Beating. And it stood. It cant keep doing this. Somebodys going to take advantage, and i think theres a lot of people that want to take advantage of this time, and if we dont heal ourselves we will fall. Lincoln was right. It wont come from the outside. It will have to be national suicide, and i think the outside hitting us, when were so divided, national suicide. Host it is about islam. The name of glenn becks latest book. This is booktv on cspan2. Now on booktv, michael oren talks about his year at israels ambassador to the United States and shares his reflections on the arab spring and the israelipalestinian Peace Process. [inaudible conversations] hello everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for your patience. Im suzanne call, the director of events and program at the store, and on behalf of our owners and staff id like to welcome you to politic and prose. Please turn off or sigh veins your cell phones and after the event we ask you leave your chair, and youre welcome to stay. We have another event later on this evening. And during our question and answer session if you could step up to the microphone, wed be grateful. Were recording this event and will be on our Youtube Channel and we have cspan here. We also ask that as a courtesy to your fellow audience members you come to microphone with a question not with a speech. Please pick up one of our july calendars, take a look at the great programming we have going on here, and also at our three locations where were now operating the book stores and Running Events at 14th and v and at tacoma. Today were joined by michael oren discussing his memoir ali the story of his personal and professional journey that spans to country asks their extraordinary and extraordinarily complicated relationships. He describes movingly his desire when he was 15 and living in new york and a member of a zionist movement, the handshake with ranin which said change the course of his life. He serve as israels ambassador to the United States from 2009 until 2013 and he writes candidly of the this experience and of his dealings with the Obama Administration, aspects of which have been generating headlines. Oren is considered a leading middle east scholar called one of the worlds ten most influential jews. He has written six books including two novels. please join me in welcoming michael oren. [applause] thank you everybody. She didnt mention the novels which i said before were very wellreviewed, sold dozens of copies. And youll find them in the pulp section of this book store. Well shalom. This is so good to be back. I was telling the owners, one of the great joys as ambassador was to escape the embassy and wander over to politics and prose. The island of repose for ambassadors for many years. Its delightful to be back here and the straining thing is im looking at the audience, half of you are in the book. Theres jack out there who i think i described as sage and saintly. Something like that. Was that okay . My friend from Junior High School is in the book. Major steve wide of the u. S. Marines in the book. Thats it. Basically youre all here. Thats great. Thats wonderful. And this is a book. Its called ally. Wrote it the year after i came back from serving in washington, which was a challenging enough considering i had to take 50 days off for the war between israel and hamas which i served as a sort of unofficial spokesman for the state of israel on International Tv and that was sufficiently challenging. And then i went into an election cycle because im also a member of knesset now. The real challenge was to find a title. You think thats trivial. And i had no idea what to call this and hen i was sitting with my wife one day and i said, i know its one word with two syllables. And then i said, got it. Its ally. She said, someone is going to say, the title of the back is ali. And then one will look at this and say you left off the s. They got it. She said they wont get that. No dont underestimate these people. Ally is one of most beautiful words in the the english lange. No negative connotations. One can be a partner in crime but never an ally in crime. You think its something very positive. And its true also in hebrew. The term for ally in hebrew son of a covenant, and a gorgeous term in hebrew, and recalls the special relationship between the jewish people and god. And israel and the United States have a very special relationship indeed. I cant think of any two countries of the world certainly this country and another foreign country that have such a multifacettedded and deep relationship. The relationship begins not in 1967 o. 1948. It begins in the 17th century when the first pure taps came to this puritans came to the country mitchell last book explored the roots. The first puritans who came to this country and began the idea of called. Thes the new jews and had a strong connection with the old jews and it was their duty to help the old jews get back and create a sovereign state in their sacred land and the land of israel, and you had americans like john adams, abraham lincoln, woodrow wilson, harry truman who would be considered a zionist today. More people going to a house of worship of one type of another in this country than any other industrialized country. On more than one occasion i would walk tough an office in capitol hill, the office of some congressman from west texas whose district was five times the says of the state of israel, probably didnt have a jewish wish in the constituent tim had his bible opened and pointed to a you know this and it would say, i believe that. How much aid to do you want for iron dome . So deep spiritual connection. 