Interview with Amb. Michael Herzog
During one of the most turbulent periods in Israel’s history, Ambassador Michael Herzog served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from November 2021 to January 2025. His tenure spanned the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, a prolonged war in Gaza, an unprecedented full-scale war with Hezbollah, and the growing threat of direct confrontation with Iran.
As the war unfolded, Herzog worked to secure critical U.S. support while raising concerns over delayed arms transfers that risked undermining Israel’s deterrence, noting in a recent interview that “certain items we needed … were held up for six, seven, eight months” and that “many of us worked day and night to make sure things would not move slowly.” He also played a key role in managing the diplomatic fallout of internal Israeli debates and navigating complex U.S.-Israel relations during his ambassadorship.
Ambassador Herzog joined JINSA President & CEO Michael Makovsky, PhD, for an in-depth discussion of Israel’s evolving security situation and how to advance the shared U.S.-Israel strategic interest in preventing a nuclear Iran. Ambassador Herzog assessed the geostrategic opportunities presented by Israel’s military success against Tehran and its proxies, provided his insights into ongoing indirect U.S.-Iran negotiations and the complex Iranian nuclear threat, and analyzed the multifaceted challenges facing Israel in the Gaza theater.
Amb. Michael Herzog Michael Herzog, a retired brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was appointed Israel’s ambassador to the United States in 2021. General Herzog has held senior positions in the office of Israel’s minister of defense under ministers Ehud Barak, Amir Peretz, Shaul Mofaz, and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. |
Michael Makovsky, PhD Michael Makovsky, PhD is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), which he joined in 2013. A U.S. national security expert, he has worked extensively on U.S. policy toward Iran’s nuclear program, Israel, and the broader Middle East, as well as the intersection of international energy markets and politics with U.S. national security. He is also author of Churchill’s Promised Land (Yale University Press), a diplomatic-intellectual history of Winston Churchill’s complex relationship with Zionism. |