Episode 53. The US & Israel: From the Road Map to Today with General Paul Selva and Ambassador Luis Moreno

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:13] From the American Academy of Diplomacy, this is the General and the Ambassador. Our podcast brings together senior US diplomats and senior US military leaders to talk about how they partnered in facing a major international crisis or a challenge affecting US national security. I am Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host of the series. Today we will focus on the US security relationship with Israel. Our guests are General Paul Selva and Ambassador Luis Moreno. General Selva recently retired as the 10th vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position he assumed in 2015. He was nominated to that position by President Obama and renominated for another two years by President Trump. Just prior, he served as the commander of the US Transportation Command. A native of Mississippi, General Selva served 39 years in the US Air Force, holding numerous staff positions and commanding at the Squadron group wing and headquarters level. Ambassador Moreno most recently served as the US ambassador to Jamaica. His other senior diplomatic assignments include being deputy Ambassador in Madrid, in Tel Aviv and in Port au Prince, Haiti. He also served as political military counselor and director of the Force Strategic Engagement Cell in Baghdad. He also has an extensive background in counter-narcotics. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining our podcast. I'm really looking forward to talking about managing the complicated security relationship between the United States and Israel. We also want to talk about your views based on your long careers, on the relationship between our senior military and diplomatic leaders. You both clearly hit it off when you worked together. When I spoke to Ambassador Moreno about coming on the program, he immediately thought of you. General Selva. So my first question is, how did you meet and how did you build your partnership?

Gen. Selva: [00:02:14] When I joined the Joint Staff, I was given a duty as the Roadmap monitor for what was then the roadmap for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a product of the Bush administration. Ambassador Moreno was the deputy chief of mission in Tel Aviv and by an administrative miracle, was also the Deputy Roadmap Monitor. So think of a situation where the monitor of this complex roadmap is stationed in Washington, DC and spends a week every month in Israel and on the West Bank. And his deputy is the person in residence in Tel Aviv that sort of manages the day to day work of a handful of members of the Econ bureau and the political bureau, both in Tel Aviv and at our consulate in Jerusalem, to observe and report on the conduct of both parties with respect to the roadmap and then once a month, this three star from Washington DC would parachute in and go visit and assess the performance of both parties, the Israelis and the Palestinians, with respect to the roughly 26 mutual agreements that they made as a part of the roadmap. So that's how Ambassador Moreno and I came to know one another.

Amb. Moreno: [00:03:35] General Selva was just such an adaptable guy because there were all these strange undercurrents. For instance, the relationship between the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consul general in Jerusalem. They had separate lines of command. We were not their bosses by any means. We were not their supervisors. And we kind of reflected our relationship with the Israelis and the consulate general and Jerusalem kind of reflected the relationship with the Palestinian Authority. And it would get very complex and sometimes it would get very heated and complicated. And I often said and I think I told the general this on several occasions, the toughest diplomatic challenges in my career and the toughest negotiations were not necessarily with the foreign country, but with my own colleagues and the consulate general in Jerusalem. For instance, if the General and I were going to check on a bunch of, let's say, checkpoints on the West Bank or settlement activity, sometimes I couldn't go because the West Bank was the purview of the consulate general in Jerusalem. And if they were nice to me, they might let me tag along with the General Selva. But if not, there were times where I kind of got kicked off trips into the West Bank and checking out Palestinian Authority stuff. Same thing for meetings. Would I go in when General Selva was talking to one of the ministers in the Palestinian Authority? No, I generally was not invited to that, kind of a tit for tat thing. Sometimes we'd let the guy from the consulate general into a meeting with the Israelis, but the Israelis really weren't too big on that. On having guys from the consulate general sit in on meetings with the General and myself. So it was just a very unique, challenging dynamic that we had going on and the General was great because he's dealing with the US embassy in Tel Aviv. He's dealing with the US consulate general in Jerusalem and trying to the Israelis and the Palestinians and it really was really complicated dynamic to keep all those balls in the air.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:05:24] Well, I'm going to ask you more about that relationship between the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem. But before that, Ambassador Moreno, you arrived in Tel Aviv in 2007, which was the last year of the Bush administration. And General, you mentioned the roadmap. At that time, the US was still pursuing what is called a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In simple terms, this was the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and the roadmap which was developed, was endorsed and adopted by the European Union, Russia and the UN. The Secretary State at the time, Condoleezza Rice, traveled frequently to the region to move the process along. There was a big conference in Annapolis, but no agreement was reached. So I want to start with you. Can you give us a sense of what this shuttle diplomacy was about?