1948, summer comes to being a democratic start. Part of the ever shortening list of Democratic State inside the world. Part of a very select list of countries that have never known a second of nondemocratic governance, up there with new zealand, canada, australia the United States. Never a second of nondemocratic governments and never known a second of peace. So you have spiritual ties, shared Democratic Values you. Didnt have a Strategic Alliance. Thats relatively new. That began after the sixday war. Another speech i gave here on the sixday war book. Im selling all my other books. And the sixday war, israel fights the war with french weaponry and only in the seventh day of the war when more than poll so imakers said theirs theirs little superpower that just defeated several soviet armed forces and we should be alied bit the country the thus was born the u. S. Israeli Strategic Alliance which is Weapons Development and intelligence sharing joint maneuvers, special forces, anything you can name, its out there. Cyber defense is very big. Very large. The United States gives israel roughly 4 billion every year in military aid. 75 asker of that aid is spent in the United States and creates tens of thousands of jobs here. And so that is another part of the symbiotic relationship between israel and the United States and moricely, israel has become a technological super power, punching way above it weight some 200 american hightech firms have their r d centers in israel. Apple, for example. Happen never has an r d center outside the state of california. Today apple has three major r d centers in israel. Another link, another stage in the connections between these two countries. If you look around the world think about how many countries fall into this category, spiritual tie with the United States have a shared democratic system with the United States, has never been interrupted that has a Strategic Alliance, and a very strong hightech economic connection. So its a totally unique alliance. You would be hard pressed to find another example. And yet even though israel and the United States are in many ways ultimate allies for one another, there are divides. And there are some deep divides and theyre divides that go back to 67 and some to 1948. Settlements started after 67 but the question of jerusalem goes back to 1948. Can you hear me back there . Goes back to 1948. So we have been divided over what has become known more recent years as the Peace Process. Deep division sometimes. We have been divided over u. S. Arm saleses to arab countries. The book talks about the three motor important letter tuesday the u. S. Israel alliance, they are qme. Qualitative military edge. The United States has made an historic commitment to israel to ensure that israel can defend itself by itself against any adversary. Every once in a while the its will sell several tens of billions of dollars to the arabs which creates jobs in the United States but its an issue for us. And most recently, most pointedly, most painfully, the United States and israel are divide over the pending deal with the Iranian Nuclear program. That is perhaps the deepest divide at all. And sometimes these divides can threaten to actually render the fabric of this extraordinary alliance. Thats what we have seen most recently. Now, this part of the biography wasnt you hear that i grew up in this country. I grew up in new jersey. That immediately [applause] thank you. At am booming i say i spend more time defending the state of new jersey than the state of israel. A perfectly good state. I in a way a typical american kid. Dyslexic learning disabled. Incoordinateded. Clumsy unpopular in school. Typical american kid. Was the only jew wish kid in my neighborhood. Got beat up all the time by antisemitic bullies. A true joy. I had dreams. I had a lot of dreams itch. Ad to be a writer, which was funny because i couldnt spell. I wanted to be i wanted to be an israeli. I know this will sound coming out of nowhere. I was very proud american mitchell father was a veteran of world war ii. Still going strong, my dad. Land on normandy, and raised me with all the Great American values and the book opens up with me trying to read the lincolns inaugural address to my kids at the Lincoln Memorial and not being able to finish it because i start ceiling. Im very sentimental about the country. But those ideals contribute to my other great love. I love the state of israel. As far back as i can remember, i wanted to live in israel, which was also funny because i got kicked out of hebrew school, and i if you read my bar mitzvah i couldnt read the thing. And why . I had this deep sense of history, of jewish history that i was alive at a unique moment in that history where the jewish people had a sovereign proud, independent state and i was going to be damned if i would muss the opportunity to live in the state by staying in new jersey, and for a very early age, 10 11 years ol dvded to live there and i forced myself on to the representatives the Kibbutz Movement so they would take me many years below the minimum age and be the youngest volunteer. And so i started going back and forth to israel. I wanted to be a soldier. That was another dream. [laughter] i met the girl my dreams. She is over here sally who didnt actually go to the junior prom because she was too cool for the junior prom. She was busy playing frisbee with jerry garcia. You dont go to the prom if you are playing frisbee with jerry garcia and we lived out this dream that i had one more dream and that dream goes back and i think you mentioned this at the time when i was a kid and i had the opportunity to come to washington d. C. And shake the hand of the ambassador to the israili United States. He grew up in a jewish america. There was no greater hero and when i met him i realized how i could resolve the two great loves of my life, my love for this country and my love for the country of israel. I said that when i grow up i want to be israels ambassador. I had that dream so im living out the dreams of someday dreams i had nightmarish qualities. As a paratrooper in participated in several wars. My elder son was wounded in battle. Sally lost her sister in a Suicide Attack in israel. I had to work for its awkward being in a few months later i was present at his funeral. There were tough part of the dream but there was joy. We raised a family and we made a life and in 2009 i realized an ultimate dream and the newlyelected Prime Minister of israel Benjamin Netanyahu named me israels ambassador to the United States. And i came into office at a time of just almost unprecedented challenges on so may different friends. Think