Michael Oren: Situation in Israel's north 'woefully underreported'

(JNS) — Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told JNS in July that Hamas poses a “tactical threat” to Israel, while Hezbollah presents a “strategic threat.” Since that conversation, Hezbollah has continued to attack the Jewish state regularly. But Washington is still not paying enough attention to the U.S.-designated terror group and to the plight of Israelis in the northern part of the country, Oren told JNS last week at the Israeli-American Council summit in Washington.

“I’ve been trying to raise awareness in this country about the intolerable situation in the north part of Israel, and also the awareness that Israel eventually is going to have to act to defend itself and to return these people back to their homes,” Oren told JNS, hours before the Jewish state launched a major air assault on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The situation in Israel’s north is “woefully underreported, even among American policymakers,” Oren said. 

“Even if they are partially aware, they’re insufficiently updated about the entire picture,” he said. “It’s quite extraordinary.” 

‘No context’

The longstanding crisis on Israel’s northern border has made headlines in the United States in recent days, following Israel’s major operation to detonate communications devices of Hezbollah operatives.

“There’s a narrative here that says Israel just woke up one morning and decided to attack Lebanon,” Oren said. “There’s no context of 11 months of just relentless aggression by Hezbollah.”

Oren told JNS that part of the problem lies in the nature of Hezbollah’s attacks, which have come steadily for more than 11 months, rather than all at once like Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.

“It’s the old frog in the boiling water,” he said. “You put the frog in the water. You put them over a slow boil, and the frog sits there and gets boiled to death without even feeling it.”

Oren added that Americans are “very much focused on the internal political situation here,” where “it’s all about Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris, and it’s very difficult to insert any other issue into the American consciousness right now.”

The former Israeli envoy hopes that the plight of Israelis who live in the north will come to the forefront of U.S. attention.

During meetings with American officials last week, a Hezbollah rocket hit the Metula home of a member of the Israeli delegation that accompanied Oren.

“It’s in real time. All of a sudden, she shows the cell phone,” Oren said. “You see the fire spreading around the neighborhood.”

‘Cut and dried case’

Oren has been meeting with anyone who is willing, even members of Congress “who are not necessarily, entirely what we call friendly to Israel.”

“It’s OK. We want them to know, too,” he told JNS. “They also have a voice.” 

The former Israeli envoy has met with senior advisers to both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, including a deputy White House national security advisor. Among the members of Congress with whom he has met are Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), both of whom defend Israel consistently.

He also met with members of Congress who don’t typically comment publicly about the Jewish state.

“We have to remind people, educate people, that there’s an entire part of this country—100,000 people have been evacuated,” Oren said. “There are tens of thousands of people who haven’t been evacuated under daily rocket fire, and this has gone on for 11 months.”

“It is a cut-and-dried case of a people and a state exercising its inalienable right to self defense,” he said.

Although the Jewish state faces multiple challenges on many fronts, Oren told JNS that he sensed hope among the 4,000 attendees of the summit in Washington.

“I think people are optimistic about the future,” he said. “They understand we’re up against a lot of opposition on many American campuses and many branches of the American media.”

Oren encourages Israeli-Americans to press their elected representatives to act to ensure “an unconditional and uninterrupted supply of munitions” to Israel. He also called for a “diplomatic Iron Dome” covering the United Nations Security Council, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.