WASHINGTON — Michael Herzog isn’t known for making headlines.
His ability to work quietly behind the scenes with officials from across the political spectrum led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask him to stay on as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, after he was appointed by the previous government established by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
Herzog ran Jerusalem’s embassy in Washington during three turbulent years in Israel’s ties with the United States, with the latter two featuring the Netanyahu government’s controversial effort to overhaul the country’s judiciary, followed by Hamas’s October 7 attack and the ensuing 15-month Gaza war.
His tenure coincided entirely with the administration of US President Joe Biden, who found more common ground with the Bennett-Lapid government, and the time saw further development of the still-nascent Abraham Accords. That effort intensified upon Netanyahu’s return to office in December 2022, but it faced significant setbacks, due to the upheaval within Israel followed by the materialization of external threats that upended the regional agenda.
In a lengthy interview last week, Herzog maintained that Biden provided Israel with unprecedented support in the aftermath of the Hamas onslaught, even if that backing fluctuated as domestic pushback over Israel’s prosecution of the war took its toll.
The ex-envoy pointed to Biden’s decision to withhold a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs from Israel, arguing that it was sloppily announced after the administration had already begun reaching understandings with Israel on the matter — understandings that proved essential to averting a crisis after the US president initially issued a “red line” against an IDF offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which his aides later acknowledged wasn’t genuine.

Herzog still insisted that Biden had an affinity for Israel deep in his kishkes, even if the feeling was not shared by everyone in his administration.
The former ambassador accused bureaucrats in the State Department of routinely holding up weapon shipments to Israel over human rights concerns, even though no such directive had been issued by Biden.
Herzog became the latest involved figure to weigh in on a debate that the Biden administration had sought to put to bed by repeatedly dismissing Netanyahu’s claims of slow-walked arms transfers.
Herzog reignited the dispute, rejecting claims by US officials that Washington simply ceased fast-tracking weapon shipments later on in the war, exposing them to normal approval procedures.
“With all due respect, that doesn’t explain why certain items we needed… were held up for six, seven or eight months. This can’t be explained just by a slow bureaucracy. There were [bureaucrats] who simply stopped these things, and there were legal officials who leaned very hard on the top brass of the State Department, including on secretary [of state Antony] Blinken, not to authorize weapons transfers,” Herzog said.
Four senior officials in Biden’s State Department presented with the former ambassador’s claims were adamant in denying them. One of them said Herzog misunderstood the munition transfer approval process in the US. At the beginning of the war, the Biden administration worked to fulfill every standing Israeli weapon order; but when those were completed, the State Department was required to start new reviews for each new request, which took far longer, the Biden official argued.

“The government of Israel was used to everything going quickly and not needing things immediately (before the war), so this frustrated them,” the official said. “Many of us worked day in and day out to make sure that things would not move slowly, so I take personal offense to those words.”
It was a shocking accusation lobbed by the former ambassador, who is not known for such public criticism but who is no longer burdened by diplomatic protocol after stepping down late last month.
The election of Donald Trump signaled an end to Herzog’s tenure, with Netanyahu appointing an ally more politically aligned with the right-wing policies he hopes to advance now that a Republican is back in the White House.
That isn’t to say that Netanyahu and Herzog didn’t work well together. For years, the latter represented the premier in diplomatic negotiations Israel held with the Palestinians, Syria and Jordan.
So discreet was Herzog in his work that when Netanyahu came to brief his younger brother Isaac Herzog about some of those negotiations, the then-opposition leader and current Israeli president was caught completely off guard.
But Ambassador Herzog evidently saw enough over the last two years to break with his old boss — an indication that the 72-year-old has completed his last stint representing Netanyahu.

Albeit somewhat gingerly, Herzog critiqued various aspects of Netanyahu’s handling of the war, from his refusal to advance a viable alternative to Hamas earlier on; to his decision to intensify a dispute with the Biden administration regarding Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah; to refusing even a tangential role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
Herzog didn’t even rule out the possibility that political considerations were a motivating factor in the decision-making of the prime minister he represented when it came to the hostage negotiations with Hamas.
The former ambassador posited that Israel should have pursued a comprehensive deal to release all of the hostages at once in exchange for ending the war. He acknowledged that this idea wasn’t feasible given the political constraints in Jerusalem, but argued that the IDF would have been able to resume fighting against Hamas at a later date once the captives were released.
He admitted that Hamas may never have agreed to this idea and may well have remained unwilling to reach a deal — even if the premier had shown more flexibility regarding the terms of the phased deal that was finally inked last month.
While he defended government-backed legislation passed by the Knesset last year to shutter the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, he made a point of knocking the law’s 90-day implementation period as too short. Herzog argued that it did not provide enough time for Israel to work with international organizations to ensure that the void left by UNRWA would be properly filled, without any negative humanitarian ramifications in war-torn Gaza.
The former ambassador was more critical, though, of the judicial overhaul advanced by Netanyahu’s government — at least of how far-reaching it was, and the failure to conduct a dialogue on it.

“While the desire for judicial reform was understandable and justified, the way in which it was done harmed national unity and sent the wrong message to our enemies and our friends alike,” Herzog said. “To our enemies, we were projected as weakened by an internal rift. And to our friends in the US, we were seen as eroding the shared values that make up a foundational pillar of our relationship.”
Throughout the two-hour conversation, Herzog highlighted the positive elements of both sides’ handling of the bilateral relationship.
“Let’s not forget the unprecedented assistance that the US provided Israel in this war. We’re constantly looking at the glass half empty — or more accurately — focusing on the empty quarter of the glass, rather than the larger part that is full,” he said.
But given how careful Herzog has been for the past three years — and really his entire career — his critiques seemed to carry far more weight than his praise.
Herzog closed the interview with a call for Israel not to abandon what has increasingly become an uphill battle to ensure that US support for Israel in Washington remains a matter of bipartisan consensus.
Last week, though, all 100 US senators joined together in backing a resolution thanking Herzog for his service.
He recalled constantly being told by Democrats upon his arrival in 2021 that Israel had neglected them.
“Now that the White House and both houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans, I’m worried that a belief may [again] sink in that there isn’t a need to invest in maintaining bipartisan support for Israel,” Herzog said. “That would be a mistake because in two years, one of the houses could be controlled by the Democrats, and in four years, Democrats could win back the White House.”
The following transcript has been translated from Hebrew and edited for brevity and clarity.
The Times of Israel: There’s a lot of talk about how unique the relationship is between the United States and Israel. Can you shed some light on how unique it is based on your time in Washington? I understand you may have been the only ambassador who enjoyed weekly Friday meetings with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and other senior Biden administration officials.
Ambassador Michael Herzog: I was ambassador here since November 2021 — so over three years. I would divide that time into three parts.
The first year was the government of [former prime ministers Naftali] Bennett and [Yair] Lapid whose main focus was the development of the Abraham Accords. It also saw Biden’s visit to Israel, which was a historic one. We prepared for it extensively and it came to fruition toward the end of that first year.
The second year saw the establishment of the latest government led by Prime Minister Netanyahu. It sought to advance a judicial reform, which led to a lot of pressure being put on our relations [with the US].
The third part of my tenure was from October 7 and the 15 months of war that followed.
Overall, it was a turbulent tenure, especially during the war, which was a very, very difficult time.