Amb. Moreno: [00:06:16] Well, I have to say it was one of the most amazing experiences I've had in my career. You could see Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice kind of evolve as the process went on. So by the end of the administration, she really was absolutely determined to go 100 miles an hour and try to get something done. She was coming back and forth every few weeks. Her thinking evolved and it became a time towards the last couple of months when she came when she picked up at the airport that she would go by various Israeli checkpoints where there were lines of Palestinians waiting to come in. And she said she wanted to see that it would remind her of her childhood in Alabama when, you know, segregation was at its height. And then the Israelis would say, no, we don't want you to take that route from the airport to the embassy. You have to take this route. And so that became a whole series of very complicated negotiations. She was so determined to make this happen. I remember she agreed to see the country team one day. This is towards the end. She's kind of a shy person in real life. She's not outgoing type of person. And she sat us down.

Amb. Moreno: [00:07:20] She started asking individual country team members, How old are you? And I'd say 52. You know, I think I was about 51 or so, you know, how old are you? And she said you guys would be the youngest guys in the Palestinian Authority because most of them are like 70 something years old. This is our last chance, guys. This is our last chance to be able to have two independent states side by side in security. She even brought President Bush there towards the end and she was engaged until the last minute. She was at Camp David for the last weekend of the Bush administration. And we had the offensive going on in Gaza. And I called, I said, Madam Secretary, you need to call these Israelis and let us get the dual Palestinian US citizens out of harm's way and transported between Gaza through Israel into Jordan, over land that had never been done before. They never let Palestinians transit from Gaza to Jordan. And because of her personal intervention with the prime minister, that happened. So I've never seen someone as engaged and active and really trying to try real hard to get something done. And unfortunately, as you pointed out, it fell short.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:08:27] In your views, what were the major obstacles at that time to an agreement?

Amb. Moreno: [00:08:32] Final status of Jerusalem was one. The right of return was another, settlements was another, border was another, borders was another thing. So we had all these four things to work on and, you know, both sides were pretty fairly entrenched. And our job as the roadmap monitors was to try to make things tactically or on the ground as positive as we could so that the larger two state solution could go ahead. But there are just so many things to overcome, so many. And then, of course, we lost ground over the past four years when we did away with the consulate general in Jerusalem. We just had the Palestinian affairs part of the political section in the embassy in Jerusalem. That's been changed. And there will be another consulate general now and dealing with the Palestinian Authority. So it's a tough road.

Gen. Selva: [00:09:20] There are a couple of things that are prone to misunderstanding that are useful to sort of lay out the right and left limits of how I ended up in the middle of all this as a general officer on the Joint Staff when the meeting at Annapolis happened and the parties finalized the roadmap to peace, it was actually an outline of how they would move from the status quo to a two state solution. It was actually intended as a real roadmap based on a variety of other previous agreements, not the least of which was the Oslo Accords, which gave Palestinian Authority a larger amount of autonomy in its own dealings with its citizens. And so that was an agreement, and it had an outline. I recall about 26 things that the parties agreed to do together and independently the role of the Roadmap monitor and how Luis and I came to become colleagues and friends was assessing the performance of the parties against that specific set of agreements. They spanned economic accommodation, settlements. They did not address right of return. They did not address final status of borders, final status of Jerusalem. But they went a long way to establishing a more safe and secure environment for the Palestinians to flourish in and to address the security needs of Israeli citizens residing in settlements on the West Bank and in settlements in Jerusalem without judgment on whether or not those citizens would at some point ultimately have to move back to Green Line Israel or remain on the West Bank.

Gen. Selva: [00:11:05] That whole set of tensions existed through the balance of the Bush administration, with Secretary Rice making a real attempt to move the roadmap forward, to get to some resolution and the Palestinians being hopeful of a two state solution. There are some reasonably insoluble problems embedded in all of those agreements. The fact that they didn't address settlements, the fact that they didn't address the final status of East Jerusalem, the fact that they did not address in some way the argument the Palestinians make for right of return, put these impediments in front of the roadmap that prevented it from being successful in the background. The reason the Roadmap Monitor came to be is when the agreement was finalized and the guarantees were made by both sides. I think there was a bit of buyer's remorse. This is really hard. Somebody's going to have to do something to compel us to be successful. And so the solution that was arrived at was, well, then we'll have a monitor. Well, who will that monitor be? Well, it must be someone that the secretary of state trusts and knows well. It must be someone that she is willing to recommend to the president for the delegation of that duty. It was reasoned at the time that it should be a person in uniform because the bulk of the guarantees, while there were economic, political and settlement guarantees, they were security guarantees, how the security services would work with one another.

