A Conversation with Ambassador Daniel B. Shapiro: Serving as U.S. Ambassador to Israel and the Year Since Moderated by Jonathan Schanzer

Transcription

1 A Conversation with Ambassador Daniel B. Shapiro: Serving as U.S. Ambassador to Israel and the Year Since Moderated by Jonathan Schanzer MAY: Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to get started even though I know there are still people getting a little bit of nourishment. We don't want to interfere with that, but I'll ask them to find their way in here. Welcome to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. I'm Cliff May. I'm FDD's founder and president. As I suspect most of you know by now, FDD is a non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. I'm pleased to welcome you today to our event with Ambassador SHAPIRO:. At FDD, we have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Ambassador Shapiro for many years in many different capacities from his time on the Hill to his service in the Obama administration and as Ambassador to Israel, of course. We're grateful for the service Dan has provided to our country. FDD is proud to welcome thoughtful guests from a range of backgrounds and with a range of views to our stage for in-depth and we hope productive and civil debates and discussions. I'm confident today's will be no exception. If anyone hasn t yet seen it, I'd encourage you to pick up a copy of the op-ed Dan wrote with FDD's Mark Dubowitz. It ran in Politico Magazine. We've got copies here in the lobby. It's, I think, a very good example of the important bi-partisan common-sense solutions that can and should be discussed and formulated more often in this town. I can think of no one better to guide today's discussion than my colleague, Jonathan Schanzer. As most of you know, Jon serves as FDD's Senior Vice President for Research. Before I hand over the discussion by way of housekeeping, I should just note that today's event will be Livestreamed. I encourage guests here and online to join in on today's conversation on Twitter. I'd also ask that you please silence your cell phones. With that, thank you, Ambassador, and Jon, over to you. SCHANZER: All right. Thank you, Cliff. Welcome, Dan. I want to just apologize to everybody in advance. You may hear, I'm a little under the weather here, but that's actually good news because it means I'm going to be speaking less and allowing you to speak more. At least that s the way my wife put it this morning. First of all, just thank you. You've been a good friend to FDD for a long time. We worked with you when you were with Senator Nelson. We were working with you on Al-Manar before it was designated. It was incredibly important work. You were working with FDD's Toby Dershowitz and Mark Dubowitz. We worked with you when you were an advisor to then candidate Obama and then President Obama. As Mideast Director at the NSC, we came to visit you often and had terrific conversations. Of course, when you became ambassador, we called upon you often, as well.

2 We appreciate your service and your thoughtful insights. We're hoping to have you share a little bit with our audience today. SHAPIRO: Thank you. SCHANZER: Yeah. Welcome. Let me get right down to it. Let's start with some things that are in the news right now. The Jerusalem announcement was something of a bombshell. Obviously welcomed in Israel where you are now, you're at INSS, which is a think tank that typically only employs, I suppose, former military and political types who are Israelis. I think you're the first American. SHAPIRO: Distinguished visiting fellow. SCHANZER: Yes. I'm curious to hear what the thoughts are among the Israeli political elite, among the military types, about this move and where you see things heading. SHAPIRO: Sure. First of all, thanks for the hospitality and the opportunity to be here. Thank you, everybody for coming. There's no question that it is a near consensus issue in Israel well, we could say among the Israeli Jewish population that Jerusalem is Israel's capital, should be recognized as Israel's capital, and in that regard, it was welcomed. I agreed with the decision very much. I served as US Ambassador in Tel Aviv. Nearly every day, I got in my car and we traveled up the hill to Jerusalem and I conducted affairs of state in the Israeli government offices, the Prime Minister, the President, the Knesset. When President Obama came, he stayed in West Jerusalem. When Secretaries of State come, they base themselves there. There's no mystery that we treat functionally Jerusalem as Israel's capital and there's no reason not to recognize that as such. Frankly, I think we could have gone even farther and actually established the embassy immediately in one of the consular facilities that we maintain in West Jerusalem. Vice President Pence announced now there is a plan to do that before a new embassy will be built. That will take, by the way, close to a decade, I believe, to actually formally open a new embassy building but, see, this can be done faster than that. What I think is the real missed opportunity here, though and some Israelis would agree with this, others less, was to place that decision in the context of the broader strategic objective. The strategic objective is not where does our embassy sit. The strategic objective is an end to this conflict in a two-state solution. In that regard, absolutely part of that is puncturing the myth that sometimes Palestinians traffic in far too often, that there's no legitimate Jewish or Israeli connection to Jerusalem and recognizing that we are going to have our embassy there and treat it as its capital. Certainly, in the areas of West Jerusalem that have always been part of Israel and that there's no real dispute about, but also to describe it in the context of a settlement in which Palestinians would be able to achieve some of their objectives including a capital of their state in some portion of East Jerusalem.

