Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide

Israel would only build in the settlement blocs and in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem—in accordance with the 2004 Bush-Sharon letter—and proactively improve the lives of the 90 percent of West Bank Palestinians already enjoying de facto independence. “Instead of demanding what each side cannot do, we must ask what each side can,” I concluded

the dangers were not merely military, to my mind, but also conceptual. Like Assad before them, Iran’s problematic leaders had suddenly become part of the solution, in the process legitimizing their bid for regional rule. In exchange for merely delaying its program, Iran received international recognition of its right to remain a nuclear breakout st

Others were less convinced. While quietly and sometimes begrudgingly willing to concede that the deal might delay Iranian ambitions, critics pointed to its anomalous loopholes. Among these were the twenty-four-day period for investigating Iranian violations—long enough, skeptics said, for a breakout—and the fact that Iran, itself, would collect and

Part of the problem while possessing chemical arms, by removing them Assad became key to the solution. Henceforth, he would enjoy utter immunity while butchering his own people with barrel bombs and other conventional ordnance. The phrase “Assad must go” vanished from Obama’s vocabulary.

Israel is the Jewish State because it, alone, is situated in our ancestral homeland, provided refuge to Jews from more than seventy countries, revived the ancient Jewish language, and observes a national Jewish calendar. It is the Jewish State because it will aid you and your family…because you are Jews. When I relinquished my U.S. citizenship, an

American Jews, I held, should uphold Israel’s right to defend itself and to exist as the Jewish State. They should respect the responsibility that Israelis bore by choosing their leaders democratically. Israel, for its part, must acknowledge American Jewish pluralism and behave as the nation-state of all the Jewish people.

“The administration gets tough with Israel for being impolite on settlements, and shows flexibility with Iran for building nuclear weapons,”

Did some American Jews prefer the moral ease of victimhood, I asked myself, to the complexities of Israeli power? Was no Israel better than an Israel that fell short of their dreams?

To Israelis left incredulous by these events, I recalled America’s regard for any government—even of Islamic extremists—elected democratically.