Gen. Selva: [00:12:43] So as a consequence, what happened was the assistant to the chairman, who happens to be the military advisor to the secretary of State, was the most recognizable uniformed officer who could be brought to this particular duty. So my predecessor was appointed without ceremony as the Roadmap monitor, and then about ten months later he moved on to another job. I moved into the position and the very first discussion I had with Secretary Rice was not about being her military adviser and her liaison to the Joint Staff. It was about the duties of the Roadmap monitor that I would be assuming as I moved into that new position. To your point, Ambassador, there was an agreement, but the agreement wasn't a final definition of a two state solution. It was a process by which that might be made possible and it still exists on paper. It is still an agreement between the two countries brokered by the United States. The question is the willingness to go down that path or not. And what the last probably eight years, not four years of history have done to the potential to actually arrive at that two state solution.

Amb. Moreno: [00:13:51] Keep in mind that this roadmap came as a result of how to deal with things after the Second Intifada, in which there was a tremendous amount suicide bombings and all sorts of terroristic acts. One of the things that actually has worked with the roadmap and worked very well has been, as the general said, the economic portion. There was a philosophy that if the Palestinian Authority could really promote a healthy Palestinian economy, people would be less inclined to do things that would put their. And they really did. It managed to establish a Palestinian middle class to a great extent. But I remember one thing the general did one day that was, you know, actually contributed greatly to this. And we were looking at certain checkpoints in the West Bank, and the general saw that there was one checkpoint which was very redundant and which was preventing Palestinian farmers to get their product to the port. And we had a very I don't know if you remember a very heated conversation with the IDF was kind of looking where the exit was, you know, in the back of my head. And the general explained, hey, you know, we're here to do this to make sure that the economy, the economic development and this checkpoint that you guys put here is redundant and is preventing people from getting their products. I think it was to the port, if I'm not mistaken, to it, to a port area that actually worked out. So there was an example where the roadmap monitors or monitoring, in this case the general. Actually made that happen. That was a very positive contribution to economic development on the West Bank.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:15:19] Well, I wanted to shift to the shift that seemingly occurred when President Obama came into office in 2009. His first trips to the region were not to Israel but to Turkey and to Egypt. But the US was still pursuing a two state solution and appointed former Senator George Mitchell to become special envoy. The US also helped set up some direct talks in the fall of 2010. Now you were both in senior positions during the change of administration. Can you each talk about this shift in approach and what it meant in terms of our US diplomatic and military engagement with Israel?

Gen. Selva: [00:15:55] I think what you saw was a shift not in substance, but in theme. The activities on the ground in Israel and collaterally on the West Bank were not substantially changed by the sort of change in theme. The Obama administration believed that having a special envoy would give status and real meaning to the roadmap and the eventual two state solution, and bringing in Senator Mitchell, who had proven himself in Ireland as a consensus builder and truly a peacemaker, was viewed as a potential avenue to carry on a parallel set of negotiations and talks that would bring both parties together and also sustain the emphasis on the roadmap that would enable him to do that work. And so he made multiple trips to the region. I was with him. I accompanied him on his first few trips, and then he and I actually mutually agreed that there needed to be a degree of separation between the monitoring of the roadmap and the management of the negotiations. I shouldn't be viewed as a facilitator of negotiations and a party to those negotiations because I had this independent role to play as the Monitor. But the report that I produced every month in cooperation with both the embassy and the Consular General's office in Jerusalem, was transmitted directly to the Secretary. A copy went to the consular general and the ambassador in Tel Aviv, and an additional copy went to Senator Mitchell and his team so they could incorporate as real time as possible reporting on activities into their discussions with diplomats and representatives of both sides. And so that I think what you saw was a change in theme, the theme being more of an engagement with the broader Middle East as opposed to a focus on our special relationship with Israel. But I don't think it was a major shift in the activities on the ground and the actual conduct of our processes.

Amb. Moreno: [00:18:07] What I noticed two points I was the acting ambassador, I was the chargé during the months before the election, both candidates, both Senator McCain and then Senator Obama came to Israel. And the difference, by the way, they were received not only by the government but by people. John McCain was a folk hero. He was I mean, we had crowd control problems. We had all sorts of issues because people wanted to talk to him, to reach out, to touch him. He's a real hero. Senator Obama? Not so much. There was a fair amount of hostility to Barack Obama when he became president. And I think that he played a very good card when he did not visit Israel, but instead he sent Vice President Biden a very good move. So we had that dynamic to deal with the amount of hostility, faxes we would get, the messages and letters we would get protests outside the embassy were really remarkable. And some of it was very nasty, I have to say. The other thing I noticed is that Washington centric, the policy making became much more Washington centric. You had Senator Mitchell and he would come and do his thing, but it seemed like Washington was much more driving the train than the diplomatic forces that were down on the ground. So that was also a big difference. So I'd say those were the two big differences, the perceived hostility towards President Obama himself and the more Washington centric approach to things. You know, General Selva had a great because he was a Washington guy, but he was also on the ground. So he had to be a really skillful diplomat and having one foot in each lane.

