Ally: My Journey across the American-Israeli Divide.

• Author: Ulgul, Murat
• Position: Book review

Ally: My Journey across the American-Israeli Divide

By Michael B. Oren

New York: Random House, 2015, 432 pages, $11.99, ISBN: 9780812996418.

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Given that we are approaching the end of his administration, President Obama's American foreign policy has increasingly and critically been written about in a number of books. One of the most recent examples was written by Michael B. Oren, an Israeli historian, now-politician, but most importantly, the Israeli ambassador to the United States during 200913. In Ally: My Journey across the American-Israeli Divide, Oren chronicles his years as an ambassador in Washington and narrates the problems between the United States and Israel in this period while briefly talking about his academic and personal life as well as his political career at the beginning and end of the book respectively.

Ally can be evaluated in two ways. First, as its name puts it, this is a book about the problematic American-Israeli relations during the Obama administration. As a first-hand witness, Oren successfully explains the contentious topics between the two countries during these years. On several issues, including the Iranian nuclear program, peace process, settlement construction, Arab Spring, arms sales to Arab states, relations with regional leaders such as Erdogan, Mubarak, Abbas, etc. we see significant differences between the Obama administration and Israeli right-wing Netanyahu government.

Oren's central argument is that on these contentious issues, the Obama administration damaged the core principles of American-Israeli relations. He summarizes these principles as three "no's": no daylight (no disagreement both on security and diplomacy policies), no surprises (taking no step without informing the other), and no public altercations. According to Oren, Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East, which prioritized conciliation, dialogue and international cooperation, is unrealistic and damaging to Israeli security. He criticizes Washington for believing the false promises of Iran on nuclear negotiations; leaving traditional allies, like Egypt's Mubarak, on their own during the Arab Spring; blaming Israel for the failure of the peace process and pressuring for the end of settlement construction while undervaluing the threats and attacks Israelis faced in a hostile region. Oren also blames the American media, especially Jewish journalists, for criticizing Israel and expresses his distaste of the...