3 That, to me, would have made it easier for the Palestinian side to absorb and been consistent with what I understand to be the President's goals of the ultimate deal, which is, I believe, still a two-state solution. SCHANZER: Do you think that the announcement has precluded that that sort of second half of this? SHAPIRO: No. I don't think it's precluded it. I think you can have those elements arrive later with the presentation of the plan that we're still told is being prepared and that Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner have been working on and at some point, will be presented, but I do think it would have been smarter to package these things together. In fact, I think we could have actually used the announcement of recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital as a way to advance our broader strategic objective. That's what I would like to keep the focus on. SCHANZER: Okay. Another item in the news, and this is a question that was posed by Harold Luks, who's somewhere in the audience. There he is. Question about UNRWA. The US just recently announced that it is going to pay UNRWA in installments. This is, of course, the UN refugee agency that there are concerns within the US government about the need for reform, the perpetuation of the refugee problem, the ties to Hamas. There's a long list of grievances. With the US being the number one contributor to UNRWA, that it's time for us to begin to demand change. How do you see this move and, again, how's it playing in Israel? SHAPIRO: Sure. I'm in agreement with the need for UNRWA reform. There's problems with the whole structure of UNRWA, which is this unique agency to address Palestinian refugees and their descendants separately and differently from how all other refugees are dealt with. It does contribute to the perpetuation of the refugee issue and the myth that these refugees and their descendants, sometimes three and four generations later, are going to return to pre-'67 Israel. That's obviously not going to happen. No Israeli government will accept it. No American government would push for it. It's a problematic structure. There have been cases where, within UNRWA facilities, Hamas has been able to do activities with weapons or indoctrination and the like. There's serious concerns and serious need for reform. Obviously, the largest donor can have influence on that. At the same time, UNRWA does provide very vital services to people who need them, often children, health care and schooling and even food and housing. A hard cutoff of that stream of funding without having prepared alternative streams of funding to provide for the legitimate needs that UNRWA does provide I think would be a big mistake. First of all, it would cause a lot of suffering, including among children who are obviously blameless. Second of all, it would create a real risk of instability in places like Jordan and Lebanon where those populations are served and even in the West Bank and Gaza. The main actor who would have to deal with that instability is Israel. That's why I understand the Israeli military strongly would resist the notion of a hard cutoff to US UNRWA funding.

4 To withhold things in installments and then use that as part of a process of negotiation and leverage to put in place a multi-year plan that will bring other donors to the fore that will provide some of these reforms that will help reshape expectations about what the likely outcomes of the refugee issue is, which should be, they return to a Palestinian state if they wish to or rehabilitated elsewhere, rather than the myth of them returning to Israel. That would be a useful outcome. It seems as though the administration has given themselves some room by withholding the funds, but not saying they're not going to provide them, but I hope they're sophisticated enough to use that to provide for this greater, this broader negotiation. SCHANZER: My understanding is that one of the concerns is that usually by month 8, 9, or 10, they've burned through the entire US budget, which is always put up front. You give them 200, $250 million a year. They burn through it by September. Then, they go back again and say, "We need more money in an emergency plus up." The US has to deal with that. Part of this does appear to be part of a reforming and budgetary process. I have not yet heard that there's a full cutoff coming, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. SHAPIRO: We will. SCHANZER: Yeah. Abbas just had a complete meltdown on the world stage, I think it's fair to say. I think a lot of people in Israel are saying, "Well, he's revealed his true colors," despite the fact that he has been, I think, responsible in the past for preventing violence. He brought an end to the Second Intifada. There are a lot of people who are still critical of him for funding the imprisoned terrorists in Israeli jails and their families. The incitement, which you mentioned, other issues. Where are things going now that he appears to be in a downward spiral? He just doesn't look like a leader any longer. I think we do have some real questions about what happens in a post-abbas environment. And I think probably more importantly, what happens with the security cooperation that the Israelis and Palestinians have really, I think they've worked very hard at building over the last several decades. Is that in peril right now as a result of the possible departure of Abbas? SHAPIRO: Right. First of all, I do think that speech, which was a terrible, very offensive speech, does mark the personal end of his participation in serious peace negotiations. I don t know whether it reveals his true colors. I don't know whether it reveals frustration or whether he is just the last gasp of a politician who probably never had quite the strength and creativity and was always a bit passive to really take the very difficult decisions he would need to take. What follows him, of course, is the biggest black box in the Middle East, in my judgment. I m asked this everywhere I go. I say I don t know any Palestinian nor any Israeli nor any Arab leader, nor any American who really can tell you with any certainty what follows. I do think it's in everybody's interest. It's certainly in Israel's interest because of the security cooperation that you described, which continues and very effectively and which Abbas deserves credit for, that it be maintained and therefore that the structures that support that, a Palestinian Authority that has autonomy in areas A and partial in area B are also maintained.

