A Brief History of Israel’s Ambassadors to Washington, Their Successes, and Their Troubles

Come next month, in January 2021, the Israeli politician Gilad Erdan will be joining a long and storied list of characters, and heroes, who have had the job as Israel’s top representative in Washington. As Erdan both prepares for and settles into his new positions—he has already begun serving as Israel’s ambassador to the UN—it might behoove him, and the rest of us, to learn about his predecessors, and their experiences representing the Jewish state in the American capital.

Israel’s first ambassador to Washington, Eliahu Eilat (1948-1950), was not one of the better known of Erdan’s predecessors. He did, however, receive what may have been the most illustrious assignment: notifying President Harry Truman of Israel’s declaration as a state and requesting American recognition of that state. In a May 14, 1948 letter to Truman, signed with his not-yet-Hebraicized name of “Epstein,” Ambassador Eilat let the president know of Israel’s pending assertion of independence, and expressed “the hope that your government will recognize Israel and welcome Israel into the community of nations.” After a legendary internal struggle, and over the objections of Secretary of State George Marshall, Truman agreed to do so, beginning a long friendship between the two nations.

While Truman started a friendship between the United States and the nascent Israel, Marshall held a grudge against its ambassador. He would not deign to meet with Eilat—as we shall see, he would not be the last secretary of state to refuse such meetings—so Eilat looked for allies on the Hill. Eilat started a long Israeli tradition, taken up with special ingenuity by its ambassadors, of finding Congress to be more friendly territory than the State Department, and often more generous as well. Eilat successfully lobbied Congress to help Israel get a vital $100 million Export-Import Bank loan in 1949.