back to 2000 what was going on in this country. This country was in the depths of the worst financial crisis since the great depression. There was deep Political Polarization almost a logjam in congress. There was war trauma and exhaustion and two difficult wars in the middle east. And for israel especially the entire middle east was about to change. The entire middle east was about to unravel. Egypt was going to undergo two violent resolutions. See it syria and egypt were essentially going to cease to exist in the middle of this the jordanians the iranians are building a Nuclear Weapon. They would soon get 19,000 katyushas digging underground secret fortifies facilities. All that was going to happen in a very short period of time in 2009 and the Peace Process meanwhile is dead in the water. I came into office right after palestinian Prime Minister then offered a full peace plan. Mahmoud abass walked away and when i came into office he wasnt willing to sit down and negotiate with us so this was an ideal situation to take over the u. S. Israel relationship and all of a sudden not only am i charged with maintaining an alliance but i have an immense gap that divides that i am supposed to bridge. Its precisely at this juncture and i can think of a few more faithful junctures in history where you have two leaders that are exceedingly mismatched. How should i say this and diplomatically. You had Benjamin Netanyahu and the newlyelected 44th president of the United States barack obama so netanyahu has a great resume. He was a commander in israels delta force. He went to m. I. T. And harvard and became an and served as the secondincommand at the embassy across the street. He was israels ambassador to the u. N. He was a Central Finance mr. And foreign minister. He was a Prime Minister and an author and that is his resume. Although politically he wasnt particularly revered around the world. He wasnt respected in his own cutter with a rambunctious democracy and Young Americans salute to rank. Israelis dont salute to anybody and contrast it to obama. Obama didnt have the experience of sirte military experience and legislative experience Foreign Policy experience but obama some icon certainly in this country and throughout much of the world. So you have complete opposites these two men but not only their resumes and their popularity is word desperate desperate they have different worldviews. Very different worldviews views. Netanyahu pays Political Correctness and never uses the word paradigm. For some reason he doesnt like the word paradigm sort of like the antirock hero. When he is reelected he hangs a large portrait of Winston Churchill over his right shoulder in his office so churchill will always be looking over his right shoulder because he reveres churchill. Barack obama comes into office. He is sort of the embodiment of peace. He is a rock star and one of his first acts of office is to take a bus bust of Winston Churchill and remove it from the oval office or you have two people with very different, very different worldviews. Be on that there is policy. There is policy and i will make the case very strongly in the book that the Obama Administration is part of its worldview was to change some of the essential components of the relationship in the alliance certainly as it existed since the mid1980s since the midreagan years and the two pillars of the relationship as i knew if i was coming into office across the street were no surprises and no daylight. What does that mean . No surprises me is that america is going to make a statement on the middle east and on issues that impact israels vital interest in security that does it israel have a chance to see the advance copy and submit comments about it . Eclectic example would be george bushs roadmap of 2002 and the drafts that were given to Prime Minister sharon and he had a chance to say how much he didnt like it and submitted reservations. This was not supposed to surprise the United States either. No daylight meant we could have different i met and the difference is already settlements in jerusalem but we should keep those differences behind closed doors because if we have our differences publicly our enemies are going to conclude that there is distance and daylight between us and they will ask anyway that between us and will be bad for both countries. It will be damaging for both our interests. As a matter policy the president distinguish himself from previous president s and from his own worldview decided not to maintain these principles. We have examples of it. I accompanied Netanyahu Netanyahu to his first visits the white house the first of 12 meetings he would have with the president and in that meeting the Prime Minister was surprised. The president made a demand for a complete freeze of settlement buildings in the west bank but also a complete freeze of building and the jewish neighborhoods of jerusalem that were beyond the 1967 lines in jerusalem. Remember jerusalem listed divided before 1967 are the reunited by israel towards this was a big surprise. The president demand of the primus to recognize that the two state solution. It was a surprise for many reasons, first of all because no one can freeze a building in jerusalem. Its against the law. Jerusalem is a sovereign territory and thats like asking like expecting the president of the United States to freeze a building in pittsburgh. He cant be done legally but keep in mind that in yahoo came from a Certain Party which was center centerright and the likud party supported that building and had rejected the twostate solution. Already this was difficult so so much for no surprises but that was made into daylight. These demands were made very publicly and created a difficult situation. There was a conversation i reproduced in the book where the president says openly am going to put daylight between israel and the United States with policy decisions. And so that was an example of a surprise and a month later in june of 2009 the president travels to cairo, skips over israel and he gives the cairo speech which is a remarkable document and is worth a study in and of itself. Its a good chunk