I would say that at the core, relations with the US were good, but there were also very difficult pressures that we had to deal with, particularly during the year of the judicial reform and then even more so during the war because of the different views Washington and Jerusalem had of the reality.
During the war, there were very heavy pressures from all sides, which took a lot of work in order to withstand and prevent a crisis between Israel and the US during a time of war — a war that I would call existential.
A lot of work had to be put into this. I had daily contact with the White House, the State Department and others. We also had weekly Friday meetings with very senior people, which were very helpful. I don’t think this had been done before. But that’s not the main thing because I was in contact with these people every day, several times a day. It was 24/7, nonstop.
The Biden administration would call me at all hours, and there were also calls in the middle of the night from Israel. I enjoyed access to the highest levels [in both governments] that allowed me to successfully operate here.
How would you use that access to try and manage or prevent crises?
I had to mediate between Jerusalem and Washington, which often had conflicting positions regarding the war that were very difficult to reconcile.

Here’s one example: We had a serious crisis surrounding Israel’s intention to launch an offensive in Rafah. The administration was very, very afraid of this, believing it would further exacerbate an already terrible humanitarian crisis and lead to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. They were afraid that there would be massive collateral damage and the impact it might have on [neighboring] Egypt.
The way those concerns were articulated created an impression in Israel that the US was against the action in Rafah no matter what.
This impression was also reinforced by the fact that President Biden at one point publicly called it a “red line.”
When you hear “red line,” it’s clear that it means, “Don’t do it.” This caused both sides to essentially climb up trees. Israel said, “We will do it, with or without the United States in order to win the war.” And the US effectively said, “Don’t do it.”
I understood that there was going to be a very big crisis around this issue. Biden also held up a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, which were the most important weapons that we needed during the war.
What I ended up doing was approaching the Biden administration and saying, “If you’re really saying don’t go into Rafah no matter what, then there will indeed be a crisis because we can’t win the war without taking care of Gaza’s border with Egypt, the tunnels under Rafah and the four Hamas battalions stationed there so close to Israeli communities. There were also hostages there. There was just no way we wouldn’t go into Rafah. So if you are telling us, ‘Don’t do it no matter what.’ Then we have a problem.”
But if you are actually telling us, “Don’t do it unless you’ve done A, B, C — account for the humanitarian situation, put forward a military plan that reduces collateral damage, etc. — then we can talk.”
I then initiated a dialogue between our two governments to discuss these very issues. And it was very constructive. The IDF presented its humanitarian and operational plans and subsequently adapted them. We were able to move from a crisis to an operation in Rafah that the Biden administration may not have been nuts about but was able to go along with. The intervention I led was needed to deal with this crisis.
When I asked Biden officials about this, they’d say that it was because of their intervention that led Israel to change its plans for Rafah to better account for the humanitarian situation. As for whether there was actually a red line, they said there may have been one initially but that it was subsequently changed to a pink one.
When I came to them and asked if it was really a red line, they told me, “No. We just want you to ensure that there won’t be a humanitarian catastrophe and limit collateral damage.”
In the dialogue that I initiated, we created working groups to address various issues, including a humanitarian group.
As a result of this dialogue, they also better understood what we were planning to do, which led to them changing their minds. But we also made adjustments on our end. The plan that we carried out in the end was better than the original one that we presented.
It doesn’t matter whether this was because of the Americans or because of us. It ended up being better. The first plan was much more [intense]. It included two divisions. I imagine it would have caused a lot more damage and humanitarian harm.

Wasn’t one of the meetings of this working group canceled by Netanyahu due to the US vote allowing a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza to pass the UN Security Council?
Yes, there was an argument between our governments because we felt — and I think rightly so — that no resolution should be allowed to pass that didn’t condition a ceasefire on the release of the hostages.
When I asked them if President Biden had actually placed a red line regarding an invasion of Rafah, line, they told me, ‘No. We just want you to ensure that there won’t be a humanitarian catastrophe’
You didn’t accept the American argument that the resolution called for a release of the hostages in the same sentence as the ceasefire demand?
We felt that it wasn’t clear enough and created an opening for all different countries to push for an unconditional ceasefire. Therefore, the expectation had been that the US would veto this resolution and an argument broke out when that didn’t happen.
Do you think Netanyahu made a mistake in responding by canceling the Rafah meeting, though? Because what the US has said is that he presented the Biden administration as being at odds with Israel on the need for conditioning a ceasefire on the hostages’ release when both sides were still in agreement on this.
It’s true that the US, through it all, said that the would be no ceasefire without the release of the hostages, and they acted accordingly. But the way this was expressed in the text of the Security Council resolution wasn’t clear enough, and we thought the US should have been more assertive about this.

I’m not sure it was the right thing to [intensify] the crisis in the way we did; but in the end, [this ordeal] didn’t prevent us from reaching understandings regarding the Rafah operation.
And you know what? It’s kind of funny because who today remembers all the drama surrounding Rafah? Both sides climbed up very tall trees as if Rafah was some kind of Stalingrad or I don’t know what.
We took something that was a military operational challenge regarding how to dismantle Hamas’s last four battalions and we turned it into something that nearly became a strategic problem.
So when Netanyahu said he told the Biden administration, “No,” when they refused to allow Israel to enter Rafah, was he exaggerating?
Look, the reality is how I described it. I think that answers your question.
Were the 2,000-lb bombs the only thing that the US withheld or was there really an embargo, as some in Netanyahu’s circle put it?

First of all, there was no embargo. The word embargo means that they’re blocking everything, and you get nothing. There were people in Israel who unjustly used the word “embargo.”
What happened was that they withheld the shipment of 2,000-lb bombs in a decision by the president that had to do with the Rafah operation. It was the wrong decision — not least because he made it after we had already started to reach understandings regarding Rafah, so the timing was horrible…
They also didn’t let us know before he announced the decision. We learned about it on CNN during his interview on the network. We knew [beforehand] they had held up a shipment, but when I asked why, I didn’t receive a clear answer from my counterparts at the White House and the State Department. They didn’t tell me the president made his decision because of Rafah. But then the president went on CNN and declared that was why he had withheld the shipment. It was a very bad moment.
Both sides climbed up very tall trees, as if Rafah was some kind of Stalingrad
The 2,000-lb bombs were ones that the president withheld, but there were quite a few other items that were held up not by the president, but by the State Department bureaucracy. There is a bureaucracy there — some of which is problematic and even hostile toward Israel — and it tried to stop every transfer of weapons on human rights grounds or the Leahy Law and those sorts of reasons. And [those State Department bureaucrats] managed to hold up quite a few shipments, including export licenses, for months at a time.
I spent a ton of time dealing with this, and we were able to release quite a few of these held-up items. But by the end of the Biden administration, it wasn’t just the 2,000-lb bombs that hadn’t been given to us. There were other items that remained stuck, mainly within the State Department approval process.
What the Biden administration has insisted is that they didn’t withhold anything other than the 2,000-lb bombs. What they do acknowledge is that at a certain point in the war, they stopped fast-tracking weapon shipments and required everything to go through the normal stages of approval, which does take a bit more time.
With all due respect, that doesn’t explain why certain items we needed like export licenses and licenses for items that were important for our defense industry were held up for six, seven or eight months. This can’t be explained just by a slow bureaucracy. There were [bureaucrats] who simply stopped these things, and there were legal officials who leaned very hard on the top brass of the State Department, including on secretary Blinken, not to authorize weapons transfers.
There were senior officials in the State Department who were very sympathetic and helpful and we highly appreciated their efforts. But ultimately, the wheels of the bureaucracy spun very slowly in places where there were fewer officials sympatheic to Israel. I understand that they had to conduct reviews, but those reviews took as long as they did because less sympatheic individuals purpsoefly conducted them slowly.
(A Biden administration response can be found at the bottom of this article.)
How do you know for a fact that this was what was happening?
Because I worked on this every day and talked to a lot of people, and I was receiving information from inside the State Department regarding what was happening there.