5 Who the leaders are that would follow Abbas and whether they will be committed to those structures, we don't know, but, of course, part of the logic of those structures has always been they are the building blocks of an eventual Palestinian state and a Palestinian state that's going to encompass areas beyond areas A and B. This is where the discourse in Israel that suggests Abbas' departure may be an opportunity for us to put to bed once and for all the notion of a two-state solution. Of course, there are Israeli leaders, many in the Cabinet who are openly opposed to a two-state solution. It's their sincere view that that's the outcome that they want to achieve, but I think it runs the risk of making very difficult for moderate Palestinian leaders who want to sustain those structures, who want to maintain the security cooperation, but need to be able to present it to their own people as the building blocks of their move towards statehood, statehood that doesn't in any way delegitimize or undermine Israel's existence and security. They need to have that credibility in order to be able to sustain that type of cooperation. SCHANZER: I do think it's worth questioning whether, regardless of what these cabinet members or Israeli politicians, when it does seem like the Trump administration is still eager to push forward to this ultimate deal. What they want probably doesn't reflect reality, at least for the next several years. SHAPIRO: Obviously, we're all waiting to see what the presentation of the administration plan will reveal but I take I'm not a very big fan of the Trump administration. I have to put those cards on the table. SCHANZER: I'm shocked to hear you say that. SHAPIRO: Yeah. I'm sure that's shocking. I think it's a very troubling administration for many, many reasons, but I have to say, on this issue, I've been trying to be very supportive and take them at their word that they do seek the ultimate deal. The ultimate deal, in my judgment, there only is one, but I even connect it to other things the President has said. He talks about a peace agreement reached between Israelis and Palestinians in negotiations that provides for Israel's security, that provides self-determination for Palestinians and that opens Israel's relations with the Arab world. As somebody who has worked in this region for 25 years or so, I'm pretty sure there's only one outcome that will achieve all those objectives. That is a two-state solution on roughly the terms that it has been envisioned in previous peace efforts. SCHANZER: Okay. I want to go back in time a little bit. You come into the position of ambassador 2011, yeah? SHAPIRO: Correct.

6 SCHANZER: First, I just want to ask you, your Hebrew is pretty impressive, but even from the early on, I saw you going on Israeli television and doing interviews in prime-time shows. What was your Hebrew like going in and how did you get to that place? SHAPIRO: I d studied Hebrew starting in high school, took it very seriously all the way through college, including time in Israel, including living with Israeli families, and taking courses at Hebrew University. I kept it up through those years. Then, many of my years in Washington was using it less, so it got a little rusty. But I got to give the State Department credit. I spent about two months at the Foreign Service Institute before I went as ambassador working with a tutor who really helped me polish it up for public speaking and media interviews and the like. Then, obviously, the ability to use it on a regular basis, it improved over time. I have to say, I thought it would be appreciated. I thought it would be something that Israelis would say, "Well, that's very nice. The Ambassador speaks some Hebrew." The impact was much more profound than that and more than I expected. I attributed it to two things. One is I think it speaks to Israelis sense of isolation, that there's only one place you could have gone to develop that knowledge and depth of understanding, the culture that's embedded in language. That's Israel. It's not like Spanish or Arabic or Chinese, where maybe you could have learned in multiple other countries. It obviously said to them, "Oh, this is somebody who knows us, who kind of gets us and you can communicate in a more fluid way." The other reason is that, and this surprised me somewhat because we tend in this town and generally, we tend to meet Israelis who know English better or have spent more time in the United States, who are more connected. There are lots of Israelis who don't speak very good English or they don't speak any English. SCHANZER: I'm also shocked to hear you say that. SHAPIRO: It was a real opportunity, especially as I got outside of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and into smaller communities and minority communities who don't engage with us as frequently, to really have a tachlis conversation with them in which there was no filter, in which I was able to hear them express their views and communicate our policies without any of those filters. SCHANZER: Let's talk about that. One of the things that struck me during your time in office and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're the first ambassador to actively go out to these communities, speaking in Hebrew, trying to articulate an American position that they didn't really agree with. All of your predecessors have basically gone out in English, they gave out a couple of speeches. They're not on the ground. They're not pressing palms. They're not doing this. You had a very unique time in office. I think it was really sui generis. Can you explain what that was like?

7 SHAPIRO: For one thing, I think it's an absolute necessity for ambassadors and diplomats more broadly in today's world. There was a time when the main function of an ambassador was the government-to-government communication. That's still very important. I was a full participant in all of that, but we live in an age when every citizen, every human being practically, has within their palm of their hand a device that gives them access to a world of information and their ability to have their voice heard on a global scale in an instant. We understood this actually first, I think, during was then called the Arab Spring, but during those uprisings of 2011 in the Arab world, what he had been missing by not having that kind of contact with the public. It was very much impressed upon me in the training. I think it's now considered much more standard for ambassadors that you have to think of yourself as an ambassador, of course, to the host government, but as much, in some cases even more, to the host population. Of course, in a place like Israel, which is so diverse, even though it's small and there's so many communities that operate in a certain kind of a silo that if you're not able to go to them and listen to them and engage with them, you're missing a big part of the society including populations that are growing very quickly like the ultra-orthodox Jewish population, growing not as quickly, but quicker than the mainstream population, the Arab population. There are, of course, other minorities. Ethiopian Israelis, Russian Israelis. There are opportunities and opportunities to be missed unless we find a way to engage those populations. SCHANZER: My sense was that, I mean, there's no secret you were there during a time of somewhat It was high tension, let's just put it that way. SHAPIRO: I didn't notice. SCHANZER: Yeah. I know you're shocked to hear that. My sense was that that's why this was probably more necessary than it had been in the past. What did you hear while you were out in the field? Were you actually addressing some of these concerns? The poll numbers showed that the President was not the most popular guy. Were you defending American policy or was it more of a listening How did it work? SHAPIRO: It was all of the above. I think President Obama understood that there was value in sending to Israel an ambassador who, A, had a relationship with him and could represent him in a personal way, B, I had a good relationship with the Prime Minister and his team, and C, could communicate that to the Israeli public. I think he understood that in part, because of the controversies and some of the challenges of his own personal standing, there that there was value in that. There were times, yes, when I was explaining or defending things that people had disagreements with. Frankly, I always got a very good hearing. I think it's overstated, the notion that he was widely disliked or widely disrespected as President of the United States while I was there and I don't think it's because people were being polite.

