Quotes from Michael B. Oren

His pervasive belief in the power of words, instilled by his legal studies, reminded me of the ancient Aramaic incantation "Abracadabra," meaning "I speak therefore I create.

he would be met not only with the united strength of the Arab countries but also with strong opposition from the Soviet Union and all peace-loving peoples.

Israel owed some measure of its success to the Arabs, to their hostility that helped galvanize an otherwise factious society.

Fortunately, as Jews, we were never short of excuses for entertaining. Most Jewish holidays, an old joke goes, can be reduced to nine words: "They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat.

Employ hindsight but humbly, remembering that life and death decisions are made by leaders in real-time, and not by historians in retrospect.

Who was the only U.S. president with less managerial, military, financial, and foreign policy experience than the current one?" Netanyahu, though a proficient historian, looked stumped by the answer: "Abraham Lincoln.

The USSR indeed had nothing more to gain from Zionism—the British empire was dying—and everything to gain in terms of placating the new, post-colonial governments, securing its vulnerable southern border, and threatening the West's oil supplies.

History is not just a flat chronicle of events. History is an understanding of the forces that work, the values that shape present action and direct the future. If you have that knowledge, you are empowered in ways that you can't get by watching the nightly news or reading the morning editorials. We live in an ahistorical age when many people's memories go back to breakfast, but if you're armed with that insight you have immense power for good.

That combination, perhaps, deterred me from telling Netanyahu the most difficult truth of all. Simply: that he had much in common with Obama. Both men were left-handed, both believed in the power of oratory and that they were the smartest men in the room. Both were loners, adverse to hasty decision making and susceptible to a strong woman's advice. And both saw themselves in transformative historical roles.

My friends, you don't need to do nation building in Israel. We're already built. You don't need to export democracy to Israel. We've already got it. And you don't need to send American troops to Israel. We defend ourselves.

In America, though, where less than half of a percent of the population volunteers for the armed forces, the gap between the military and civilian cultures can be glaring.

One night of strategic bombing will restore all your lost prestige in the Middle East

Perhaps more than the prospect of an Iranian bomb, I realized early in my term, Obama feared the impact of a preemptive Israeli strike.

This is the Middle East, George, where one-sided concessions don't build trust. They build the demand for the next concessions.

Before terminating at the Berlin Wall, the front in the Cold War ran through the hellish jungles of Vietnam to the oases and deceptively idyllic dunes of the Middle East.

Portentously, one of Obama's first acts on entering the White House was to replace a bust of Winston Churchill, America's unflagging World War II ally, with that of Abraham Lincoln. Netanyahu reentered the Prime Minister's Office and promptly hung Churchill's photograph on the wall behind his desk.

The younger the Jews, statistics showed, the shallower their religious roots.

The tour of the amusement park–like campus included a chat with Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. I shared with him Israel's concerns about Google Earth, the global mapping program, which terrorists had used as a targeting device. Google Earth, Schmidt explained, was designed to bring people closer together. "Yes," I acknowledged, "but does it have to bring Hezbollah closer to my children?

The problem with the "no daylight on security but daylight on diplomacy" tactic was that, in the Middle East, it did not work. Unlike in the West, where security is measured in tanks, jets, and guns, security in this part of the world is largely a product of impressions. A friend who stands by his friends on some issues but not on others is, in Middle Eastern eyes, not really a friend. In a region infamous for its unforgiving sun, any daylight is searing.

an "ominous" figure suggestive of "pestilence and war.

The notion of the need to revise America's global role, to palliate Islam, and achieve diplomatic distance from Israel had become conventional by the time I arrived in Washington.