Israel’s relationship with the United States has never been stronger.
That point was emphasized by Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, in a talk to Jewish leaders at the Morrison & Foerster law firm in downtown San Francisco on Nov. 9. He also spoke earlier in the day at the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
The Jewish Community Relations Council sponsored his speech at the law firm.
While both Israel and the United States share a commitment to democracy and are engaged in a fight against terror, Ayalon spoke more about the economic relationship between the two countries.
“The numbers are impressive,” he said, noting that “Israel is the largest trading partner of the U.S. in the Middle East,” and that bilateral trade and investments between the two countries has exceeded $20 billion.
“Israel is the second largest emerging market in the U.S. for investment,” he said.
The ambassador also took the opportunity to thank the American Jewish community for supporting Israel. But it wasn’t just the Jewish community he was thanking: A Presbyterian minister who worked to educate his colleagues against supporting divestment from Israel was in the audience as well.
“The help of the U.S. helps our own population to feel reassured,” he said. “We are ready to make painful concessions like we did in Gaza, and we’re strong enough to make them.”
Ayalon called leaving Gaza “a tremendous step,” and said Israel was ready to resume negotiations as laid out by the road map to peace. He said, however, the Palestinians must prove they are worthy of being a true partner.
He said although disengagement was an extremely painful chapter in Israel’s history, the way in which it was executed showed a great maturity on behalf of the government, military and police.
Despite the fact that some settlers were promising a civil war, that did not happen.
“The settlers showed passive resistance and there was no bloodshed,” he said. “Democracy prevailed, and Israel is much stronger from this process.”
The Gaza withdrawal has allowed more moderate Arab countries to increasingly cooperate with Israel, he said, referring to Egypt, Jordan and some of the Gulf states. But Iran and Syria are still proving to be the most dangerous countries in the region, he said.
The regimes of Damascus and Tehran “are extreme elements that are entrenched in their own hate and bad behavior,” he said.
Isolating them diplomatically is his solution; these regimes, he said, are “sensitively attuned to internal pressure and neither would like to be isolated internationally.”
Ayalon only made more pointed remarks in response to questions from the audience. When Regina Waldman, a Libyan-born Jew who co-founded JIMENA, Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, asked whether Israel had plans to further publicize the plight of Jews who were forced from Arab countries when Israel was founded, he turned the question around to excoriate the Palestinians for clinging to their right of return.
“The Palestinian refugee issue is misrepresented,” he charged. “And Israel refuses to take responsibility. It was the Arab leaders who were responsible for their problems.
“The Palestinians were not a people until the Zionist movement got its homeland.”