8 The common discourse was, "Well, we disagree on this issue or that issue." Perhaps the Iran deal, perhaps the issue of settlements that became very controversial, "But we understand that the President has our best interests at heart as he understands them, that he's very committed to Israel's security, that he has been a friend to Israel in combating de-legitimatization and anti- Israel moves around the world." I have to say, his visit in 2013 was transformative, but briefly. If I could have had him visit every six months, I would have. When he came and Israelis got to watch him and it was covered on 24/7 television and listen to him and watch his interactions with Israeli citizens and, of course, with the Prime Minister and see the warmth and see the genuineness of his care for Israel and its security and its legitimacy and this relationship, almost to a person afterwards, even people who had been very critical had said to me, "I understand he's a friend. I understand he cares and he has our interests at heart. I disagree on this or that policy." Over time, his absence and then some of the larger and longer-lasting disagreements on the Iran deal and then, of course, at the very end with the settlement resolution, I think, will leave him not as the most popular President of the United States in Israel but, for me, people were, again, it may have help that I spoke in Hebrew, but nobody ever expected me to do anything other than defend and explain the policies. I got a very fair hearing and not because I'm a nice guy because I was representing an administration that, when you looked at the totality, you could see a great deal that had actually strengthened the relationship at the same period we had these disagreements. SCHANZER: I think a lot of people point to the underlying relationships, the professional relationships, as they say, military-to-military, intel-to-intel. Everybody points to the fact that things were going in the right direction during this entire time and that it strengthened the core. But then there's also this tension that develops between the two leaders themselves. There's the famous hot mic moment where the President says, I think it was to the French President where he says, "I have to deal with Bibi and I have it worse than you do," or something like that. Then, there are obviously the meetings that took place between the two guys. You could see that the body language wasn't lovely. There was this speech before the Joint Session of Congress that we know the President wasn't particularly excited about. How did you manage that as ambassador? I'm assuming you interfaced regularly with the Bibi government. SHAPIRO: And himself. SCHANZER: I'm sure you got an earful. SHAPIRO: Yeah. First of all, I was present for all 16 of their meetings. I can say that the vast, vast majority of their interactions were professional and cordial. I would even say friendly and cooperative and productive. The notion that the two of them would get in the same room and it would be fisticuffs and they'd be screaming at each other is just fiction.

9 Even the November 2015 meeting, after the very long and very public disagreement over the Iran deal, which maybe culminated its low point or high point, whatever you want to call it, was the speech in Congress or really the decision to announce the speech in Congress in January that wasn't coordinated with us. That meeting in November, they didn't rehash any of their differences. They looked forward and was very productive on enforcement and compliance of the Iran nuclear ideal, on addressing non-nuclear Iranian threats, on helping ensure Israel could protect itself from violent overspill from Syria and on launching the negotiations that led to the $38 billion MOU. That's the record of the two of them. In many ways, even while they had these disagreements, the two of them, I think, deserve a lot more credit than they get as a team for the way the relationships were strengthened, the security cooperation and joint military training and technology development, think about Iron Dome and the other missile defense systems and the tunnel detection technologies, all authored by Obama-Netanyahu initiatives. It spreads to intelligence and economic initiatives and diplomatic progress as well. I think the real record is much, much more productive than is often described. I think the two of them don't get the credit they deserved for having achieved that, but, yes, we had our disagreements and sometimes, there were, of course, public, which no ambassador ever really wants to see and sometimes they were even personal and political, and that's even worse. Sure, I had a very good and candid and open dialogue with the Prime Minister. He knew he could trust me. He knew I would never try to interfere in his politics, but I would also faithfully represent my government. There were times when I had some tough messages to deliver to him and plenty of times when he had tough messages to deliver to me, but it was always done in the spirit of a friendship and alliance that we both prized, that both leaders prized, that both wanted to strengthen and keep moving forward, even in the midst of the disagreements. I really think that is the better description of this period and even in our moments of tension. SCHANZER: Let's talk about probably the moment of greatest friction, the Iran nuclear deal. The Israelis, at the highest level, I think were dismayed by what came from the Iran deal. Yes, there were some people within the security establishment that said that the deal could be helpful or that they supported it, but I would say that the majority came out against it for the reasons that I think we all know, the end of the arms embargo in four years, the ballistic missile provisions in eight and then the sunset clauses by years 10, 11, 12 or whenever it is that it all falls apart, all the while giving the Iranians $150 billion in sanctions relief. Not terribly tough enforcement when it comes to military sites. These are all the things we've been hearing about for quite some time. I do get a sense that there was a moment where the Bibi government said, "Okay. Well, it's in the past and we need to move forward now," but that came at the end of a very long and somewhat nasty process. What was that like serving as ambassador during what was arguably the moment of greatest tension between the United States and Israel and in Israel's history? SHAPIRO: I'm not sure if it was the worst in Israel's history but it was definitely a difficult moment and it lasted most of the year of It wasn't easy and it wasn't always

