accuses Obama of betraying Israel by violating what he claims are the two principles that have long governed US-Israeli relations: that there be “no surprises” and “no daylight” between the public positions taken by leaders of either country. According to Oren, Obama violated these principles when he failed to provide Netanyahu with an advance copy of his Cairo address to the Muslim world and when, in 2011, Obama announced that the 1967 borders (with mutually agreed land swaps) should be the basis for a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Apparently, for Oren, these same “principles” do not apply to the Israeli side, since Oren is loathe to find fault with his prime minister's three hypercritical addresses to the US Congress, his disruptive announcements of new settlement construction, and his courting of the Republican Party in recent US elections. I was startled by the personal contempt Oren demonstrates for President Obama. He accuses him of harbouring anti-American ideas and not fully appreciating “American exceptionalism” (a strange charge coming from Oren, who renounced his American citizenship to become an Israeli diplomat and politician). He indulges in demeaning amateur psychology to suggest that the president's outreach to the Muslim world was prompted by his need to become reconciled with his two estranged fathers (his biological, Kenyan, father, and his Indonesian stepfather). Oren writes: “I could speculate how that child's abandonment by those men could lead him, many years later, to seek acceptance by their co-religionists.” Oren also focuses significant attention on liberal US Jews in media and in government who are critical of Israel. He accuses them of being insecure self-promoters and/or self-haters. He charges that they criticise Israel and its prime minister as a way of saying, “I'm Jewish ... but I'm not one of those Jews — the settlers, the rabbis Israeli leaders, or the soldiers of the IDF.” Or, he says, they criticise Israel because they see it as “a career enhancer.” Having dismissed the policies of the US president — which, for better or worse, have essentially been consistent with those of his predecessors for the past four decades — and the criticisms that liberal American Jews have offered of Likud efforts to sabotage a two-state solution, Oren and his boss, Netanyahu, can feel vindicated. They are not in the wrong. It is their critics who are wrong, precisely because they are psychologically damaged and personally flawed and, because of this, they have joined the rest of the world's anti-Israel cabal in attacking the Jewish state. Being incapable of accepting criticism, where do the Orens and the Netanyahus of the world go for validation and vindication? To Congress, of course. And that is precisely where they do go, time and time again. Congress's role as not just the protector of Israeli interests but as an enabler of Israeli behaviour was on full display in recent weeks. Congress passed a trade bill that included a provision that for the first time since the 1967 war “conflated Israel and ‘Israeli-controlled territories'.” Dozens of members of Congress and senators lined up to issue statements decrying a potential P5+1 deal with Iran — with many quoting verbatim or, at least, cribbing from AIPAC (the pro-Israel lobby) talking points on the deal. Others issued statements denouncing either the United Nations report on the 2014 Gaza War or the Palestinian response to inquiries from the International Criminal Court (ICC) — once again, threatening to cut off all US assistance to the Palestinian Authority. To its credit, and to the consternation of Oren and Netanyahu, the Obama administration response was clear. The US will not accept Congress's false “conflation” — noting that “every administration since 1967 ... has opposed Israeli settlement activity ... The US government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements and ... does not pursue policies or activities that would legitimise them.” The administration let it be known that it will continue to pursue a “good deal” that will end the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon. And finally, the administration stated that it does not believe that the Palestinian approach to the ICC warrants a cut in aid. These strong responses from the Obama administration, of course, have only served to reaffirm the contentions of Israeli rightists that it is a wrong-headed government with a flawed leader. As a result, the Israeli leadership will continue to rely all the more on Congress to protect them. It is Israel's ability to “turn on” Congress, and Congress's penchant for doing Israel's bidding, that has shielded Israel's leaders from introspection and self-criticism. The results are clear. Israel's bad behaviour continues and its isolation from liberal opinion grows. It is this negative dynamic that has created the very mind-set that is capable of writing a harsh, demeaning, and self-serving book like Ally. The writer is president of the Arab American Institute.