of the book because its a foundational document the president addressing what he calls the muslim world and its twice as long as the first inaugural address. Its very well thought out and detailed but it touches on number of issues which are crucial. Its unprecedented support for the palestinian cause. It is reconciliation above all with iran and recognition of irans right to have a Peaceful Nuclear program. That may seem rather trivial today but back in 2009 was a significant departure from american policy. We never had a chance. I watch it together with senior israeli officers at her pentagon in tel aviv and everybody was looking at the television saying the oh my god we had no idea this was coming and this is the pattern. Of the major policies made by the president on middle eastern issues whenever got a previous look. The most difficult example was a speech the president gave on may 19 of 20 lebanon was supposed to be a speech about arab spring. In the previous day was at the white house and was assured it would not deal with palestinianisraeli issues but much of the speech was about the 67 borders with this minutia but the notion that peace between israel and palestinian twostate solution should be based on 67 borders according to the formula that we worked out over the course of many days with Hillary Clinton secretary of state. That was a the palestinian goal so what the president did was move it to a palestinian goal and it created quite a stir and you may recall the next day the Prime Minister arrived and supposedly lectured the president in the oval office. Remember that . All of his remarks were directed at palestinians not at the president so you got a sense of just how tense things were as a result of having no surprises and no daylight raid this didnt mean that israel did make mistakes and itself violate the no daylight in a surprise. We surprise Vice President biden a great friend of israel. Someone in the interior Ministry Announced a housing president project in East Jerusalem and a created as they say in washington quite a kerfuffle. The Prime Minister flew to new orleans to meet with Vice President biden and we did it again. We surprise him but i have to say this was not matter policy. I was with him both times with this happen and a surprise as Vice President biden wasnt he apologized. We should do that then much more disciplined and we put into place in architecture that enables us to better now when these announcements were coming and prepare our american counterparts for them. We could have done a much better job of the impression that israel was involved in an election. We were not involved in it in terms of the efforts of myself and other people to stay out of the selections that there was an impression created. We could have done more to stay out of it so its not as if anybody had a monopoly over mistakes but the fact that they were policy decisions taken by the demonstrations had longterm ramifications and very few of them are favorable. What can i say . So the question of trust because when we come down to the iranian issue the question of whether these two governments can trust each other within the framework of the alliance becomes important. Does all of this made that Barack Obamas antiisrael . We get this all the time. And i want to say to you unequivocally unreservedly, no. He is proisrael. Sometimes his image of the israel he would like to see is not in accord with the reality of israel today. Its not the israel of likud and the israel of the settlers. He has said several times his image of israel is that it is a pre67 image which i believe is a mythic predisposition and i had many examples many times where we needed the president and he was there for us. In december of 2010 i was across the street from the white house going into the White House Hanukkah Party not to be missed. We are to have the Christmas Decorations up in the white house and the surreal look of all these jewish and various types of headwear among the reeds and mistletoe and the trees. I was ready to go to the Hanukkah Party and i got a call from the Prime Minister of israel using a voice that you dont want to hear him use. Its a panicked voice saying that a huge fire just broken out and 26 people were dead. It was the worst forest fire in israels history. It was a sending himwe have nothing to stop it with. We had round of retardant. We had no extinguishing flames and the prime minster said go and talk to the president. The good news is im across the street from the white house. I will go in and ask for help so i go in and i ran into the first ladys chief of staff who grew up in new jersey with me and played tennis with my father and i said you cant make this up. [laughter] i have got to see the president right away. I go to the president advice of mr. President this horrible fire is taking human lives and millions of trees and we need the planes. President obama turned immediately to his righthand man reggie love and he said get the ambassador giving you need right now. That night we set up an emergency room in the west room and stay there all night long into the next day and the u. S. Military scrubbed warehouses across europe to give us the retardant. America had 11 firefighting planes. We got eight of them. We also got these hotshot commandos parachute behind fires in macon they left boise idaho that night and went off from newark to israel. They arrived to actually fight the fire so people come to tell me he wasnt there when we needed him simply isnt true and the book contains stories like this. I have a hard time telling the story i guess so chucked it so choked up. The device were never so deep and so like as on the issue of iran. This goes back to the worldview. The president he comes into office in 2001 of his first acts is to give it a new years greeting to the iranian people. He comes out of this i want to get on a different page with iran and this is a problem for the state of israel. Its an understatement that is a problem. Wayzata problem . First of all understand what the Iranian Nuclear probe remains for us. Its not just one existential threat. Several existential threats. The