10 pleasant. Again, people treated me well. People were cordial. Nobody is disrespectful to the United States Ambassador in Israel either in the government or in the public. Maybe one or two people in the public, but for the most part, even in that tense moment, it was all right but there was no question that it was a difficult moment. I had a tough conversation with the Prime Minister right before the Laussane Understandings were announced in April. I suggested we could go forward from here to begin tying up the loose ends, maybe improving some elements that you're not happy about, beginning the cooperation on security that will meet your needs in the new context shaped by the agreement or, as the President had offered him, you can wait and we'll have that conversation after the agreement goes all the way through, first being signed and then begin the congressional review. His preference was to wait, He did and we did. The result was the $38 billion MOU and a lot of other joint work, but that was a choice he made, that even through April, May, June, July, August, and September, to continue to object to an agreement that I didn't think there was a very serious chance was not going to be able to survive the congressional review. He may have calculated that differently. Look. He's the Prime Minister of Israel. He needs to stand up for those interests that he feels are fundamental to his country and the risks that he feels his country faces. He's entitled, obviously, to make those judgments, but there was a potential path, I think, to continue to disagree, but to start the cooperative work that followed a little bit earlier and maybe it would have left fewer bruised feelings for a shorter period of time. But even in that period, there was no occasion when I was not welcome in the Prime Minister's office, when he did not seek my views and analysis and guidance on what was coming, and when he did not continue to seek to convey his views, often in very direct terms, but appropriately, that I convey them back. I do think in that period, probably at the higher level of our governments, we didn't have the kind of communication that generally characterized and did characterize through most of those eight years our governments, that even though we had disagreements and even on the Iran deal, where we had done some tremendous joint work in the first five, six years before the negotiations really got serious, pooling our intelligence, building and enforcing the sanctions regime, briefing Israel on our military option that President Obama had put in place, the communication was really always excellent even upon having disagreements. That, to me, is always the right way for Israel and the United States to conduct ourselves: open engagement, no surprises, a clear discussion. Generally, our interests will overlap, occasionally they'll diverge. Then, we'll work that out in the best kind of private and professional discussions. I suspect we, neither of us were communicating at the levels and with the consistency that ideally we should be during those six or eight months. There may have even been a hangover effect into SCHANZER: Sure. With a little bit of time and space between the deal and where we are now, you're living in Israel. You're surrounding yourself with the best and brightest over at INSS. Are there aspects of the nuclear deal that, if you could go back and revise, is there

11 anything that now when you look at where we are, where you would say, "You know what? We could have done this a little bit better," or are you still in lock step with the President and say, "This was the best deal we could have ever had"? SHAPIRO: I was not a direct participant in negotiations. I was in constant touch with our negotiating team. I was able then to be part of describing that and having a dialogue with the Israelis on that, but I was not a direct participant in the negotiation. I'm very reluctant to second guess the work of our team. Can I imagine that there might be certain provisions that we might have preferred we'd have a different outcome or a tougher or a longer period of time or some other arrangement? Of course, but the people who have to negotiate that ultimately have to make those calls. This is how I tend to describe it these days. It was not a perfect deal, but there was no such thing as a perfect deal. What it did was what it most needed to do. It did systematically block off all the different pathways Iran could achieve, whether by removing the enriched uranium, by removing many of the centrifuges, by destroying the plutonium reactor. It did put in place a much more intrusive monitoring regime than existed before so that we will know in real time if Iran is cheating on that and we have enough time to react to that because it now provide us a one-year cushion. That will last for at least a decade as long as the agreement is observed by all sides, by all accounts, even those who are concerned about the sunsets, as opposed to them sitting on a two to three-month breakout from which is where they were before and which they had been able to achieve even under these very crippling sanctions that had weakened their economy and ultimately which is what brought them to the table. I don't believe it was a perfect deal, but I also believe that a deal that, if we had held out for a deal to end the Iranian nuclear program, that would have been an unachievable objective. Iran is a large and sophisticated country. It has technological know-how. Even had we bombed away all of its facilities, they would have been able to restore those in a relatively short period of time and without the international consensus and solidarity that we needed to keep them under sanction. It doesn t end the Iran nuclear program. It buys time but that's what generally arms control agreements do. They buy time. Do you need to come back and revisit that question? Absolutely. SCHANZER: Are you concerned about what happens in 10 years time? SHAPIRO: Sure. I've always felt we were going to need to come back and revisit this question and that there's no reason to trust the Iranians, that they don't still aspire to achieve a nuclear weapon. There's no reason to believe that we will not have to find a way, whether through sanctions or pressure or negotiations to get them to extend these commitments. Hopefully, it will take place of a context of a different Iranian regime, but obviously we don't know and we can't count on that. SCHANZER: Let me actually get right to that because this was my next question.