Gen. Selva: [00:19:40] I think that observation about the shift in policy making was probably one of the key observations about the differences between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. And I think that goes a little bit to the personalities of the secretaries of state, but also to the mechanisms in the West Wing. And in both cases, they are actually interesting intersections of one another. The Bush administration was more of an outward looking administration. Bringing the experts help us. To understand the issues and then we will develop the policies that address those issues. And as a consequence, I think they were much more inclusive, particularly of our missions overseas. Although it's not a negative comment, the Obama administration was actually more inward looking. They brought to the table their own experts. Most of the people that were in government were viewed to be expert in their fields, and as a consequence, they were less inclusive of the outside opinions of the diplomats in the field. There's a palpable feel of that shift in all of the embassies and I visited. One of the benefits of my job was not only did I go to Israel once a month, but whenever the secretary of state traveled, I was on her travel party. And so I was the guy in uniform that was always with the secretary. I got to visit embassies all over the world, both with Secretary Rice and with Secretary Clinton. And what Ambassador Moreno points out is this very palpable feel of that shift in sort of I'll use the words, the intellectual balance of the two administrations in the one case, very inclusive and in the other case a little more introspective. As you watch transitions in government, those are things that are very telling about the way presidents and their close in staffs make decisions.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:21:37] Well, I wanted to turn now to the issue of Iran. Both Israel and the US share common concerns about Iran and its nuclear ambitions. We've had our differences, however, in assessments of Iran's capabilities, and we've urged Israel to refrain from direct military attacks on Iran. Israel opposed the agreement reached under President Obama, the JCPOA, and welcomed President Trump's May 2018 withdrawal. Can you both talk a little bit about managing the issue of Iran with Israel? How were you as diplomatic and Department of Defense JCS engagement coordinated?

Gen. Selva: [00:22:13] I'll start because it's not my job where I met Ambassador Moreno, but because of my previous job as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There are several levels of coordination with the Israeli government that address our mutual understanding of what's going on in Iran. And they all have to happen sort of in coordination with one another. Obviously, there's diplomatic and intelligence community engagement, both at the State Department as well as our intelligence agencies and then inside of the Department of Defense. There's a series of engagements, both uniformed and civilian, with the policy makers in Israeli government and with the decision makers, the military leaders on the Israeli defense forces. And those are very carefully orchestrated, as you might expect, because of several things that are quite unique to the Israelis. And I'll use an anecdote. It would be very rare, in fact, almost unheard of when I would visit Israel as the roadmap monitor that the Israeli delegations didn't have all of their answers to questions I might ask previously coordinated. And if I phrased the question in a way that might cause them to answer differently than their colleagues in another part of the Israeli government, the conversation would instantly transition from English to Hebrew. I don't speak a word of Hebrew.

Gen. Selva: [00:23:37] I've learned how to say yes, No, and thank you. But other than that, I do not speak a word of Hebrew. But I would watch as the conversation shifted and just watch the body language. And if I was not satisfied that I was going to get an actual answer to my question, I would stop the meeting and simply state that I would be back in a month. And I would have observed the behavior was asking questions about or would come back and ask the same question. And for a few of those engagements, my counterparts on the Israeli side thought that I spoke Hebrew. I saw the same dynamic on the West Bank. The the less organized the organs of the Palestinian Authority in their security services very carefully coordinated the answers to the questions they thought was going to ask. And so when we engage with members of the Israeli policymaking and military leadership as our counterparts, we in the United States have to do something that's actually not natural, which is coordinate to make sure that we're getting the kinds of questions we want on the table asked at every level so we can compare what we get as the coordinated answer and figure out what's in our best interests.

Gen. Selva: [00:24:52] This is a relationship. But in the end, our foreign policy ought to be what's in the interests of the United States. Our military policy and our military strategies and tactical actions ought to follow that very same guideline. And so it's very difficult when engaging with particularly Israeli counterparts when they come in at multiple levels. You have the military attaché in Washington, you'll have the ambassador, you'll have a policy person and generally a visitor from Israel all at the same time hitting multiple places in the US government to make their case on whatever the issue is they're bringing to the table. And we all have to be on the same page. That's not natural for us. That process of having pre-coordinated answers to questions that we know that a delegation is going to bring normally we all sit around the table and it would be a uniform person, a representative from the State Department, from the office that might be being visited by Israelis simultaneously or any other foreign government. And that representative is supposed to be the synchronizer. We actually had to be very deliberate about synchronizing the messages and the questions and answers, particularly with respect to Iran, because it had such significant impact on our foreign policy.

