Kissinger represented the “real face of the United States,” according to Sadat, because he appreciated power and he was Jewish. The Egyptian leader assumed that Kissinger’s position as the most prominent international Jewish diplomat gave him unique leverage over Israel. Sadat pledged that he would manage the other Arab leaders, and in return he expected the United States to “put pressure” on Israel. Egyptian foreign minister Ismail Fahmy brushed aside Kissinger’s protestations about Israeli intransigence, exclaiming that Prime Minister Rabin “is your boy.”⁴⁵ The secretary of state did not deny this asserted link between himself and the Israeli prime minister, and responded, “I need a few months to work on him.”⁴⁶

Kissinger’s “shuttle diplomacy” between Cairo, Jerusalem, and other capitals followed the model of the transatlantic networking he developed through the International Seminar. He established himself as the closest and most effective link between various leaders and was able to turn their various prejudices to his advantage. Most significantly, he made himself indispensable to political negotiations. Kissinger needed Sadat to maintain a “moderate” Middle East where American influence could be maximized, and Sadat needed Kissinger as his effective go-between with Israel. The Jewish secretary of state combined personal politics, skillful diplomacy, and a coherent, grand strategy to produce stability in the Middle East. He made himself into not just a “mystical figure,” but also a bridge between warring societies. Kissinger retains this unique position in the twenty-first century. No other person outside government wields comparable influence both in the Arab states and in Israel. No other person outside government is so connected to the sources of power in multiple societies, yet so suspected for his multiple loyalties.

However, Kissinger could not control Israeli leaders or the opinions of the American Jewish community. Sadat overrated him, as he overrated the unity and power of Jews in general. In fact, Kissinger frequently complained about the opposition he confronted from Israeli and American Jews. “They are,” he told Brent Scowcroft, “as obnoxious as the Vietnamese.” In another conversation, Kissinger joked: “I’m going to be the first Jew accused of antisemitism.”⁴⁸

Israeli and American Jews were concerned that Kissinger was over-compensating for his background by making excessive concessions to the Arabs. He was, they feared, trading Israel’s security for his own international influence. Menachem Begin, the leader of Israel’s Likud party and future prime minister, reminded Kissinger: “You are a Jew. You are not the first [Jew] who has reached a high position in one’s country of residence. Remember the past. There were such Jews, who out of a complex feared non-Jews would charge them with acting for their people, and therefore did the opposite.” Begin further warned that “Dr. Kissinger should be careful about such a distortion in his seemingly objective thinking.”⁴⁹

American Jews had similar concerns. Rabbi Daniel J. Silver of Cleveland accused Kissinger of trying too hard to show the Arabs that “being a Jew doesn’t count.” Gershon Jacobson, a Jewish literary figure from New York, explained that “Kissinger was determined to gain the confidence of the Arabs as a Jew, and to do so at the expense of Israel.” Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, told Kissinger that Israeli and American Jews feared he was an appeaser, a “Chamberlain” seeking to conciliate enemies bent on destroying the Jewish people.⁵⁰

Fame and celebrity made Kissinger an international giant, but for those who felt closest to him in background, he remained all too human. He disappointed those who expected the most of him and appeared disloyal to those who demanded a champion for their group. Most of all, he refused to focus his energies on ethnic and religious claims as an issue separate from American interests in a stable Middle East. As Yitzhak Rabin remembered, Kissinger enraged those who wanted a Jewish representative in office rather than an American secretary of state. He defined his Jewishness through the American state, not through Israel.⁵¹

This was a major handicap for Kissinger, particularly when he negotiated with Israeli leaders, but it also had its advantages. Kissinger was a Jew, who had experienced the worst forms of antisemitism. None of his Jewish detractors ever forgot that. As much as they might criticize him for not doing enough on behalf of Jews, he was still one of them. He was still part of their family. This did not produce agreement on policy, but it did create a foundation for basic trust and empathy. Non-Jewish secretaries of state did not benefit from the same special bond with Israel.

Harvard economist and dean Henry Rosovsky, who participated in some of Kissinger’s meetings with American Jewish leaders after the Yom Kippur War, recalls the “comfort” and “mutual respect” that permeated these discussions. Despite the anxieties that Rosovsky voiced regarding insufficient United States support for Israel in December 1973, “this was an all-Jewish meeting, with a shared concern and commitment to Israel.” Rosovsky remembers that he and others who talked with the first Jewish secretary of state knew “Kissinger would not be a person to betray Israel.”⁵²

Rabbi Alexander Schindler, speaking on behalf of many American Jewish organizations, made the same point. He and other Jewish leaders paid tribute to Kissinger “because we sense in his depths a commitment to Israel and the Jewish people. He may have been objective, but he was never detached.”⁵³

Kissinger appealed precisely to this sentiment. He asked his fellow Jews “to understand what we’re trying to do” and “avoid slogans.” Warning that “Israel is in great danger” if it remains isolated and surrounded by belligerent enemies, he called for help in pursuing territorial compromises, particularly in the Sinai Peninsula, which would reduce conflict throughout the region. “With some wisdom in the Jewish community, and among friends of Israel, maybe we can manage it…. Certainly this government will never participate in anything that we believe involves any risk of its destruction.”⁵⁴

Rabin reciprocated these sentiments, despite his evident anxiety about Kissinger’s calls for Israeli concessions to the Arab states: “We believe very much in Israel that there is friendship between our two countries. I have had the experience of this friendship, especially with you, and all our intentions are to continue this—to have the basis to speak frankly, but the basis is a common interest and a common understanding.” As a result of Kissinger’s prodding, Rabin agreed to push forward with further negotiations for territorial withdrawals from Egyptian-claimed lands as well as discussions with Jordan and Syria. Kissinger, in turn, pledged to enhance American support for Israel through an expanding list of military supplies and billions of dollars in foreign aid. Kissinger and Rabin trusted one another “to find a constructive solution” for mutual concerns.⁵⁶

Even though public controversy in both Israel and the United States intensified during Kissinger’s time in office, relations between the leaders of the two countries grew closer. Yigal Allon, Israel’s deputy prime minister and a former participant in Kissinger’s International Seminar at Harvard, confirmed this point: “I trusted him to the extent that I could trust the foreign minister of any other country. I trusted his friendship, but not always his judgment. I never doubted I was talking to a friend of Israel. He was loyal to Israel in his way.”⁵⁷