Bureaucrats were able to dictate the policy of the administration, or this was really what the administration wanted to do?
I don’t think this was what the administration wanted to do, certainly not the White House. But there are many stages to the arms supply process. It starts at the Pentagon and goes through a whole process there, and then it reaches the State Department and goes through a completely separate process there.
The 2,000-lb bombs were the only shipment that the president withheld, but there were quite a few other items that were held by the State Department bureaucracy.
So Blinken approved these State Department holdups?
Blinken has to sign off on the transfers at the very end of the State Department approval process, but there are many stages before these transfers ever reach his desk. What happened was that we realized at some point that things were getting stuck earlier on in the State Department approval process. As a result, we created a system where we asked someone high up in the State Department to monitor the beginning approval stages of each transfer, and we’d tell them what was being held up, which shipments were a priority for us and what we needed expedited.
We solved quite a few problems this way by working — myself, our embassy’s military attache and representatives from the Defense Ministry — with the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon in order to ensure that the IDF had the tools it needed throughout the war. But there were things that still got stuck.
I want to stress: The policy decision from the White House was only to hold up the one shipment of 2,000-lb bombs, but there were things that were held up by the State Department for quite a few months. It was a daily fight.
To be fair, we also received quite a few things while the war was ongoing. We received many munitions, we received an unprecedented supplemental [in US aid to Israel], and we received a lot of help in various fields. But at the same time, some things were held up.

Did it influence the war? The Biden administration would often say that the shipments under discussion weren’t going to reach Israel for another year or two regardless.
Some of the items were things we needed in real-time during the war. We managed in the end — that’s a fact. But not without difficulty. We told the Americans, ‘These [holdups] don’t make sense because many of them are regarding precision-guided missiles. What do you want us to do? Use less precise missiles and cause more collateral damage?’ We also presented them with figures regarding their own use of those same weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan — I can show you how many thousands of those 2,000-lb bombs the Americans used in Baghdad. It was a very tense debate we had with them.
There were certain instances where approvals would reach Blinken’s desk and he then had to decide whether to give the final signature or pass it along to Congress for its approval. There are all sorts of political considerations regarding whether it was necessary to receive congressional approval for each shipment. We were in the midst of an election year, and there were accordingly times when the administration didn’t want to bring things before Congress because doing so would force a political debate and lead to the administration coming under fire. This also delayed things for us.
But the administration can also bypass Congress and did so.
On one occasion, they bypassed Congress by issuing an emergency notification. This allowed them to simply notify Congress of the transfer, rather than asking Congress to approve it. With approval from the president, Blinken signed off on transferring stockpiles of tank and artillery rounds that were critical for us in the war. They only did this one time and it was earlier on in the war. It wasn’t trivial, though, and I give them credit for doing it.
I’ll give you another example: We wanted to receive bulldozers, but they were afraid we’d use them to create a buffer zone that would shrink the size of Gaza, so they delayed the shipment.

The administration understood that publicizing these holdups would harm them politically, so they preferred to do it quietly?
Correct. And as we got closer to the election, more and more political considerations began to seep in, particularly regarding when to send things to Congress for its approval. The administration preferred combining things together, having them all approved at once. It thought long and hard about when to do so.
We told the Americans, ‘These [holdups] don’t make sense because many of them are regarding precision-guided missiles. What do you want us to do? Use less precise missiles and cause more collateral damage?’
It was better for Biden’s political standing among Democrats to quietly withhold weapons shipments to Israel?
Biden faced conflicting pressures. On the one hand, Biden, at his core, was sympathetic and wanted to help Israel in the war. And he did so.
Let’s not forget the unprecedented assistance that the US provided Israel in this war. We’re constantly looking at the glass half empty — or more accurately — focusing on the empty quarter of the glass rather than the larger part that is full.
They gave us a supplemental that had never been granted before — this was in addition to the usual aid that we received. They sent us munitions and weapons systems throughout the war. They deployed aircraft carriers and helped us defeat two massive attacks from Iran. They sent a THAAD defense missile system battery, which meant deploying boots on the ground, which hadn’t been done in a very long time. They did so many things that we often ignore.

Doesn’t that mean the concept of Israel defending itself by itself is no longer?
I still think the principle remains in place. The harm to it has been very marginal. No one is fighting for us against Hezbollah. No one is fighting for us against Hamas. No one attacked Iran on our behalf. We did all of the things.
We were able to thwart the Iranian attacks because of the support we received from the US and the coalition that it built. But we bore the main burdens and prices of this war. We didn’t ask the US to send soldiers to fight instead of us. Their assistance was very important both in deterring Iran and Hezbollah and in protecting the State of Israel against Iranian attacks. In this regard, they deserve our thanks.
Anyways, there was a negative element [of the US handling of the war] that saw them hold up or slow down the transfer of things that we needed when Biden sought to avoid debates in Congress that exposed him to criticism from progressives within his party.
I don’t think president Biden wanted to be portrayed as someone who held up weapons Israel needed during a time of war. That’s why they’d always say that they only froze the 2,000-lb bombs and that everything else was moving forward.
Then why quietly hold up weapons if there was still a chance that this would be leaked and risk him being framed as someone acting against Israel?

He was dealing with conflicting pressures, and this was the way he tried to maneuver. To those who wanted him to hold up weapons, he’d point to the 2,000-lb bomb shipment and say he upheld that. But to us, he’d say he wasn’t holding up anything other than that one shipment.
I will say that I felt a difference between the general attitude of the White House and the general attitude of the State Department.
I felt that the White House had a more strategic worldview. And of course had personnel, led by president Biden. We had differences of opinion with him, but deep down he truly loves Israel. It’s something that comes from his kishkes, and this impacted those around him. Accordingly, we were able to hold substantive discussions with his people, even when we didn’t agree.
But when it came to the State Department, there were different attitudes. There was a lot of hostile bureaucracy inside the building, and there were also many who still believed that the entire Middle East revolved around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I once joked that even if there was a nuclear war with Iran, 50 percent of the State Department talking points would remain the same ones from 20 years ago about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This was very evident in conversations with them.
However, most of the administration’s policy regarding the Middle East was set by the White House.