obvious one is that they break out or sneak out of whatever restrictions are placed on them and they make a bomb. According to the program on the ground the proposal take them a year according to an oped piece of the New York Times earlier this week by one of the nations leading experts on the subject. They can do it in less than a month. Thats too short for us. Half of the iranians have Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles that can reach most of Central Europe and certainly any city in the state of israel. Those missiles have one purpose and one purpose only and thats to carry a Nuclear Warhead to we are a one bomb country. Only one bomb. Thats only the beginning of the threat. The threat continues. The thread is once iran gets the bomb to terrorists get the bomb because iran is the Worlds Largest state sponsor of terrorists. Iran is sponsoring terrorism on five continents in 35 cities. During my time in washington they threatened to blow up my embassy and irrespective of what you think of it cafe milano they were going to blow up the cafe milano. You can have a Nuclear Weapon coming in and a ship container and once iran gets the bomb everybody gets the bomb. Egypt, saudi arabia and turkey gets the bomb. Israel finds itself living in a Nuclear Neighborhood which is profoundly unstable and who knows who will be controlling these countries. Multiple existential threat. We did talk and we had an intimate dialogue peered i participated in these talks. They are classified but i will tell you this they are very candid and we look at the same data and we derived some of the same conclusions about the nature of the program but the iranians had what they could do with what they had and in what amount of time. Very similar conclusions. Where did we did for . We covered over structural issues. This is going to sound so simplistic and i apologize but america brace yourself. Americas a big country. Its far with the middle east. Its not threatened with national annihilation by the remington americas Largest Military capability in the world. You have got the two bombers and Aircraft Carriers treat israel as a small country located in the backyard of iraq. We are threatened with genocide week he by the reigning leadership and while the idf is a wonderful army twice as big as their french or british armies combined, but we dont have Aircraft Carriers sell our margin for error over iran is exact way zero. We cannot afford to make the slightest mistake on this. And america has some leeway. It really does but in addition to the structural differences there was the ideological and conceptual differences in maybe these were the most important differences of all. The president has gone on record and its good to be my skill as an historian i look for quotes but the president talks a tremendous amount about his feelings and his perceptions so i dont have to do much research. He has called the Iranian Regime a rational regime that he believes if properly engaged iran can be a responsible Regional Power and resolve the conflict between sunnis and shiites. Contrast that with israels position. Israels position on iran was sometimes takes rational steps those rational steps are geared to achieve insane goals and among them destruction of my country and that they are a messianic jihadist cult type regime that is is supporting terra nova things i have spoken about. The president has ultimately said iran is not north korea. By mr. Netanyahu has said iran is worse than 50 north koreas. How big of a cap can you get conceptually . And the gap widened perhaps unabridged late starting in november of 2013 when it became clear that the United States had been negotiating without telling israel with iran secretly and reached an interim agreement that would reserve the infrastructure of the Iranian Nuclear program all of the centrifuges. They wouldnt be dismantled and all the facilities would remain intact. Some would be altered to do remain lethal but the program would be retained. The biggest problem from the israeli perspective was there is no connection between lifting sanctions which have been put into place over the course of the decade that any change in iranian behavior. They didnt have to get give up trying to undermine prowestern governments and trying to destroy us. The true problem for us and the situation kept deteriorating. The discourse deteriorated tremendously. People saying things about the United States. Israeli government should and can i say the word here . [laughter] some in the white house called the Prime Minister chicken and i was tried to find a translation for the word. It doesnt work in hebrew. It didnt work, they dont get it and then the prime Prime Minister made a decision last march to give a speech before the joint meeting of congress and that surprised the president. I was running for governor at the time and i opposed the decision to hold a speech there but i completely agreed with the content of the speech. It was spot on. This was the Prime Ministers duty. Its his responsibility in his right to speak his things and speaking not just for his own party. The closest thing we have the national consensus. We scream at each other and we throw chairs but on the iran issue almost no disagreement whatever. This is a bad deal and the alternative to a bad deal is no deal but the alternative to a no deal is a better deal and we reject this binary notion that its either negotiations or war. There are negotiations for a better deal which can be achieved by ramping up sanctions and bringing the iranians to the negotiating table and its putting in place an incredible military threats of the iranians believe they are paying a price for the program and they will not actually have the bomb. Thats where we stand. We have these deep divides. We have this namecalling and it comes to putting put in the book where i say to my reader theres just one word i have and that is stop enough already. We have been going at this now for six years and the book is really a plea. Its a plea to americans and israelis and israelis and American Jewish to stop. Lets take a deep breath and see what we have and what they