The event was a high point of liberal Zionism’s harmony with Washington politics. “It was totally, totally amazing,” said Zemel, who also attended the event. Clinton’s interest in the issue did not end there. In May 1998, speaking via satellite to young Arabs and Israelis gathered in Switzerland for a conference, she became one of the first people associated with the Clinton administration to call for a two-state solution. “I think that it will be in the long-term interest of the Middle East for Palestine to be a state,” she said, adding that “the territory that the Palestinians currently inhabit, and whatever additional territory they will obtain through the peace negotiations,” should be considered “a functioning modern state.”

The White House, seemingly uncomfortable with her statement, clarified that she was expressing a personal view. Her willingness to embrace the Palestinians soon caused another problem. In 1999, Ehrman accompanied Hillary Clinton on a trip to Ramallah, during which Clinton listened to Suha Arafat, the wife of the Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat, deliver a speech in Arabic accusing the Israeli government of gassing Palestinian women and children. At the conclusion of the remarks, Clinton embraced Suha Arafat and offered a customary peck on the cheek. The moment news of the kiss hit the wires, a high-ranking Clinton administration official placed an angry call to the cellphone of Rob Malley, a Middle East adviser to the president, who was traveling with the first lady, demanding that he fix the problem. But the damage to Hillary Clinton was done.

The next day, some New York Jewish leaders seized on the incident to discredit Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for the United States Senate, which was unofficially well underway. The New York Post ran a front-page headline reading “Shame on Hillary.” It was around this time that she enrolled in political Hebrew School. Under the tutelage of the senior New York senator, Chuck Schumer, she became extremely adept at winning the trust of audiences who held an absolute pro-Israel position. Schumer did, however, need to assure attendees at one campaign fund-raiser that “she will look to me to see how to vote” on Jewish issues.

Clinton was elected to the Senate in 2000 and struck a tone that was in sync with the Bush administration, which had aligned itself with the Israeli right. In 2007, she went further than the administration when she released a position paper calling for “an undivided Jerusalem” as the capital of Israel. In 2008, as a presidential candidate, she warned Tehran that America would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacked Israel.

By this time, Clinton was an Aipac favorite, and Aipac had changed from the time that Ehrman had worked there. Founded in 1954 to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship regardless of political ideology, the lobby has become increasingly conservative in its politics and Orthodox in its membership, while developing an unparalleled network of donors around the country. Its financial power, demonstrated at annual megaconferences that bring together presidential candidates and congressional power brokers, has translated into legislative might. Aipac-backed bills — on, for example, support for the Israeli military or sanctions against Iran — usually pass unanimously in Congress.

Many liberal Jews, alienated by Aipac over the years, were encouraged when Barack Obama ran against Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary. They appreciated that he took a more nuanced position when it came to supporting Israel, one that better reflected the political debate within Israel and among American Jews. They saw him as the rare presidential candidate who spoke their language and who seemed willing to push Israel toward peace. They expressed relief when he said that you could be committed to Israel while criticizing the policies of the right-wing government. “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re opposed to Israel, that you’re anti-Israel,” he said. “And that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

Once elected, Obama seemed to understand that he needed someone to lend him credibility with the Israeli government and its American defenders, a tough friend of Israel who could muscle the country away from settlements and toward a peace agreement. An aide to Obama called Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, and asked him to call Hillary Clinton to see if she would be “agreeable” to being named secretary of state.