As for Secretary Blinken. I cannot describe him as having been hostile in any way. On critical issues, he was supportive, and he was very close to president Biden — closer than many people realize.
We worked with him and his deputies, who I would not describe as hostile either. However, they did bring with them additional considerations into the discussion and because of the aforementioned bureaucracy they had to deal with in the building, they delivered less at the end of the day.
What about that dress-down you received from then-deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman?
This took place after the Knesset passed legislation canceling the Disengagement Law barring Israelis from entering [northern West Bank] settlements evacuated in 2005.
I was summoned to Wendy Sherman’s office. But the reporting was more dramatic than what it actually ended up being. She, of course, expressed her displeasure with the legislation, and I explained to her our side of things. I’ve known Wendy Sherman for 20 years, and when I got up to leave at the end of the meeting, she hugged me.

Can you take me back to October 7 and what that day was like for you that day as Israel’s ambassador to the United States?
The attack started when it was still October 6 and the eve of Simhat Torah in the US.
I was outside Washington, and I got a call from a very senior IDF commander shouting, “We’re at war! We’re at war! Hamas has launched a war against us!”
Biden was dealing with conflicting pressures, and this was the way he tried to maneuver. To those who wanted him to hold up weapons, he’d point to the 2,000-lb bomb shipment and say he upheld that. But to us, he’d say he wasn’t holding up anything other than that one shipment.
I didn’t know what was going on. I opened up [the] Ynet [news site] and I saw that there was a barrage of rockets fired at Israel. I didn’t know, yet, that there was an invasion ongoing, but I immediately realized that this was a different situation unfolding.
I then did three things: I canceled all plans and immediately returned to Washington. I contacted all embassy staff and ordered them to return immediately from Sukkot vacations, and I triggered emergency protocols for work to continue throughout the night.
And you contacted Biden’s senior White House aide Brett McGurk?
Once I had a better understanding of what was going on, I immediately reached out to Brett, writing to him that there had been an invasion and that we were at war. He responded, “We are with you.”
From this point, we began contact with the administration that was multiple times a day. At the outset, president Biden issued a very moving statement of support for Israel and then visited the country shortly afterward.

But before he arrived, Israel almost opened a second front against Hezbollah
There was an initial assessment in Israel that Hezbollah would try and follow up Hamas with its own attack. The concept implemented by Hamas on October 7 had been invented by Hezbollah. It for years had been planning to infiltrate Israel and take over communities and military bases on the northern border. Hezbollah had established an elite force called Radwan, which consisted of several thousand fighters, and it built up infrastructure along the Lebanese side of the border — infrastructure that we uncovered late last year. It included underground bunkers that had all the equipment necessary for such an attack. Hezbollah fighters would arrive at these bunkers in civilian clothes, switch into military uniforms, grab a weapon, a communication device, a car or motorcycle and launch a raid into Israel.
There was an Israeli intelligence assessment that this is what Hezbollah would do after October 7, so a recommendation was made shortly afterward for Israel to conduct a preemptive attack. An operational opportunity arose, which I don’t want to get into, but there were discussions as to whether to move forward.
I immediately wrote to Brett that there had been an invasion and that we were at war. He responded, ‘We are with you.’
The preemptive attack being pushed involved the pagers that were detonated en masse a year later?
The attack plan had similar elements, but we didn’t have all of them ready then. In retrospect, had we launched a major offensive against Hezbollah, I don’t think we would have been able to complete our ground campaign in Gaza. I also think we would have received many more missiles from Hezbollah than we ended up taking a year later [when Israel did launch its major offensive against the terror group].
President Biden intervened and tried to influence us not to conduct such an attack.

And Netanyahu managed to convince [National Unity leaders Benny] Gantz and [Gadi] Eisenkot to join the government and vote against the idea.
Among other things. They had just entered the government that night and they had opposed this action. They had influence in this regard.
Had we launched a major offensive against Hezbollah shortly after October 7, I don’t think we would have been able to complete our ground campaign in Gaza.
But then, an intelligence alert came in on some 20 Hezbollah paragliders en route into Israel from Lebanon. The initial belief was that Hezbollah was launching an attack. Israeli pilots were already sitting in planes ready to respond.
(The paragliders ended up being a flock of birds, and the Israeli strike was called off at the last minute.)
I wanted to ask you about the US effort to get Israel to plan for the “day after” in Gaza. Secretary Blinken touched on this in one of his final speeches on the job, arguing that Israel’s failure to plan for who will rule Gaza after Hamas has led to a situation where Hamas remains the main power in the Strip. How do you respond to those frustrations?

Israel started thinking and planning for this a bit late. The reason I was told by our government when I tried to raise the issue was that if we tried to do this too early, Hamas would be strong enough to destroy any alternative that we’d try to build.
I still think this could have been discussed and planned earlier on, but it is what it is.
Eventually, an effort was advanced and [Strategic Affairs Minister] Ron Dermer was the point man who held discussions with the Emiratis. He reached very advanced stages in those talks about an alternative to Hamas, which included broad agreements regarding the “day after.”
Then we decided that we would present the plan to Tony Blinken because he was responsible for this issue in the Biden administration. We asked him to move the plan forward and present it. Blinken accepted the challenge and started working with us on closing the remaining gaps.
He wanted to move it forward before the end of the Biden administration, but then a possibility for a hostage deal opened up [after the US presidential election], and Israel decided that this should be the first priority. Therefore, Blinken didn’t finish the effort and didn’t fully put a plan on the table.
(Blinken did give a speech at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington presenting broad elements of the plan during his final week on the job. But the address was largely overshadowed by developments in the hostage negotiations and his plan has not been formally adopted by any major stakeholder.)

I thought putting forward earlier a plan for the day after — which faced massive political opposition [within Netanyahu’s coalition] — would have actually helped us put pressure on Hamas to agree to a hostage deal.
Dermer only started advancing his plan in the last several months, but Israel should have started working on it much earlier. Part of the refusal to do so was due to internal political considerations.
Did Dermer’s plan include a role for the Palestinian Authority?
Not in the initial stage. We didn’t believe it was right — after so many months of war in which we paid such heavy prices — to transfer authority in Gaza to a corrupt body that would be incapable of managing it. It has yet to undergo the necessary reforms, and there was agreement between us and the Biden administration that any plan for the day after was conditioned on deep reform within the PA, though there wasn’t a definition of what that must consist of.
But I will say that a differentiation must be made between [working with] Palestinians in Gaza who may be affiliated in some way or another with the PA and giving the PA the tools — such as finances — to actually run Gaza.
My opinion was that Ramallah must not be allowed to make decisions regarding Gaza at this stage. But if there’s an individual in Gaza who might have this or that affiliation to the PA, I don’t think that’s a problem, so long as he’s vetted by the Shin Bet and not a terrorist.

That was your opinion, but was this the stance of the government back home?
There was an overabundance of caution on our part that led the government to reject anything that even smelled like the PA. This made discussions on the matter very difficult.
But wasn’t PA involvement the main condition for the support from Arab allies in the postwar management of Gaza?
It depended on which country you were talking to. For example, the Emiratis were no less insistent than we were about the need for reform in the PA. They were always telling us that they were scared that if the Palestinian Authority was involved in the decisions regarding Gaza, the PA would try to undermine every step that the UAE would try to take.
How much of the current situation — in which Hamas is the only party purporting to control Gaza after over a year of war — is due to the fact that Israel refused to properly plan for an alternative governing force to take over?
If you’re looking at what has happened in Gaza since the start of the war, I would distinguish between what Israel has succeeded in doing on the battlefield and what it has succeeded in doing politically.