stand to lose. What we have is a unique alliance. As i said earlier as i open my remarks its unparalleled to anything else in the world and we need each other. Israel knows theres no alternative to the United States and the primary backer standing with us in International Forums defending our common Democratic Values and the United States knows it has no alternative to israel certain that in the middle east and beyond the middle east the country that is technologically democratically robust militarily strong and which is completely unabashedly proamerica. So we have one another and we have to be above all grateful for this and begin to think about ways we can begin to restore this relationship which is crucial for us in the last four pages i go into a prescription about how both sides can begin the process of repair and strengthening to get us where we are. This is a relationship which im deeply convinced despite what we have gone through its vital not only to the security of the United States and israel not only what remains of middle east ability but is beneficial for the entire world. The entire world looks at this alliance is a litmus of americas dependability is an ally and israels viability as a sovereign state in the middle east. The book is a testament to its a confession. Truly it comes from a deep place of love and caring. Its a testament to the love i still feel for the country of my birth in the country of my birthrate the land of my father to the land of my forefathers. Its a call to restore one of the great alliances of modern history. Ally. Thank you. [applause] now the hard questions. How do we do this . [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] thank you ambassador. The president is nearing the end of his term and an year and half hell be out of office. How concerned are you that in these next few days that he will be more concerned with his legacy than with supporting the state of israel . You all heard the . I think legacy is an important legitimate issue for president in the end of the second term. Everyone thinks about the legacy and in the book i hope to coin a couple of phrases. One that helped to coin was and identified several issues inform policy that the president had. One of them was reconciling with irans support for the palestinians and for the resolution for the palestinian issue based on the twostate solution and i would use this phrase with policymakers say you must understand the he seems to be engaged in Something Else maybe health care these issues are so deeper to within him hes going to come back to them. Hes coming back to the Iran Initiative and i think youll come back to the palestinian issue and build his legacy on the two of them. That poses challenges for israel. This is a book where you talk about the policymaking process where i make a certain recommendation to the Prime Minister. I say rob a dope. Those of us of a certain generation remember that. Take a few punches on issues that are a matter of National Survival and then you can dig your heels in. There was a different approach back home. You read about that today but last november there was a victory for the senate and the republicans in the senate and the Israeli Party that said he wont be able to do anything for us. No more palestinians and i said you are misreading this. A president who has blocked advancing domestic policy by Republican Congress is going to turn to Foreign Policy birdie is the greatest prerogatives and you should know coming to a neighborhood near you is going to be more attention given to the iranian nation the palestinian issue and other issues that one practice like nonproliferation. So i think its something israel has to take seriously and among the policy recommendations i have in the end of the book is that when we make decisions when we make decisions we always have to take into account their ramifications and we have to see the world not only are our eyes but american eyes. Superpowers to the world differently and we have to acknowledge we have to say to america all the time thank you, thank you, thank you and only infrequently with great reluctance once in a while we have to say thank you but. This on iran is a thank you but moment. I would like to talk about the increasing antisemitism around the world. Your thoughts about that and also with increasing light between United States and israel to what extent has that encouraged or embolden some of this thinking especially comments from the white house that we may not support israel when issues come up in the united nations. I dont think its emboldening antisemitism but emboldening countries that want to boycott us. The administration said we are not going to cut aid to israel and i dont think congress would let any one cut aid to israel but the administrations line is we cant control those europeans i meet a lot of european leaders now and diplomats and i said dont you get sick of being americas stick . Every time someone in the or state Department Says that publicly israel is going to be more isolated. Israel is going to be boycotted and sanctioned that sounds to us like a threat. My friend Jeffrey Goldberg once said on cnn it sounds like nice jewish states got here and it would be a shame if something happened to it. I cant say it any better. But thats the way its interpreted and i think that there are elements in the world and europe among the palestinians who see that and see daylight are encouraged. They are encouraged to go through the court of justice. Encouraged to put down a Security Council resolution which would not be to israels advantage. I think its a problem. That comes under the rubric of daylight. Thats like searing daylight. Theres a whole section on rolling in here. I will get the book they actually have. Net and i havent read it yet. Thank you as always for an important talk and really good insights. Ive not read the last four pages with the recommendations but my question is can they possibly happen whatever they are with mr. Netanyahu and ron dermer and president obama and i forget who our ambassadors to israel with the four of them in place . I wont try to belittle. I dont have