Mr. Oren’s Planet: A Bogus Account from Israel’s Man in Washington

Dov S. Zakheim

Politics,

Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, displays a lamentable penchant for hyperbole in his new memoir, Ally.

Michael B. Oren, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide (New York: Random House, 2015), 432 pp., $30.00.

MICHAEL OREN’S Ally, which offers his account of his four years as Israeli ambassador to the United States, has certainly caused a stir. The Times of Israel has published twenty “revelations” emerging from his book, ranging from trivial tidbits about his family, to biting critiques of President Barack Obama and his administration’s policy toward Israel, to claims that the idea for a U.S.-Russian arrangement for the disposition of Syria’s chemical weapons originated with then international-relations minister Yuval Steinitz. (Steinitz subsequently acknowledged his role but said that Israel had preferred not to reveal it; one might ask why Oren chose to do so.) In a series of prepublication interviews and articles, Oren has sharpened his criticism of the president and his team—his article in the Wall Street Journal was entitled “How Obama Abandoned Israel,” and a poll revealed that 49 percent of Israelis agree with him that Obama is mostly responsible for the recent damage to U.S.-Israeli relations.

Oren is an accomplished historian who writes with style and grace. Not surprisingly, his account of his years as Israel’s ambassador to Washington from 2009 to 2013 is as engrossing as it is readable. But Oren has also been a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and his account often resembles a spokesman’s press briefing. His aim is not merely to enlighten but also to convince: as he reiterates numerous times throughout the course of his memoir, he seeks the rapid closure of the rift between the two allies so as to preserve their “special relationship.” Yet the “divide” in the book’s title arguably has widened as a result of its publication.

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