I think Hamas has been dealt a serious blow to the point where it today cannot carry out another October 7. It’s not anywhere near where it was before.
Where we lagged behind was in the dismantlement of Hamas’s governing capabilities, and we’re seeing the result of this in the scenes coming out of Gaza today. Hamas is still strongly governing Gaza.
There was an overabundance of caution on our part that led the government to reject anything that even smelled like the PA. This made discussions on the matter very difficult
I don’t know if it was actually possible, in the middle of the war, to produce a viable alternative; but I do think we should have been a little more flexible and a little more proactive at an earlier stage to create a horizon for what Gaza could look like without Hamas in the day after. Unfortunately, political pressures in Israel certainly delayed the process.
I assume these pressures will pick up even more as we near the transition from phase one to phase two of the hostage deal.
Because on the one hand, Israel is saying that it won’t end the war as long as Hamas is still in power. Indeed, one of our war aims is to remove Hamas from power.

But in the eyes of Hamas and the rest of the world, phase two means the end of the war — which [ostensibly] means Hamas is still in power.
This is a major [dissonance] that will reach a boiling point in the coming weeks.
Do you think we’ll reach the second phase of the deal?
It’s hard for me to see how one reconciles what Hamas sees as phase two and what Israel sees as phase two if Hamas remains the ruler of Gaza after over 15 months of war.
If the decision is between continuing with the deal or continuing with the war, what would you advise Israel to choose?
If it was up to me, then I would’ve tried to reach a comprehensive deal at an earlier stage, rather than the staged agreement that we currently have.
I believe Israel will always be able to create the conditions for renewed fighting [against Hamas] after the hostages are returned home. I understand that this wasn’t politically viable in Israel, and it’s possible Hamas wouldn’t have agreed to it either because it may well view holding onto Israeli hostages as the only insurance policy left for remaining in power. Still, I thought it was the right thing to do to try and reach a comprehensive deal to bring everyone back [at once].

Given that we’re no longer in that situation, though, how would you recommend Israel proceed?
Now, the situation is a little more complex. Both the previous and the current administration provided assurances to Israel that if the negotiations regarding phase two are unsuccessful, we can renew [military] pressure against Hamas. I don’t know how much this administration will lean on Israel to move to phase two of the deal. It remains to be seen.
You mentioned the political pressures in Israel. Do you believe that political considerations influenced Netanyahu during the hostage talks as well?
I wasn’t in the room when these negotiations were taking place. My job had more to do with the ties between Jerusalem and Washington. I hear the voices saying that there were definitely political considerations that influenced [Netanyahu’s] decision-making on this matter. I’m not ruling that out.
But I’m also not sure whether there would have been a deal even if [Netanyahu] had been more forthcoming earlier on. Hamas is still the party on the other side.
The Biden administration avoided ever publicly blaming Netanyahu and always insisted that Hamas was the main obstacle to a deal, even if privately there was more recognition that Netanyahu was sometimes the main obstacle. Did they share this admission with you as well?
They put the bulk of the blame on Hamas — both publicly and privately. They indeed did not rule out [privately] that there were political pressures influencing Netanyahu, but the bottom line remained that even if [Netanyahu] ignored those political pressures and was more flexible regarding the Philadelphi Corridor or other issues, the question remains as to whether Hamas would have agreed to a deal.
I’ll give you an example: There was a shift in Hamas’s position in early July. This shift came after we carried out the operation in Rafah, and there was heavy [military] pressure on them —

— You could always say that military pressure was what brought Hamas to agree to a deal, but in the same regard, you could argue the opposite.
In the end, what brought Hamas to agree to the deal were two things: The first being that Hamas was convinced that Israel was being dragged toward a regional war, which would save [the terror group]. But after we hit Iran and dramatically did the same to Hezbollah in what led to the ceasefire agreement that cut off the linkage that [late Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah created between Lebanon from Gaza, Hamas understood that the region was fed up and that time was not working in its favor. This really pushed it to agree to a deal.
I hear the voices saying that there were political considerations influencing [Netanyahu’s] decision-making on this matter. I’m not ruling that out.
The second thing was the collaboration between the outgoing administration and incoming administration and the entry of Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff into the picture. They were very helpful in promoting the deal.
It was a combination of the military pressure and the fact that we had hit the Iranian axis so hard combined with the entry of the Trump administration, which worked together with the previous administration to bring about the deal.
That’s not an indictment against Biden that Witkoff, after one meeting with Netanyahu, managed to do what Biden couldn’t do in over a year of meetings and conversations?
I don’t want to file indictments against anyone. It’s a fact that the entry of Trump and Witkoff helped us cross the finish line.
You’re talking about pressure from Trump and Witkoff on both sides that helped secure the agreement — not just pressure on Hamas, right?
Every deal requires both sides to give and take, and Witkoff just worked the right way with both sides.

To be fair, the framework Witkoff followed was the same one that Biden presented last May, which itself was essentially an Israeli proposal. It was based on things discussed by Israel and the US, and then Biden took them to make his plan, but it essentially was an Israeli plan.
A year ago, you briefed me on Israel’s stance against dismantling UNRWA in the middle of the war. Since then, the Knesset passed a law — endorsed by the coalition — that does just that, barring the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel and barring Israeli authorities from any contact with UNRA officials in Gaza and the West Bank. Can you explain how the government’s thinking on this issue evolved?
We see three problems with UNRWA. The first problem is that it perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem. There are two UN agencies for refugees — one for Palestinians and one for the rest of the world, with different criteria for each due to political reasons.
The second problem is its education system, which incites against Israel. We saw their textbooks, and they haven’t changed.
The third problem is related to its involvement in humanitarian aid delivery in Gaza. It was the main agency dealing with the humanitarian situation in the Strip, with some 13,000 employees.
At the time, we said we didn’t want UNRWA to be the one filling this role, but if they were to stop immediately, it would cause a humanitarian crisis. We felt a transition process needed to be introduced during which alternative agencies could be stood up.
But then the Knesset passed this legislation and set an implementation deadline of 90 days. I believe this transition period is too short for making the necessary humanitarian adjustments and having other international agencies ready to step in and fill the void.
But this effort [to gradually phase out UNRWA] had already been happening over the past year. Unfortunately, the Biden administration did not cooperate fully enough in this effort, and the UN secretary-general actively worked against it. Hopefully, things will be different with the Trump administration.

In some areas, though, replacing UNRWA will remain a challenge that Israel must deal with. It’s currently a bit easier to handle because there’s a ceasefire and much more humanitarian aid is entering Gaza, but if we return to fighting, we will still have a problem.
What remains unclear to me is how Israel will handle this issue in Judea and Samaria, given that UNRWA operates a lot of the education system there. It’ll be a major challenge, and I have yet to see a well-organized Israeli plan for how to implement this legislation without significantly harming the existing situation there.
Do you want to touch on the protests you endured throughout the war outside your home and outside the embassy?
Immediately after the war in Gaza broke out, mass demonstrations began both outside the embassy and outside my home and subsequently outside the homes of many others. At one point, an American service member self-immolated outside of our embassy after shouting that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. From that day on, a permanent encampment was established right next to the entrance of the embassy, with the entire sidewalk taken up with Palestinian flags and signs against Israel. The protesters occupied the sidewalk and harassed, attacked or threatened anyone who entered or exited the embassy.