Amb. Moreno: [00:26:05] I think that I can answer the question by telling you a story about Syria. I arrived the first week of September in 2007 and that first week of September in 2007, around midnight. And the phone rings and it was someone from the embassy telling me that the Israelis had struck the Syrian nuclear facility in Syria, but that I couldn't tell anyone about it. I couldn't even tell the State Department about it. I could tell absolutely nobody about it know. So I put the embassy on alert, got ready. Maybe we had to evacuate people, all sorts of contingency plans. Mr. Assad did not pull the trigger, didn't even acknowledge that it happened. He took a step back. The air raid was successful and destroyed the Syrian nuclear facility, suspected alleged nuclear facility. Well, that didn't become public until much, much later. But I had calls from the operations center. I had calls from INR, intelligence and research bureau. I had calls from everybody asking me about these reports, these alleged reports that this really happened. What happened? Obviously, on some level, the US government must have known this was going to happen. At least I hope so. We did not have any word in the embassy and this was kind of a shocking thing to have happen. But sometimes with Israel things are worked on on a different level. And this is a perfect example. The Iranian thing that you ask about. We knew that the Israelis had their point of view and we would in the embassy say, hey, no, guys should really think about this and so on and so forth. But we knew that any decision on that was going to come from somewhere else and not by the embassy speaking with intelligence services or with the foreign Ministry or even with the Prime Minister, we knew that that was being talked about at entirely different level.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:27:45] Under the Trump administration, there was a pivot from a two state solution towards actions that Israeli positions vis-a-vis Palestine. The US recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the embassy there. You mentioned earlier, Luis, the tension that has existed between our embassy in Tel Aviv and our consulate and how they had different mandates, can you give us your sense of what the implications are for the recognition of Jerusalem, the capital and the move of the embassy?

Amb. Moreno: [00:28:16] Enormous. I know that Bibi Netanyahu is very pleased with that decision and the Palestinian Authority was aghast. The status of Jerusalem was one of the big issues as far as reaching any type of final decision. The Biden administration is now not going to move the embassy, I believe, out of Jerusalem. It's not really a new embassy. By the way. They just took over the consulate general facilities. Like I said, things were covered by a part of the political section called the Palestinian Affairs section or whatever. But it was kind of like under the political section when before you had an entire structure reporting to Washington, the consulate general of Jerusalem that had relationships with the Palestinian Authority and also support for the Palestinian security force. Voices. That was crucial. As excruciating as the process was, everything had to be approved by the IDF. I remember even t shirts that we were given to the Palestinian security forces had to have Hebrew tags. I know General recalls that that was a big deal, being able to have ambulances operate in East Jerusalem by the Green Crescent was another issue that took. I worked that one for like a year and a half personally before it happened. All these things, what type of weapons you can give to the Palestinian security forces.

Amb. Moreno: [00:29:27] They had to have ammunition that could not penetrate IDF body armor, things like that. And it's excruciatingly painful and long to negotiate all these things. Even having a consulate general with direct access to the Palestinian authorities that report separately to Washington. You can imagine without it how complicated things are. I mean, it would be almost impossible. So by cutting off the Palestinian Authority, cutting off assistance to the Palestinian security forces, I really thought it was a really negative thing because the Palestinian security forces are key to preventing extremism in the West Bank and to preventing people from Hamas penetrating to the West Bank and raising all sorts of problems. Many times the Palestinian security forces are in the uncomfortable position of actually arresting some of their own people going into refugee camps at night, pulling people out. And everyone will accuse them of being traitors and this, that and the other thing. But as long as the Palestinian security forces had in their long vision to long range things, to see that they will one day have a Palestinian state, autonomous, independent, safe Palestinian state, they had the motivation to do it. You take that motivation away by saying you guys are not anything that really is demoralizing and a very, to me, a very negative thing.

Gen. Selva: [00:30:46] I would add to that, the notion of hope for a future state was the sustaining fuel for the Palestinian security services. One of my first visits to the region as the Roadmap monitor was to a police training academy where a class of Palestinian police officers was being trained to engage with Palestinian citizens. And the things they were being taught are the kinds of things you and I would expect to be taught in a police academy here in the United States. Loyalty, honesty, integrity. The idea that guns would not be allowed on the streets because guns should be in the hands of law enforcement. So the idea of a Palestinian police officer confiscating a weapon from a Palestinian citizen was unthinkable at the end of the second intifada, when I observed Palestinian police officers doing their daily tasks, it was routine, but every detail of how they did their work was negotiated and pre-agreed with the Israeli Defense Forces, specifically with the coordinator of civil activities on the West Bank. And if he, as a general officer in the Israeli Defense Forces did not agree, they couldn't do their work. If the commander of the Israeli Central Command, which commands all of the military forces on the West Bank, didn't agree, the Palestinians couldn't do their work. So that process of detailed negotiation was built in at the front end. The new policy of being more Israeli centric and of cutting off the support for the Palestinian security forces actually puts that question of whether or not a future state is even possible front and center on the table. The best anecdote I can share with you was sitting down at a table with a mayor in the city of Nablus and having a conversation about security of the city and the economic success of the city, which in his view, were intermingled.

