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The words of praise coming from Israel’s ambassador to the United States sounded as if they were meant for his boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But Michael Oren was lauding President Barack Obama in a pre–Rosh Hashanah interview he gave to the American Jewish media.
“Obama often doesn’t get the credit he deserves in Israel,” Oren said. “I think it’s important at some point that he visits us.”
The interview appeared to represent Oren’s most intensive effort yet to counteract speculation in some Jewish and Israeli corners that the Obama administration has been chilly, if not outright hostile, toward the Netanyahu government. It comes at the start of renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks and a new anti-Iran sanctions regime, two developments seen as bolstering Israel’s need to be seen as enjoying strong relations with the White House.
During the interview, Oren reviewed the strides of the past year and the challenges facing Israel and the Jewish world looking ahead.
Among the accomplishments, he counted the renewed peace talks with the Palestinians and overcoming the public disagreements between the United States and Israel over those talks. Along the same lines, he also listed his ability to settle public disagreements with J Street, a left-wing pro-Israel group that has faced heavy criticism from centrist and right-wing critics.
As for future challenges, Oren said the prospect of a nuclear Iran loomed large. Less threatening, but nonetheless clearly a concern for him, was handling criticism from pro-Israel hawks now that the Jewish state was plunging into peace talks that would involve compromise.
Oren, who was born and raised in New Jersey, brings to his understanding of the Obama administration the nuance of a historian versed in the trajectories of both nations. He said that a major part of his job is explaining the Obama administration to Israelis, through interviews with Israeli media.
“I don’t try to polish things up,” he said. “We’ve had disagreements over settlements, we’ve had disagreements over Jerusalem — but you’ve got to see a big picture. The U.S.-Israel relationship is vast.”
Oren went on to outline areas of cooperation — defense, commerce, intelligence sharing — that would characterize any administration, Republican or Democrat, until a reporter asked the ambassador to get specific about Obama.
“I have a different take on the Cairo speech,” Oren said, referring to Obama’s June 2009 speech to the Muslim world.
The speech was lambasted in Israel and some U.S. Jewish circles for emphasizing Holocaust denial as an Arab failing but not making a broader case for ancient Jewish claims to Israel.
“A lot of people in Israel said … they weren’t thrilled with the Cairo speech. I said, wait a second, this is the first time a president of the United States has gone to the heart of the Arab world and introduced Israel’s legitimacy, and said to the Arab world you’ve got to recognize the legitimate Jewish state,” Oren said. “It was an amazing thing — he didn’t get credit for it.”
Oren also praised Obama for making good on his pledge to ramp up pressure on Iran through sanctions to make transparent its suspected nuclear program.
“He’s had a very robust position on Iran,” the ambassador said. “Again, I don’t think people understand fully just how determined he is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Still, Oren implied that the harmony on this front might not last.
The Obama administration has said it wants a full year to test the Iranians. The Israeli and U.S. governments could conceivably fall out over whether a military strike is necessary to stop the nuclear program.
Oren played a role in speculation about U.S.-Israel differences when his conversations in conference calls with fellow diplomats were leaked to the media. His follow-up explanation at the time was the object of some derision: Oren insisted that he never said there was a “rift” in the relationship but a “shift.”
He went some way in explaining the issue in his recent interview.
“The administration promised change, and it’s an administration of change,” he said. “Obama is not a status quo president — he promised change domestically, he promised a change in foreign policy. One of my jobs was to figure out what this change was and report it back.”
Oren noted that his tensions with J Street were overblown and are in any case over now. He said he communicates regularly with the organization’s director, Jeremy Ben-Ami.
“Does everything they do please me? They do not,” Oren said, referring to J Street’s criticism of both Israel and Hamas in the 2009 Gaza war. He hastened to add that “we understand that the American Jewish community is politically pluralistic, but the tent of pro-Israel organizations is a very big tent.”
Including J Street in a “pro-Israel” tent is bound to be jarring to some ears, particularly among some centrist and right-wing pro-Israel groups that have endeavored to describe the organization as representing the interests of a detached U.S. Jewish minority, if not an anti-Israel agenda.
Oren clearly sees himself, however, as a bridge between Israel and the Jewish diaspora. He noted his role in interim success having to do with women who want to worship equally at the Western Wall and in concerns about a Knesset bill that would have negated successes in getting Israel to recognize Reform and Conservative conversions.
In the former case, he noted that the Prime Minister’s Office is now monitoring the situation and ensuring that women — while still unable to hold services at the Wall — have easy access to a nearby alternative site.
“It’s going to be a year of challenges on many levels, but it’s a year of great opportunities and hope, of peace, security of Israelis and our Palestinian neighbors,” Oren said. “And a year of continued support, understanding and love between Israel and Jewish communities.”