The staff was forced to enter the embassy in vehicular convoys every day as if we were in Afghanistan.
Every so often, there would also be mass demonstrations outside the embassy with hundreds or even 1,000 people.
There were also protests outside my home where people would shout “Genocide Mike” and other things of that nature. They’d harass the neighbors, poured red liquid on my car to symbolize blood — of course, no one was arrested. You could see [in footage] the Secret Service agents telling the protesters to just avoid pouring the liquid on them.
In one case, 800 protesters arrived in front of my home, and we hadn’t been tipped off about it. I had to rush to get my family out minutes before they arrived. It was very unpleasant.
All of our attempts to get the DC municipality and Secret Service to intervene did not succeed. We were always told it was a matter of First Amendment rights. I’d say, “Okay, but what about our rights? We have rights too.” But it didn’t help.
The protesters violated every DC municipal regulation that exists. The noise was unbearable. They used bullhorns and sirens, making it impossible to work or focus in the embassy.
I spoke to the mayor of DC, and I wrote to her, but nothing changed. Finally, after a few months, I wrote a very harsh letter to the State Department in which I accused the US government of violating the Vienna Convention, which requires it to provide basic services to embassies in order for them to function. A senior official in the State Department then took it upon himself to ensure that the protesters were pushed back beyond the sidewalk and that their encampment was dismantled. A “First Amendment Zone” was established and they were pushed back completely. But it took nearly seven months to handle this problem.

These protests were also taking place outside the homes of senior Biden administration officials.
The same people who demonstrated outside the embassy protested outside Blinken’s home. Eventually, they too were pushed back due to a directive from the governor of Virginia. [Blinken] also suffered through this. I know that his little kids for a period had to walk around their house with earplugs. But we were the main target.
Look at who was also targeted in the administration — it was mostly Jewish officials.
But the argument I made to US officials was that they were taking the First Amendment too far. There’s a balance between their rights and ours, which wasn’t met.
There was also a security concern that under the auspices of these demonstrations, there would be a physical attack against me or someone else at the embassy. This couldn’t be ruled out.
Turning to the judicial overhaul, how much tension did it place on the relationship between Israel and the United States?
It placed an enormous amount of tension on our ties. Israel and the United States have a special relationship. I really believe this. One of the pillars on which the relationship rests is the concept of shared values. There are other pillars — like the fact that we never ask the US to send soldiers to fight for us and that we defend ourselves by ourselves.
But the most fundamental pillar is the one about shared values and this is what differentiates the relationship that the US has with Israel from ties it has with other nondemocratic countries in the Middle East.
When the so-called judicial reform was launched, an impression formed in the US — because of the way that the reform was advanced, which was very far-reaching — and everyone saw the tension it caused in Israel — that Israel was eroding the notion that the US and Israel have shared values.
Then people began to say, “If that’s the case, then maybe the relationship is not that special.”
We received countless inquiries from both the Biden administration and from Jewish organizations regarding concerns over where Israel was heading and what the character of the state was going to be. Because the image that was emerging out of Israel was one of a sweeping attempt [by the government] to change [the judicial system in a manner] that did not have consensus support and that wasn’t done in an agreement or through dialogue.

Did the Biden administration and Jewish organizations abroad simply misunderstand what the Israeli government was trying to do?
The plan unveiled by the minister of justice [Yariv Levin] shortly after the government’s formation [in December 2022] was extremely far-reaching and it was very difficult to explain.
Later on, there were attempts by the government to engage in dialogue and soften the plan, but this wasn’t what it did initially. No matter how much people tried to explain it or argue that the reforms were aimed at making the Israeli judicial system more similar to the American one — which is not true.
While the desire for judicial reform was understandable, the way it was done harmed national unity, and sent the wrong message to our enemies and our friends.
An image was created of a threat facing Israeli democracy and by extension a threat to the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that put a lot of pressure on me.
The Biden administration tried to handle this quietly at first, but eventually also came out publicly against it.
Kamala Harris talked about it at the Independence Day event that you hosted in 2023.
What happened at the embassy’s [2023] Independence Day event was that [Religious Zionism MK] Simcha Rothman came, and because he was known as a leader of the judicial overhaul and we were worried that protesters would follow him, as had been the case in the past, I thought it was right to inform the vice president’s team that he would be in attendance, so there wouldn’t be any surprises.
Once she was notified, I wasn’t even sure if she’d come and address the event. But she did and she added a sentence to her remarks [stressing the importance of an independent judiciary]. But it wasn’t the main focus of her speech, which was a very good one.

Do you think the Biden administration handled the judicial overhaul correctly or did it go too far in its criticism of it?
It’s always a question of where you draw the line between expressing a principled position of concern about what’s happening inside a fellow democracy and interfering in the internal situation in Israel. They tried very hard to avoid doing the latter, but I think at some point, domestic pressure in the US began playing a role, and the administration felt it had to speak out more publicly.
I can say, though, that throughout the entire period, the demonstrations in Israel actually painted a picture of Israel as a vibrant democracy with hundreds of thousands of people participating in peaceful weekly protests.
While the desire for judicial reform was understandable and justified, the way in which it was done harmed national unity and sent the wrong message to our enemies and our friends alike. To our enemies, we were projected as weakened by an internal rift. And to our friends in the US, we were seen as eroding the shared values that make up a foundational pillar of our relationship.
If you recall, the White House also postponed a meeting with the prime minister for a very long time due to the judicial reform, and this created a lot of strain on the relationship.
There was even an effort by Netanyahu’s people to blame you for this.
There was an attempt by them to blame me as if it was because of me that there was no meeting, and not because of the judicial reform. People from his circle attacked me for this. In the end, a meeting was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2023, and at that meeting, Biden invited him to the White House.
At that point, we were very close to a breakthrough on a Saudi deal, but then the war broke out and changed everything.