Gen. Selva: [00:32:53] And he didn't speak a word of English and of course, don't speak a word of Arabic. So the interpreter was a young lady in her mid 20. She was doing a masterful job of translating in both directions. I know that because the individuals sitting next to me was fluent in Arabic and was taking copious notes. But at one point in the conversation I asked the mayor if I could have a conversation with the translator, and he said, "Oh, please." I asked her what was different about the West Bank since the roadmap, and she looked at me and she said, "I feel comfortable going out on the street. I don't fear for my life. I don't fear for being taken. I can interact as a citizen in the city of Nablus," At which point the mayor invited me to lunch. And much to the chagrin of the security detail that was with me, he and I agreed that we would walk the quarter mile from his office to the restaurant in full view of the Palestinian security forces, which were given the duty of making sure that I was secure for my 2 or 3 hour long visit in Nablus. That kind of anecdote played out over and over and over again on the West Bank. And I think the concern I have about shifting to a very Israeli centric view of how to solve this problem is if we ignore the aspirations of the Palestinian citizens on the West Bank, we do that at the peril of any reasonable solution in the future.

Amb. Moreno: [00:34:18] Settlements have increased tremendously. The Israeli Netanyahu's been in power for now how many years? I mean, it's the longest standing prime minister. He now does not have the Trump administration backing up this lack of two state solution statements. Biden administration, I can assure you that they will push again for the two state solution a path forward. This puts Netanyahu in a very difficult position because he's not really advanced that at all. There's been an emphasis, again, that I mentioned before about economic development, and they're banking on the fact that people who follow the one state solution or the no state solution is that the Palestinian middle class that has developed over the years will not be interested in pursuing the political agenda as much as keeping their economic positions. That's been somewhat successful in a way, that type of approach.

Gen. Selva: [00:35:08] I think in that same line of thinking, if the two state solution is unachievable. Right. If there's no way to return to civil conversation about a potential two state solution, then we have to ask ourselves, what is the alternative? And I think the Israeli leadership has to ask itself, what is the alternative? Can we persist in an environment where all of the Palestinians who live on the West Bank are essentially dispossessed? They have no state to give allegiance to. Their government doesn't actually represent them and their economy functions at the whim of their Israeli benefactors. What does that look like 10 or 20 years from now? And on the flip side of that same conversation, if we go to a one state solution, what happens to the population of the West Bank that are Palestinian? Do they become members of the Israeli political system? Do they join Israel as citizens of Israel? And if so, what does that do to the demographic of Israel? And what would Israel look like if she opened her arms to one and a half, 1.8 million Palestinians who live on the West Bank and made them part of Israel? There are Israeli citizens who are ancestrally Palestinian. They never left Israel when it became Israel.

Gen. Selva: [00:36:33] They didn't leave the Palestinian mandate. They became Israeli citizens. There are Israeli Arabs that vote that are represented in the Knesset that are part of the Israeli polity. What would Israel look like? And I think that's a question Israel has to ask herself. It's not one we can ask, But in the absence of a potential two state solution, what is the alternative? And I don't see the Abraham Accords or any other negotiated discussion or managed discussion about the future of Israel includes what the place will look like in the absence of a two state solution. We can argue about what that solution looks like. Does it have right of return? Does it address East Jerusalem? Does it really meaningfully address borders? All those things? But if we don't, at its core, look at the strategic question of what does the world look like? What does Israel look like in the absence of a two state solution? We're actually missing the entire question. So I think that's the one that's sort of the undercurrent. And as you look at the Abraham Accords, even the normalization of relations with people like the UAE and Bahrain, the Emirates and Bahrain asked Israel to not void its claim, but quiet its claim to the right to settlements on the West Bank and to at least mute that a little bit.

Gen. Selva: [00:37:50] That's a huge ask for a country that's just gotten a gift from an administration that basically recognizes it as the sole authority in the occupied territories of the West Bank in Judea and Samaria. By Israeli terms, that's a big deal. The Emirates and Bahrain had that kind of leverage to even ask the question. It's incumbent upon all of us to actually carefully look at what's in the actual set of chords. What were the agreements? I would argue what was written down versus what was said. And then how did the now four countries, I believe it's Sudan, Morocco, Emirates and Bahrain, how did they go about the process of normalizing and what was in their request? Because Israel benefited from the normalization, but they also benefited because they're all acting in their own self interest. I think we owe it to ourselves as American policy makers, military and civilian, to really look a little bit underneath what happened and figure out what deals were made and codify those in a way that drives behavior over the longer term.