to dodge questions anymore. The answer is a wont be easy. Is it imperative upon all of us to try . Its incumbent upon all of us to try. I think if the iran agreement is signed and frankly if i were on the other side would not sign it because it has been demonstrated to them repeatedly that the longer they hold out the more concessions they get to think about it from their perspective they watched to see if it gets delayed a bit. Thats an opportunity to begin a conversation and i would not say the situation is hopeless but we also have to think longterm and the middle east is not going to get more stable. In the book i talk about the arab spring and Everyone Wants to point to one place. The Administration Says look at yemen, its great. The latest one is look at tunisia. I also stressed the case that unlike vietnam or you could push a couple of helicopters up an Aircraft Carrier and go home theres no going home on the middle east because the middle east will come to you and isis is expanding. Alliance is not going to get less importance. Alliance is going to get more important. We will have no choice but to sit down and thrash this out to get to a better place and thats my answer. Thanks. One of my favorite parts of ally was reading when you talk to stock a lot. Im not sure if i pronounced that right. What would you say are among the most important impacts it has had on your journey in korea . The book tells the story and i mentioned this in my speech. When i got out of the army it was during the dark days of richness. There were 3 million soviet jewish who were not free. They were denied the right to practice their religion and even to learn hebrew. It was illegal to study hebrew. He could go to a labor camp for 10 years for studying hebrew. Citizens took upon themselves to send teams underground to the soviet union at some risk and make contact with the zionist underground. People were studying hebrew and sellers that night. All of them knew they would he arrested and they knew they were going to say. But they studied anyway. I came out of the army and i had two passports so we went together. We made contact with the zionist underground. A young man met us at the train station. We had to memorize all the news of our contacts in rational own numbers and addresses and russian. Oh my but one was easy. Sallys maiden name was edelstein and our First Contact in moscow wasnt young man named you we edelstein. I remembered his name pretty well and he met us there and that began our excursion. The book tells harrowing stories of being arrested by the kgb and repeatedly interrogated i. V. Kgb. I dont going to grade detail on what the kgb did not experience transformed me again because i met the most courageous and trepid extraordinary human beings i have encountered in my life. Some of them were 60. The head of the underground was a 16yearold girl who was about 4 feet 9 inches. She literally saved my life. She threw herself at these thugs have said hit me instead. Again i describe in the book. It stayed with me forever. Every time i came up in his tough situation whether in battle or in washington or remembered with these people did the end of the story as i got elected to knesset and i was sworn in. Tonight it was one and i had a first vote in my first vote was to vote in favor of a candidate for the speaker of the knesset. His name was you we edelstein. Thank you. Ever since i can remember i have admired israel and the kinship. Is there but at the end of the sentence . [laughter] i think about it very well and i have enjoyed your local. There we go. The israelipalestinian issue is an open sore. He referred a couple of times and glossed over the settlement issue and to me thats really the crux of a lack of desire to really settle the issue and combined that with what seems to me the awful statements that netanyahu made on the eve of the election. Which are in the look by the way. I dont loss over anything. I just dont understand and not taking any action on the settlements. I agree with you. I am not an ambassador anymore and im not a spokesman for anybody other than myself and my party. One of the reasons i joined the party is that i could be the architect of a simpler platform and without going into a great Obama Administration were too much granularity is that there was an agreement struck, think an important diplomatic agreement struck between ari sharon and president george bush in 2004 which recognized there would be a twostate solution that israel would retain certain territories maybe some swaps but the idea was jewish neighbors of jurors on which over half of them lived over what was the 1967 borders and the settlement locks in which 85 of the settlers lived an account for 2 to west bank. Thats the basic math here. 85 of the settlers live in less than 2 of the west bank. Thats the math and that agreement was abandoned by Obama Netanyahu did not stand by that agreement so it meant there was no difference in building in the neighborhood of jerusalem or in outlying settlement which was a mistake i thought. Part of my diplomatic web form for my party and you can read it was in the wall street journal a couple months ago called the twostate solution. Right now we dont have a partner on the other side of the table. It would have a corrupt unelected leadership. Im hoping of this but was almost killed by hamas. We saved him. We have to be realistic. What does the two state situation say . We only build settlements. We dont build an area that may be part of a future palestinian state. We are always at the table even though the chair opposite of us is empty and we remain committed to the idea of a twostate solution. If we adopt that it will go a long way to protecting ourselves against boycotts and european new conversation with people in washington. Its not the current policy of the government with our policy and i will be fighting for it. I agree with you. Lets take two or three questions together and i will do them very quickly. Quickly come in the context of speaker boehners invitation to this netanyahu there were small cracks in the bipartisan support if not for israel lease for netanyahu. Do you