Why do think we were on the verge of a breakthrough if Netanyahu hadn’t even begun to discuss the Palestinian component of the deal, which was arguably the most difficult part?
That’s true, but the whole atmosphere around us was that we were heading toward an agreement. It was set in motion. I can’t tell you in the end what the prime minister would have agreed to regarding the Palestinian issue, but there were already intentions to hold meetings in October (on the matter), and there was real momentum.
Analysts like to say that the price of the Palestinian component went up after October 7. Do you agree with that?
I agree that it has come up since the war, and I think the fact that we didn’t succeed in reaching a normalization deal during Biden’s tenure means that the price will go up further because two-thirds of the Senate will be needed to confirm the defense pact that Saudi Arabia is seeking to sign with the US. Now that Biden is not president, Democrats will raise their price for backing the deal. It’s also not certain that all Republicans will vote in favor. You’re going to need roughly 15 Democrats, and the Democrats that you’ll need are likely to raise the price of the Palestinian component.
You were appointed by the Bennett-Lapid government, but you stayed on for the Netanyahu government. What was it like representing a government that didn’t appoint you?
When Netanyahu was reelected he asked me to stay on. He could have replaced me, but he knew me. I had represented him in diplomatic negotiations in the past — both regarding the Palestinians and regarding Syria in addition to other issues.
He asked me to stay on and I agreed to do so. I felt like I was representing the country, and that’s how I operated during this time. In retrospect, I don’t regret having done so.
I also wanted to talk about the issue of bipartisan [support for Israel] because it’s a topic that’s very important to me, and I can’t say that it was always taken seriously in Israel.
The perception was created in America that Israel cares more about its connection with Republicans or Trump than it does about the connection with Democrats.
I worked very hard during my term to create relationships across the aisle, and I even did a bit of affirmative action with Democrats who had felt that no one in Israel cared about them or talked to them.
I didn’t talk to the extreme factions like the “Squad,” and I don’t think they wanted to talk to me or that they would listen to me. But apart from them, I talked to everyone, and it helped me in critical votes regarding Israel.

I’m worried that a belief may sink in now that the White House and both houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans that there isn’t a need to invest in maintaining bipartisan support for Israel. That would be a mistake because in two years, one of the houses could be controlled by the Democrats, and in four years, Democrats could win back the White House.
We must not be perceived as a partisan issue.
Just a few days ago, there was a vote in the Senate regarding sanctioning the ICC. Suddenly, you saw it become a partisan issue, despite the fact that there had been no small effort to reach a bipartisan agreement on the matter.
One of my proudest moments in this job was when Lindsey Graham unanimously passed a resolution in the Senate thanking me for my service. It received the support of all 100 senators, which is not an easy thing to do.
I worked very hard during my term to create relationships across the aisle and even did a bit of affirmative action with Democrats who had felt that no one in Israel cared about them or talked to them.
How accurate or fair is the perception in the US regarding Israel’s preferential treatment of Republicans?
In my dealings with our government, I received a blessing to try and make inroads with Democrats.
I think the perception that Israel prioritizes its ties with Republicans came about largely during the first Trump term due to the close relationship he had with Netanyahu. The perception made it seem like Israel was putting all of its cards in the Republican basket.
When I walked around Capitol Hill after starting this job, I was constantly told this by lawmakers, including senior members of the Democratic Party, and I’d have to insist that it wasn’t true.
Just before recess, I met this week with friends from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill to discuss a wide range of issues important to both our countries. Thank you for your friendship! ???????????????? pic.twitter.com/p7uFfQMx7x
— Ambassador Michael Herzog (@AmbHerzog) July 28, 2023
Now, no one in Jerusalem told me to invest only in ties with Republicans.
There was a point last year when Republicans invited Netanyahu [to address Congress on the war]. I told Prime Minister Netanyahu that it should be done with Democrats too, and he agreed.
In the end, [Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer kind of torpedoed the effort. He said he wanted to focus on getting the supplemental through. When I asked him to provide a later date that would work for him, he avoided giving an answer. He was trying to balance between the different factions within his party.
But he also gave a speech last year in which he called for early elections in Israel to replace Netanyahu.
Israel is a sovereign democracy. It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organization Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally. It is counterproductive to our common goals.
— Ambassador Michael Herzog (@AmbHerzog) March 14, 2024
We’ve spoken since that speech. He justified it and said he didn’t give me a heads-up because he knew I’d try to convince him not to do it. He later told me that he did what he had to do and I did what I had to do, but we had an argument about it.
Regardless, there are those in Israel — including some senior officials involved in the decision-making process — who believe [it’s best to prioritize ties with Republicans].
It is true that the bigger challenge for Israel comes from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. There are also challenges on the Republican side, from either the antisemitic or isolationist wings.
The hostility is still more felt from the Democratic side because it’s there in larger numbers.
Therefore, more work has to be invested in dealing with this. Part of our job is to advance the message that there is no contradiction between being pro-Israel and believing in progressive or liberal values.
As I said at our #Pride reception yesterday evening: “Every person is a human being created in the image of G-d. Therefore we are all entitled to dignity, freedom and respect.” Thank you @UnderSecStateJ @RepDWStweets @RepMarkPocan @HHS_ASH for joining us. ????????????️???????????? pic.twitter.com/q9i5uzWDVI
— Ambassador Michael Herzog (@AmbHerzog) June 30, 2022
What examples come to mind of when your ties with Democrats paid dividends?
There was a recent vote led by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen to impose an arms embargo against Israel. It was a very difficult fight. I spoke personally with many senators, and some of these conversations were very difficult, with them telling me Israel was committing war crimes. But in the end, they voted with us.
I met with Van Hollen and others and was attacked in all directions. I didn’t run away from the fight and some of them told me after that they appreciated my engagement with them.
How much has Israel’s image in the US been damaged by the war?
One of my conclusions from serving here is that the majority of the American public still supports Israel.
Despite all the noise and the protests — and there are many — the majority of the American public basically supports Israel and understands who the good and bad guys are.
But there was damage to Israel’s image because people who follow the media saw the sights of destruction in Gaza, which created an image of Israel exercising brutal force indiscriminately. This had to be dealt with all of the time — the issue of collateral damage and the claim that we’re not doing enough on the humanitarian file.
It was a tough fight in the public arena, without a doubt.

And how reversible is the damage that was done?
I think it’s reversible in the long term, but Israel will need to invest and think differently about the way it manages the war for hearts and minds. This is a parallel war alongside the one on the battlefield, and Israel is still unprepared to conduct this war effectively.
I think this whole phrase called hasbara is an archaic expression. What it should be called is strategic communications.
This is not about trying to explain in retrospect what we’ve done. The very fact that we use the phrase (hasbara) indicates a mindset that is not relevant to the reality we experienced here during the war.
If anyone thinks a daily press briefing by the IDF spokesman and other things that we did throughout the war were enough, then they are mistaken.
It should be another complete set of people tasked with this fight with funding and a strategy that is both proactive and reactive. We’re not built well for this, and I say that with all due respect to the people who do this very dedicated work on behalf of the State of Israel.
What was it like serving as ambassador at the same time that your brother was serving as president?
It didn’t affect me in any practical way. He is president. I was an ambassador. We have been used to this kind of situation for many years. When [my brother] was head of the opposition, I was representing Netanyahu in negotiations. At the time, he didn’t even know I was traveling on Netanyahu’s behalf. When Netanyahu (in his role as prime minister) briefed (then opposition chief Isaac Herzog) on these negotiations and my role in them, [my brother] was shocked. We always had a firewall between us regarding these things.