Amb. Moreno: [00:38:56] Excellent point, General. The Abraham Accords, the Palestinians feel like they're the guys who are left out because it's basically the same as what was the old United, the Arab League peace proposal, where there would be recognition of Israel as an independent Jewish state, but they'd have to deal with the settlements. They'd have to go back to the 1967 borders and several other things. Well, none of the Israeli responsibilities came about, but the Arab League requirements of recognizing Israel did. So it kind of again, you leave the Palestinians as the kind of the odd man out. Same thing with the COVID 19 business is kind of a microcosm of that. Israel has done an absolutely magnificent job as far as a vaccination campaign. They've had some issues vis a vis lockdowns and stuff. But who's been shut out as far as the vaccine goes, Most of the West Bank has not been vaccinated and has not been part of that Israeli campaign. These are the things that, as the journalist says, you know, Israel has to really pay attention to for their own good in the long term because we all want to support Israel. Israel is a great ally. Israel is just the miracle of the 20th century. Everything that they've been able to do in their place in the world is indisputable. It's unbelievable. But if they're going to survive in the long run as an independent Jewish state, as they say, then they are going to have to address these long range issues and. They have to deal with the Palestinians one way or the other, because you have, as general said, 2 million people disenfranchised right now and you're taking their hope, especially the security forces of their own independent state. That hope seems to be diminishing, you know, every single day. And how long will they be able to stand up to that and function as a viable security force without that hope? Like you said, you know, that's the fuel, the fuel of having their own independent countries. What made them go that seems to be diminishing and that's really a vital point.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:40:47] Well, another point that I wanted to raise is the issue of foreign assistance. I mean, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War Two. From 1948 to 2018, the US has provided an estimated 139 billion in assistance. For fiscal year 20 alone, assistance totaled 3.8 billion. What does this amount of assistance bring to the US? What's the bang for the buck?

Gen. Selva: [00:41:17] That's a tough way to ask that question.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:41:19] You can rephrase it. Go ahead. Rephrase it.

Gen. Selva: [00:41:21] Actually, it's well put. The Israelis bring a degree, although many would argue that they bring a degree of risk in the area. The Israelis bring a huge amount of stability and economic development to the Middle East. They do trade across multiple borders. They facilitate economic growth and innovation in ways that many other countries don't. And so what we get for our relationship with Israel is that stability, that. Anchor But it does come with some risk, right? There is risk of criticism that such a small country gets such a large portion of our foreign assistance program that's such a prosperous country, gets such a large portion of our foreign assistance program. That has always puzzled me. That's not a positive or negative judgment. It's just one that causes me to go, This is interesting, but their survival in some ways early on depended on that assistance. If you think about how threatened they have been over their history and the potential threats that remain in the region to Israeli sovereignty, they are not insignificant. So the ability to provide the assistance that's necessary so that Israel remains sovereign, that they remain the independent Jewish state, is a really important dynamic in the region. I would argue the money is well spent, but I would also argue that we need to look at our interests in that relationship as well. And the extent to which the Israeli foreign assistance programs are given extra special status in more than just amount. But in process, we should ask our own selves if that's in our interests, things like funding their programs in advance. We don't do that for most other countries in the world.

Gen. Selva: [00:43:08] And so I think we should ask questions about our interests and the value of the relationship, which I would argue is unquestionable. There is value in the relationship, but we shouldn't give our leverage up, up front. We don't do it with anybody else. Any other foreign assistance program. We keep the leverage in our hands. And I would argue in the case of Israel, we give most of the leverage up, up front. And so that's a dynamic that I would think about differently. But at its core, the ability to keep Israel independent and safe in a region that is reasonably unsettled is in our interest and theirs. And it's that mutual benefit that causes us to want to do that. The second dynamic I think that plays out in this space, which is not well understood, is the number of dual citizens. We have an interest in protecting US citizens who reside in Israel. There are a significant number of US citizens who also hold Israeli passports and commute on a regular basis back and forth between Israel and the United States. It's part of why the relationship is so dynamic. We can't ignore that. That's a responsibility of our government to make sure that we address the security and safety of those individuals who are moving back and forth. And so that's an undercurrent in the relationship that most of us don't understand well that we need to pay really close attention to. And I think Ambassador Moreno is in a pretty good position, having lived in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to talk to the magnitude of that dynamic.