12 You wrote an op-ed with FDD's CEO Mark Dubowitz where you were basically supporting the people who had just come out into the streets of Iran protesting against the government. I found that striking, first of all because here you are, a proponent of the nuclear deal and Mark, of course, has been an outspoken opponent of the deal. I was watching the reaction of a lot of your colleagues from the Obama administration. They were calling upon the US public to curb their enthusiasm, if you will. Like, "Hey, let's not jump to the side of the protesters too soon." It was almost as if at least some were saying, "Look, we want to maintain the legacy of the President." Here you are writing something with Mark basically saying that you want to see this regime come under the pressure that it's under. Do you feel like you have a divergence from some of your Obama administration colleagues on this? SHAPIRO: I'm not sure if I'll characterize other people's views exactly the way you did in terms of the President's legacy of being connected to the regime and how it deals with its domestic opponents. I'll just speak for myself. This Iranian regime, I've never once had any hesitation to say, both when I was serving as ambassador and certainly as a private citizen, that it is an adversary of the United States. It is hostile to us and to allies, including Israel, with whom it threatens destruction. It is a brutal, abusive regime to its own people. It sponsors terrorist organizations. It violates UN Security Council resolutions on ballistic missiles. It seeks nuclear weapons, by the way. I don t believe they've changed there. The sooner this regime goes, the better. That's better for our interests. That's certainly better for the Iranian people. That's better for the region. I don't feel any hesitation to hold that view. I don t think we are going to be very effective as the ones to implement or effect from outside regime change. Generally, that goes very poorly, but when the Iranian people, fed up with that brutality and abusiveness and squandering of their own resources on foreign adventures in Yemen and Syria and with Hezbollah, speak out peacefully against their government, I think it's absolutely appropriate that we voice our support for them and their rights to do that. We need to keep them in the lead. Iranian people are going to produce change in Iran much more effectively than any outsider could, but I have no hesitation either on moral grounds or on strategic grounds in saying, "This is a case where the right thing to do is for us to be outspoken in support, for us to try to limit the Iranian regime's ability to oppress or cut off the communications of these people and where necessary, we should apply sanctions and punitive measures against elements of the regime that are part of the repression." SCHANZER: There was an op-ed written by FDD's Rich Goldberg and Ambassador Dennis Ross. They came together in somewhat of a similar way to you and Mark and they were SHAPIRO: Bipartisanship is spurring all over. SCHANZER: It's Kumbaya, it really is. They basically came together on a different point that perhaps it's time to re-sanction certain entities that were de-listed as part of the JCPOA for

13 non-nuclear activity. Would you agree with that? This is from Annex II. We don't need to get into all the specifics here, but would you agree with that approach? SHAPIRO: Yeah. There's nothing in the agreement that would prevent us from applying sanctions against entities that were de-listed under nuclear sanctions under the agreement if they are involved in other activities that violate other principles or just our own sense of propriety. There might be specific cases. It would be hard to get down into those details, but in principle, using those tools as a response to regime oppression and making sure it's understood that this is a response to regime oppression is within the rules of the JCPOA and in no way needs to call into question or threat in the JCPOA. If somebody wants to use it as a way to subtly undermine the JCPOA, I think that would be a big mistake. I think we'd be giving up a great deal to unilaterally either subtly or more frontally, as the President threatens to do, withdraw from that agreement. We would lose the international solidarity that we have still and would need in any scenario to get a follow-on or expanded agreement with Iran. We would essentially release Iran from all the obligations it does have that will buy us that decade of one-year cushion and bring us right back to a much, much nearer-term potential conflict with Iran. I've no problem using those tools, but not as an underhanded way to try to kill the JCPOA. SCHANZER: Got it. You're in the fix-it camp, if I may say, right? SHAPIRO: Definitely. Definitely. The Prime Minister talks about fix it or nix it. It's a good slogan, but I've never quite understood it because they're two 180-degree different strategies. Fix it, strengthen, augment, outside the agreement, maybe potentially within the agreement, find ways of getting stronger inspection protocols. Find ways of extending sunset clauses. Find ways of expanding the pressures on Iran and the restrictions that are on to include the ballistic missile program. I'm all for that. That's going to only work if we do it in concert with our allies. We can't impose almost any of that unilaterally, but if we can achieve some of those objectives, it's all to the good. As I said, I always felt we were going to have to revisit this. Nix it is to essentially voluntarily give up those restrictions that Iran currently faces and without any of the international solidarity we'll need to get a better deal and bring us much closer to conflict. I hope we're in fix-it camp. If the President wants to use the threat of nix it as leverage to get to fix it, leverage is fine, but if you actually execute that threat, I think we've done real damage to our interests. SCHANZER: My sense it's the former, but I guess we'll see. I got one more question for you before we open it up to the audience here. I think I would not be doing my job if I didn't ask you about that UN Security Council resolution. SHAPIRO: It's going to kill the rest of the time, by the way. It's a long answer.