I remember you weren’t comfortable with the perception that you worked together with your brother to try and convince then-US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides to meet with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
It wasn’t true that I worked with my brother on this. He proposed the idea to Nides of holding a meeting with Smotrich. When I learned about this, I made the same suggestion — that instead of boycotting Smotrich, the administration try and talk to him. I thought it would be more productive for both countries — but it wasn’t as if I acted in coordination with my brother.
My job was to work with the prime minister and senior ministers of the government. The only time I worked with my brother was when he visited the US and we had to coordinate the trip.
What did you think of the Biden administration’s approach to Iran?
When I arrived, we had a situation where the Biden administration was rushing toward a deal. They wanted to return to the JCPOA [the nuclear deal with Iran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of action] and began an effort to resume discussions with Iran. We invested a lot of effort in trying to stop this because we felt that they would be returning to a very problematic deal, particularly because the JCPOA’s clock was continuing to tick toward the sunset clauses. We were entering a very problematic period where Iran’s breakout time was much shorter, making the conditions [for a deal] much worse.
In August 2022, the US effort to return to the deal ended, despite the efforts of people like [then US special envoy for Iran] Rob Malley.
What solidified the collapse was when the Iranians tried to cross a bridge too far by demanding that the US remove the IRGC [the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] from the US Foreign Terror Organization list.

This gave us an opportunity to fight the effort more effectively because it was seen as a bridge too far to take the most world’s effective state terror organization off this list as part of the effort to reach a deal. This was brought up for discussion with president Biden, who decided against it in the end.
The fact that our decision makers in Israel and I in the United States put this issue on the public agenda helped lead to the decision by Biden to drop the idea. We worked to mobilize American public opinion and Congress. People are less familiar with the details of the nuclear deal, but when you talk about a terror organization like the IRGC, it was easier to rally the American public against this.
The fact that we didn’t succeed in reaching a normalization deal during Biden’s tenure means that the price of the Palestinian component will go up further
Someone very senior in the Biden administration told us that our efforts were like a laser beam that hit the target.
From then on, the effort to revive the Iran nuclear deal fell from the agenda — even more after Russia invaded Ukraine, given the cooperation that developed between Russia and Iran. Many US officials told us that they couldn’t make a deal with Iran as long as it was helping Russia.
Was there something Israel wanted the US to do after it blocked the Iranian effort to delist the IRGC?
At this point, the Biden administration realized it could not return to the JCPOA, so it instead tried to reach a new understanding with Iran. It didn’t even call it a deal because if it said it was a “deal,” it would have to bring the agreement before Congress for its approval. So it instead sought to reach mini-agreements — what it called “understandings” through which Iran would freeze its accumulation of 60% enriched nuclear material, refrain from adding new centrifuges, and open up its nuclear facilities to more inspections. In return, the US would not add any new sanctions and potentially release frozen funds for Iran to use in humanitarian circumstances.
This effort advanced on a very, very limited basis, but that was all the administration succeeded in doing. It just sought to buy time and preserve the situation.
More broadly, there are two facets of the Iranian threat: the nuclear issue, which remains on the agenda because Iran is at a very dangerous point in its effort. This must be the focus for the US and Israel in the year ahead. We’re now in a much better position to push back against the Iranian nuclear program due to what we’ve managed to accomplish in this war.

The other facet of the Iranian threat that we tried to work against was its regional hegemony, but this ended up being largely dealt with within the framework of the war.
You mentioned your role in negotiating with the Assad regime in Syria on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s behalf. Do you think it was a mistake to try and strike a peace deal with the Assad regime, given the way things panned out?
Attempts to reach a deal with Syria began as early as Rabin’s tenure, with Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert making the same effort. The last attempt to strike a deal was at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. I had been part of the team negotiating on Netanyahu’s behalf, and the talks seemed serious. But then the so-called Arab Spring broke out, and everyone’s recommendation was that there was no point in continuing in those negotiations when there was an uprising taking place in Syria, so the talks stopped.

These talks were about an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, right?
Yes, that was absolutely part of the discussion, which also involved security arrangements, American guarantees and all sorts of related issues.
We didn’t reach a truly advanced stage in these negotiations because of the Arab Spring.
Netanyahu held these talks in 1998 through Ron Lauder and other individuals. And he picked it up again when he returned to the Prime Minister’s Office (in 2009).
Even though Netanyahu has long denied negotiating a potential Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Alright. But a withdrawal from part of the Golan Heights was definitely part of the discussion. There were very clear terms — Syria had to completely remove Iran and its proxies from any involvement in the country, establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and demonstrate openness to the West. There were all sorts of things that needed to happen for [the Israeli withdrawal to take place], and no one can tell you if this would’ve changed the reality or if it would have held up.
What’s next for you?
I’m planning on staying in the US for a short period. First of all — in order to rest and catch up on sleep.
Sleep without any disturbances from protesters.
Yes, yes.
It really was a very stormy period with very intense pressures. I doubt any other Israeli ambassador to the United States was forced to function in the face of such pressures from both sides.
Now I’m trying to figure things out, and I’m taking my time to plan my next move.

Responding to Herzog’s criticism, a former senior Biden State Department official told The Times of Israel:
Other than the 2,000-lb bombs, the administration didn’t delay any defense article nor did it delay the consideration of any defense articles for Israel. Full stop.
The way it worked was that in the immediate aftermath of October 7, the Biden administration worked to fulfill every open order that Israel had, which could be done very quickly. It was very efficient to fulfill any open order — anything that could be delivered from US stocks. Then when it came to new orders, the State Department would have to start over again and conduct a thorough review on how these items would be used — a slower process because you have to start it from the beginning.
The government of Israel had been used to everything going quickly while also not needing things immediately. No bureaucrat could stop these sales because President Biden — as Ambassador Herzog says — did not want these sales to stop. Therefore they moved forward.
Were there a range of views at the department about how to deal with with Gaza and how to deal with US support for Israel? Absolutely. But in the end, it was up to the secretary and the president, and that’s why any time a decision reached the secretary, he supported providing weapons to Israel.
On the emergency approvals, in particular, there were a number of criteria that we used. This was more of an informal policy on whether or not we should move forward with an emergency. We used this across the board, globally, including for Ukraine. There were two emergencies for Israel, both in December 2023. The criteria included the following questions: Were their stocks low on a particular item? Would moving the item get there quickly enough to make a difference? Can we do this a different way?

On the bulldozers, we had questions about how they would be used, but the Israelis told us that this was not a priority and that they were going to focus on other things that they felt were moving too slowly. If the bulldozers were not a priority for them, they would not be a priority for our consideration because we had outstanding questions about them anyway.
To give him some credit, [Ambassador Herzog] did work a lot on this. They were very frustrated when things were not moving as quickly as they were in the immediate aftermath of October 7, and I think it was just a lack of understanding of how our process worked because things were able to move so quickly before. The contrast was so stark between just fulfilling an order when had already gone through the process and starting anew.
Typically with Israel, they are starting their processes years in advance. They’re not a typical partner. They know exactly what they want when they negotiate their memorandum of understanding 15 years before it ends.
- Israel & the Region
- Israel-US relations
- US aid to Israel
- Iran's nuclear program
- Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA
- Iran nuclear deal
- Isaac Herzog
- Michael Herzog
- Benjamin Netanyahu
- Israeli judicial overhaul
- Bezalel Smotrich
- Itamar Ben Gvir
- 2023-2025 Israel-Hamas war
- hostage deal
- Hamas hostages
- Joe Biden
- Donald Trump
- Antony Blinken
- anti-Israel protests
- Biden administration
- UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency
- Democratic Party
- Republican Party
- US State Department