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Michael Oren: What Zelensky Can Learn from Netanyahu
Michael Oren: What Zelensky Can Learn from Netanyahu
Barack Obama meets with Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C, on May 20, 2011. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
When Bibi collided with Obama in 2011, Rahm Emanuel pounded my chest and barked: ‘Your [expletive] prime minister cannot come into the [expletive] White House and [expletive] lecture the president!’
By Michael Oren
03.03.25 — U.S. Politics
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Michael Oren: What Zelensky Can Learn from Netanyahu

TEL AVIV — On May 20, 2011, inside the Oval Office and before the cameras, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured President Barack Obama. During a period of almost daily crises in U.S.-Israel relations, the incident was the closest the two countries came to a total breakdown.

I was then Israel’s ambassador to the United States and had a ringside seat to the clash. It left a deep impression on me, underscoring the importance of interpersonal relationships in the shaping of foreign policy. It taught me the degree to which the leader of a small and dependent state can publicly challenge the head of a patron superpower. And it showed me the crucial need to correctly read the geopolitical map—to know what “cards” a country like Israel does and does not hold.

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Michael Oren
Historian, Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Former MK and Deputy Minister for Diplomacy, New York Times bestselling author, writer of the Substack 'Clarity,' and founder of the Israel Advocacy Group
Tags:
Politics
International
Israel
Ukraine
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