14 SCHANZER: Yeah. I've seen your comments on it. You had said, I think publicly or tweeted about it that it was something you could have done without. You didn't necessarily 100% agree with the White House decision to do this. Explain. SHAPIRO: As I say, we need a lot of time to explain this. SCHANZER: In five minutes or less. SHAPIRO: But I'll try to do the short version. No. I could have lived without it. I had recommended to Secretary Kerry that if indeed we faced the need to deal with the Security Council, we d try to shape it towards something more like the Quartet Report from the summer of 2016, which was deemed to be, even by the Israelis, as a fairly balanced document. It was critical of settlements but it was also critical of Palestinian incitement and violence and called on the Arab states to do more on normalization. I had hoped we could, if we had to do anything, land there on a bit more balanced product. Of course, that's not the dynamic in the Security Council where someone presents something and eventually you have to vote on it yes or no. I'll back up just a little bit to say the following. There had been a lot of discussion within the administration and external to the administration about what should be the last move on Israeli-Palestinians issues. A big speech, the parameters resolution, something on settlements. All the ideas were kicked around. The President didn't in any way tip his hand. I don't think he'd made any decision on it. What was very, very clear to me immediately after the election with the somewhat surprising outcome, I think as surprising in Trump Tower as anywhere else was that the President had no interest in any final move on this issue. He wanted to focus in that transition on the things he had achieved, the Iran deal, the Cuba opening, Obama Care. Try to work with President-elect Trump to lock those things down and not open up new fights with Israel or Congress or the incoming Trump administration or the Jewish community on some other matter. That was clear to me, very clear that he was not interested in this. Of course, the Palestinians had other ideas. They thought they had an opportunity to try to slip one past the goalie at the end. If was drafted carefully and used a lot of our language and repeated what has passed in many other Security Council resolutions under other administrations, they might be able to do that. Something else happened after Trump was elected. There was kind of a big celebration in Israel among people on the right and advocates for settlements that said, "Wow! With the incoming Trump administration, the US commitment to two states is history. We don't have to worry about that anymore. We can start annexing the West Bank. We can start legalizing settlements that the Supreme Court in Israel has declared illegal." There was Knesset legislation advancing to do that. "We can build anywhere we want with abandon." I went into the Prime Minister's office a couple times in that period. I said to my colleagues there, good friends, I said, "I don t know what the Trump administration policy on settlements is going to be." By the way, it's not what that celebration anticipated it would be. It's

15 more muted, but it still tries to put some limitations on that, but I said, "If you think that's going to be the outcome or the new policy, my advice is to wait until January to start to act on it, not to do it in November and December and to have that be the discourse that shapes the final chapter of our relationship and any decisions the President might have to make." In the end, of course, a lot of those things went forward. When the President had to make his judgment call, I might have made a different judgment call, but it was certainly shaped in part by that question of if we're closer to the death of the two-state solution and advocates for the death of the two-state solution are celebrating that that's the new reality and Israel is getting closer to a bi-national state, not Jewish and democratic and not the same Israel that it's always been and certainly will complicate our own relationship with Israel, would it be helpful or harmful for the United States to seem to give it's imprimatur to that narrative that s gaining great currency in Israel at the moment. I'm not saying it's the whole source of the decision, but it certainly was the context and shaped it. Unquestionably, his reasons for making that decision to abstain on that resolution were about trying to help ensure that the two-state solution remains viable, that Israel can remain the Jewish and democratic state it has always been and has always been a close ally to the United States and it was not in any way to harm Israel, to settle scores with Bibi, to have one last fight before he left. While I may have made a different judgment, I think it's important to understand the reality of how that choice was made. SCHANZER: Just one last thing. The language, there have been a number of reports that it was US language that was ultimately tweaked, but it was actually presented by the US. True? Not true? SHAPIRO: Fiction as far as I'm concerned. There have been claims to the contrary. No one's ever presented any evidence to support that. This was something the Palestinians had been talking to us very openly, it wasn't a secret, all through the fall of 2016, that they might try to do this. Certainly, they were talking to others on the Security Council to try to shape it. Certainly, they were trying to game what kind of language might produce an American abstention instead of a veto. I can't say there weren't conversations in which it's possible that people said, "You know, this kind of language we'd certainly veto as President Obama did in Maybe other kind of language we wouldn't," but it was not the case that this was an American-drafted, American-initiated, American-sponsored initiative. That is total fiction. It's certainly true that the President didn't make his decision on how he was going to actually vote on that until the day of the resolution. Had we really planned to do this from the beginning, obviously we would have known that outcome, which we didn t know until hours maybe minutes before the actual vote. SCHANZER: Yeah. Of course, since then, there are those in Israel who say that this is lending credence to the BDS movement and all these sort of things. You can still see some reverberations from that but