Amb. Moreno: [00:44:35] There's a couple of things. One, you can't forget the congressional influence on assistance that is really congressionally motivated to a great deal. One of the main things about keeping Israeli survival intact is the qualitative military edge. They are surrounded by enemies, enemies who in the past had high tech Russian or Soviet defense systems. So we made it our business to ensure Israel's survival that they had a qualitative military edge. That's not a cheap process. You're talking about B-2 bombers and the Patriot missile system and the Iron Dome that was created to protect Israel from incoming rockets from Gaza. All those things are incredibly expensive. We talk about Israel and it warts and all because there are quite a few warts. We've mentioned them here, but is still the most democratic country in the Middle East and it still is a rock of stability in the Middle East. And they also, to a great extent, act in our interests in many ways throughout the Middle East. It is a very special relationship. It is unparalleled. I was in charge of the Plan Colombia when we got it started that at one point became the second largest foreign assistance package. It was $1.3 billion a year for a while. And that really saved Colombia from falling to the clutches of the FARC in our backyard. Having drug trafficking, Marxist, Leninist government installed in Colombia would have been a disaster for us. You know, we thought that $1.3 billion was very well justified, but it can't compare to the I don't know how many billions you said since World War Two, but the cooperation in intelligence matters and the war on terror, etcetera. Israel is our greatest ally. We need to definitely keep that. But at the same time, as the general says, if Israel is really interested in looking things in the long term, they really have to deal with this two state solution issue.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:46:24] As many of our listeners are young leaders who are interested in public service or new to public service, I wanted to shift back to talking a little bit about relationships. You both have had many senior assignments. General, you retired as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, serving an unprecedented two terms in this position. Ambassador, you served in senior diplomatic positions all over the world from Israel, Iraq, Haiti, Colombia and the list is quite long. But on your way up, you've each been influenced by a colleague. Can you pick one person and explain why they inspired you?

Amb. Moreno: [00:47:01] Two women stand out for me. One of them was my DCM in Haiti during some really violent, unstable, dangerous times. And that's Vicki Huddleston. She later became ambassador to Madagascar. She became my role model of staying calm, under pressure, delegating and how to deal with crisis. And the other, as far as visionary leadership goes, is Roberta Jacobson. Roberta, who was the former assistant secretary of Western Hemisphere affairs. She's the one who really bridged the new relationship with Cuba and helped establish the embassy opening up in Cuba, which then, of course, the Trump administration reversed all of it. But she just has such a humane yet very iron grip on issues and getting things done. So those are the two women who I think have influenced my career the most.

Gen. Selva: [00:47:47] I would also have to pick two people. The first would be embarrassed. He was an instructor when I was a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy. His name is Dale Condit. He's an engineer by training but dedicated himself his entire career to being an engineer for the United States Air Force. But he was my roommate's academic advisor. What he noted in my roommate was sloppy study habits. And what he noted in me was I was an enabler. And so he took it upon himself to coach the two of us on how to be successful as a team. The two of us together could be successful, but that neither of us alone were going to make it through the four years and graduate from that institution and become officers in the United States Air Force. He has, across the span of my entire 39 year career, stayed in touch, stayed engaged, and always emphasized leadership and integrity before anything else tactical expertise, operational prowess. If you don't arrive at the end of this career with your reputation for leadership and integrity intact, you have failed. His focus on teamwork and then his lifelong dedication to mentorship and engagement without interference. He's always been an observer and a commenter, not an interference, which I find fascinating that he's been able to do that. We remain in touch to this day.

Gen. Selva: [00:49:16] He's still a mentor, he's still a coach and still a dear friend. And the second is an individual that I work for for two years. But from that point forward influenced my way of thinking about hard strategic problems. And that's a gentleman named Andrew Marshall. He was the director of the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon from the early 80 seconds when the office was established until about 2016, when he retired from federal service in his late 80 seconds. He was the single director through multiple administrations, giving strategic advice to secretaries of defense and earning the confidence of those secretaries and their respective presidents for the clarity of his advice. And again, it goes back to being a person of integrity and stating facts for what? They are and presenting them to leadership in a way that they can be understood. He was the architect behind the strategy of imposing costs on the then Soviet Union that ultimately led to the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of that regime. Incredibly insightful, but humble. It's a name that unless you study military strategy and foreign policy strategy people have probably never heard. But I would recommend his work to people who are thinking about how to address strategic problems for government leaders. Those are the two people that affected me the most.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:50:57] Well, thank you. This has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you for sharing your insights, your experiences and your advice to some of the younger ones that are coming into public service. Really appreciate it. This has been a new episode in the series, The General and the Ambassador, A Conversation. Thank you so much for listening. Our series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy with the generous support of the Una Chapman Cox Foundation. You can find our podcasts on all major podcast sites as well as on our website, GeneralAmbassadorPodcast.Org. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook and we welcome all input and suggestions. We can be reached directly at General.Ambassador.podcast@gmail.com.