have any concerns about any danger to the solidity of bipartisan support for israel coming out of the circumstances . A legitimate question. Minus different. I will bundle them. Thank you mentioned that the Nuclear Facilities in iran have increased by the thousands centrifuges so my a misunderstanding is right now we have a p5 1 coalition of countries and sanctions on iran and if there is no nuclear deal and russia pulls out and china pulls out. I know this question. What would prevent iran from creating a Nuclear Weapon . What other solution do you see wax. A very good question we take that question very seriously. We have pondered it at length. Lets take one more and i will answer all three. Im a history teacher. Speak any time you would like when you were here. Im curious as a historian do you think part of that core should entail some sort of u. S. Israel relationship and if so as in the story and what area of history do you think that should encompass like current day back in the 70s with nixon relationship and in a specific area that you should be aware of . It is a misnomer. Right now we have a conflict with iran. They are not arabs. We have a conflict with the soviet union. They are not arabs. As part of your syllabus on the course there should be one book about the u. S. Israeli relationship. The United States has been dragged and not just materially but strategically and physically american soldiers so its very important. Your question about bipartisanship preserving bipartisan support for israel is a paramount Strategic National and just for israel. God forbid the state of israel should become the monopoly of one party or another. It will be very dangerous for us and again its one of the prescriptions at the end of the book that we are his have to ask ourselves what is the impact of any decision we make on bipartisanship . Every once in a while we make it to a juncture where its a difficult decision. On the iran issue is hugely difficult and it was not an easy call for me on the decision to go to congress because of my fears about bipartisan support. I cannot begin i did not agree with the content of the speech. It was the venue and it is becoming increasingly difficult. I intimated earlier in my talk Political Polarization we cant get anything done, its very difficult. I described the election of 2012. Was a profoundly traumatic period is both parties were trying to drag us into the debate. The first video clip said the other party is antiisrael was a democratic one interestingly enough and i started it. You have asked a very tough question and here is our answer. The answer is the Israeli Intelligence estimate is the russians the chinese and others will he extremely reluctant to detach themselves from the 17 trilliondollar American Economy even if they dont like the fact that congress or the president backs away from a rainy and deal and sanctions will more or less ninteen that iran will not able to recover and there can be further sanctions by the United States on iran to make up for any slippage in the sanction regime. That argument was that the sanctions cant be maintained that the chinese and russians feel the United States is not negotiate in good faith they will walk away from the sanctions. That is substantiated by our analysis. The big fear is the russians will sell military hardware and in particular antiaircraft system which is problematic. Thats not going to help the iranian economy. Quickly. I think we can attribute the Supreme Court decision to the young people so firmly for marriage. Everything i read about the people in iran is how they are prowestern and they dont like the government so when you talk about whats going to happen do you ever factor in changes emanating from older people dying off in younger people coming and . I want to answer your question to you ways. Im going to come back to the Supreme Court ruling which is quite extraordinary. Iran had a dry run for the arab spring in june 2009. They got the break and they learned how to cope with it. They created a 1 million man force and these docs called the siege. If you go on antigovernment web site in iran you will get a knock on the door within two minutes in the third minute you were gone and they have learned to cope with these things. The iranian people have learned to cope with some of the sanctions and that is why when negotiators to add p5 1 talk about a 10 year period the sunset period we dont think thats a long period of time now with the type of monstrous anti rebellion architecture the iranians have put in place. It could pass very quickly. Meanwhile the iranians will be building a program. It will putting advanced centrifuges and. They will continue their research and military and 10 years plus one day they wont move ahead to one bomb. They can move it to 200 ons. Its called sunset to arsenal. Thats a big fear so i would love to think somewhere along the line by raining and people will say enough we want a different future for ourselves great had it with this corrupt regime. I would like to think so but we cant bank on that, we just cant. About the states ruling and what it means for america. Its interesting i talk about some of the great moments that i had the privilege to be ambassador and one of them i was invited to give the keynote address at the equality form which is the lgbtq convention in philadelphia and i talk about the struggle with the lgbtq writes. Israel remains a world leader. We just have the largest parade in tel aviv that we have a way to go. I just want to share one vignette from my time in knesset. Ive been living in israel for 40 years and i thought i pretty much knew this country. I went to knesset and found out i know nothing. So about three weeks ago i hosted Lindsey Graham for lunch and i worked a lot with lindsey. He is involved in foreign affairs. I took him into the plenary and there was a debate in the plenary told us to david. You get to hear it twice today sorry. Phobia in the Health Care System and a christian woman member of the knesset gets up and she gets shouted down by a jury is member of knesset and the
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