16 SHAPIRO: I've been told that this resolution gave away the Kotel and delegitimized Israel. Again, I could have lived without this and I would have probably made a different judgment, but I don't think it did any of those things. It's very consistent with many, many dozens of previous Security Council resolutions that essentially make the case that changes to the borders that existed before the Six-Day War will be recognized internationally when they're the product of negotiations. That doesn't take anything away from Israel. That means that in negotiations, Israel certainly is going to retain the Kotel, going to retain ties to other holy sites, but that to get to broader international recognition, it's going to need to be the product of negotiations. That's not new. That's not new to the Obama administration. That's not new for the international community as a whole. I really think there's a lot of hyperbole about the impact of the resolution. I don t think it was a grand betrayal. I don t think it did any harm to Israel that I can see. I can't see any harm on the ground. I can't see any harm to its position now. I think it's important to sort of be a little bit more measured when talking about that resolution even if it's one that I disagreed with. time. SCHANZER: Yeah. I think the controversy on that one probably still remains for some SHAPIRO: For the rest of my career, I'll be asked that question in any similar forum. SCHANZER: I'm sure. I am sure. I want to open it up now to the audience. I'm sure there are lots of questions. When I call on you, just wait for a microphone to come for you. Please just state your name, affiliation. Please keep your questions in the forms of questions. Keep them short. Obviously, we want to make sure that all questions are respectful and just right down the middle. Dan Raviv, please. RAVIV: Would you, Ambassador, kindly remind what years were you ambassador? Just four or SHAPIRO: Five and a half, 2011 to the end of the Obama administration. RAVIV: Most of the eight years. I'd like you to clear up two legends, if I can call it that. One is that at some point, the US government was probably convinced that Netanyahu and his then defense minister Barak were about to attack targets in Iran. The US really wanted to stop that. If you could comment on that and how to stop that and maybe that's even what made the JCPOA so important. The other legend. The other legend is perhaps broader, that the Obama administration in specific helped the Iron Dome, helped so many defense programs, before that, even the Arrow aid, largely out of the following philosophy. If Israel's strong, it'll make concessions. You're hoping to strengthen, if you will, the peace side by being a strong defense ally.

17 SHAPIRO: In regard to the first, I think it's pretty well reported and I think Defense Minister Barak has spoken about it pretty openly that in 2012 or '11 and '12, there certainly was a serious discussion within the Israeli government and in their inner cabinet and with their security chiefs about the pros and cons of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. We were not party to those conversations. I'm not going to keep score on who was on what side or what the decision was made or how the decision was made not to strike. It was, of course, the case that the Obama administration felt that it would be better to give more time for diplomacy. We were still working on what was a very effective sanctions regime, but that ultimately produced crippling economic impact and ultimately brought Iran to the negotiating table, which we had agreed between us and Israel was the desired outcome of those sanctions. We also knew that President Obama had put in place a military option maybe different, maybe with greater capability than the Israeli military option, that would give us considerably more time before that decision, the end of diplomacy and the turning to military force would need to be made. Of course, it's legitimate that two different countries, situated differently, different capabilities, different locations, effected by the threat differently, with different global responsibilities or not, would have a different level of risk tolerance on what's the timeline and then what the difference between a good deal and a bad deal. All very legitimate between two allies who are closely connected in our interests, but maybe don't always define them identically. I think it was definitely known and it certainly has been reported that among the people in Israel who were most concerned about a military strike were those who were going to have to implement it. I think that has been reported publicly because as most military people know, you know how you get into something. You don't know how you get out of it. There's likely to be blowback, maybe toward Israel, maybe toward other allies, maybe drawing in the United States. That at least had to be factored into the decision, but I won't judge on how that decision ultimately was made. I think it was obviously in our interests and in our mutual interest that we did give time for the sanctions to take effect, that we did give time for an agreement to be reached. Since we disagreed on the outcome of the agreement, I don t know. Maybe some Israelis look back on that as a missed opportunity, but I still think we were better off where we came. The question of missile defense and our security systems more broadly to keep Israel strong. I guess there's a plausible theory of the case that if Israel feels it can defend itself, it will feel strong enough and secure enough to make difficult decisions and concessions in the peace agreement, but that wasn't really how we conceived of that assistance. We conceived of that assistance as meeting our obligation and also our interest to ensure that Israel has the right to defend itself against all manner of threats, many of which have nothing to do with the Palestinian issue. Of course, the Iron Dome is related to the Palestinian issue, since it was used against primarily Hamas rockets. By the way, it's intercepted over 1,000 rockets. Every one of those, a potentially life-saving event. It's saved more Palestinians lives than Israeli lives because of the