In his most difficult moments – and who hasn’t had such moments since the outbreak of the war in Israel – Israel’s outgoing ambassador to Washington Mike Herzog drew strength from the Mekoros HaKedoshim, Yisrael Hayom reported.

In the most alarming hours, he would turn to Perek 83 in Tehillim: “G-d, do not be silent to You, do not be quiet and do not be still, O G-d… They said, ‘Come, and let us annihilate them from the nation, and the name of Israel shall no longer be remembered.'”

He knew the second source from his father’s house, or to be precise, from his grandfather. In the spring of 1941, the Nazi army stood at the gates of Eretz Yisrael and there was real fear over the continued existence of the Jewish yishuv. Then-Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Halevi Herzog, Mike’s grandfather, expressed his famous stance that “there won’t be a third Churban.” Eighty-one years later, when Israel found itself in an “existential situation,” the grandson returned to his grandfather’s words.

In an extensive interview with Yisrael Hayom, Herzog revealed many disturbing details about the Biden administration’s stance toward Israel since October 7.

For example, when Iran directly attacked Israel for the first time, Herzog said that the Biden administration ordered Israel not to retaliate. “We responded that it doesn’t work like that in the Middle East, and that for us, it’s an existential situation,” Herzog said.

But the problems began way before then, from the beginning of the war in Gaza. Although Biden initially expressed ardent support for Israel and even visited Israel after the war broke out, “as time went by, the pressures increased and we entered a more complex discourse about the management of the war, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, and the collateral damage,” Herzog said. “This led to a situation where every decision-making process was accompanied by a complex and charged discussion with them and we were forced to intervene and mediate between the governments daily.”

“There were difficult moments and there were times when they went crazy. More than once, they really attacked me and said, ‘You’re crazy, you’ve lost your minds, how could you do something that would lead to escalation? You will drag us into war because you didn’t think it through, and then you will ask us to come and rescue you.’ There were tough arguments about things Israel did that, in their eyes, were a step too far.”

“We had to contain it so they wouldn’t blow up. We explained that we didn’t want to put them in a position where they would say ‘no,’ and we would still go ahead and do it. I told them, ‘Therefore, it is better not to say.’ I also asked them, ‘What would you have said if I had updated you in advance? Would you have agreed or not?’ Or, ‘How would you have reacted if someone had done this or that to you?’ Now look, if all this had developed into a regional escalation that they were afraid of – fine, but it didn’t happen. Therefore, we got through the crisis. In the end, they understood that Israel’s achievements against Iran and Hezbollah served their interests.”

Herzog added that despite the Biden administration’s constant warnings of restraint, when Israel ignored them and successfully deterred its enemies, Biden had the chutzpah to take credit for it!

“An absurd situation was created. They told us to beware and not to respond to Iran but at the end, they wanted credit for the successes and also said: ‘The situation in the Middle East is much better because we supported Israel.’ But they didn’t support those operations at the time.”

Herzog also acknowledged the injustice the Biden administration perpetrated by applying heavy pressure on Israel regarding supplying aid to Gaza, using the false claim that there was a “humanitarian crisis.”

Herzog clarified that in general, the Biden administration did provide substantial support to Israel during the war but in his words, “crossed a line” by freezing a shipment of heavy bombs. The Biden administration also did not stand up to “hostile elements” in the State Department.

“They sent a substantial amount of ammunition, assisted twice in defense against Iran, stood by our side in international courts [but did not agree to sanction them like Trump], and used its veto power at the UN more than once,” Herzog said. “There was one time they crossed the line, which was the delay of 2,000-pound bombs because of Rafah. This was also done in an inappropriate manner, and these were munitions that were very important to Israel at that time. Now Trump released them. On this issue, they made a big mistake. Who today remembers Rafah? There were additional delays that occurred later, not because of political decisions but as a result of bureaucratic delays in the State Department where there are hostile elements towards Israel.”

“There were quite a few hostile elements in the State Department who put sticks in the wheels of every Israeli request. Hostile bureaucracy. There are islands of those who support us and helped. But there are those who do not like us, there are those who dislike us very much, there are those who dislike us very, very much, and there are many anti-Israel elements. The shipments we managed to release were the result of very hard work with the help of friendly elements. But there are shipments that remained stuck until the end, and that is serious because delaying such things to an ally during a war is something that shouldn’t happen.”

Herzog also revealed a very disturbing reality – that he learned that there is a special legal department in the State Department that monitors Israel’s use of US weapons.

“During the war, it became clear to us that there is a dedicated office in the State Department that only deals with Israel in the context of the Leahy Laws (U.S. human rights laws that prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.)” Herzog said. “I’m not sure if it was established because of the war, but there is no such office for any other country in the world. This office checks if Israel meets the criteria of the Leahy Laws. Reports came from this office claiming that two IDF units should be sanctioned.”

It was here that Herzog told Yisrael Hayom “new and jaw-dropping details.” It turns out that the U.S. almost imposed sanctions on the secret 504 intelligence unit. This unit recruits and operates agents who conduct reconnaissance operations in enemy territories and obtain up-to-date intelligence for the IDF’s operational needs. In many cases, information collected by 504 was transmitted in real-time to forces on the ground on both fronts, saving the lives of soldiers, leading to the discovery of tunnels and weapons caches, and contributing information about hostages.

“Secretary of State Tony Blinken stood on the verge of deciding to impose sanctions on an Israeli military unit twice,” Herzog said. “The first was against the Netzach Yehuda Battalion. Gallant spoke with him, and it didn’t help. I took steps behind the scenes to prevent Blinken from doing so. Among other things, he wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson that Netzach Yehuda wasn’t fighting in Gaza, but at that time, the battalion was indeed fighting in Gaza. I told his people, ‘You’re wrong and embarrassing yourselves. This is a unit that is fighting in Gaza.’ There were other sensitive moves. We managed to convince them to start a dialogue to closely investigate the allegations against the unit, and in the end, no sanctions were imposed. We stopped it at the last minute.”

“In the second case, he had already decided. They investigated what happened in Sde Teiman and decided sanctions should be imposed on the two units that served there. With intense behind-the-scenes efforts, we managed to prevent him at the last moment from bringing the axe down. I don’t want to get into details about how, but we used various people and entities, and it was a tough effort. Let’s just say that there were good people, including at the top, who worked with us in collaboration and were part of the solution. I won’t mention names to avoid harm.”

Another outrageous step the Biden administration took against Israel was the imposition of unprecedented sanctions against Israeli citizens, mainly in Yehudah and Shomron, under the claim that they were acting violently. Now it can be revealed that Herzog – a person known for his moderate character – was furious with the Americans. For the first time, he explains why.

“Without notifying us in advance, they issued a presidential directive whose wording was very broad and included anyone ‘who harms peace and stability.’ This is an absurd formulation. My claim was that if the violence from Israelis in the Shomron truly bothers them, they should do it the right way. Because the way they are going now achieves the opposite result. The process by which they obtained information about those individuals was flawed. They imposed sanctions on people whom our security services said were not the right targets and not the ones causing problems on the ground. At times, they even harmed operational activities in the field. And there was also an impact on people’s livelihood. I think their handling of this issue was less professional and more political.”

“As mentioned, they were mostly concerned about a regional war, and they had many questions regarding the matter. However, towards the end, as the elections approached, we felt and saw the political pressure being added to the relationship. We saw their attempts to maneuver between the pro-Israel instinct and the anti-Israeli pressure from within the Democratic party and parts of the State Department,” Herzog concluded.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)