June 2007

Sixty-five years ago today, the United States Navy gained the greatest victory in its history. Against overwhelming odds, it won the American equivalent of the defeat of the Spanish Armada and decisively reversed the strategic situation in the Pacific in a single day.

The Japanese government and military were fully aware that Japan, with an economy a tenth the size of America’s, could not hope to beat the United States in a long war of attrition. Instead, it planned a series of blows that would make any interference with Japanese freedom of action in the Pacific prohibitively costly. First, it would destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet, making Japan the only major naval power in the region. Second, it would seize the “southern resource zone” of Indochina, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies, securing the oil and other resources it would need. Third, it would establish a distant and impregnable defensive perimeter along a series of islands (“unsinkable aircraft carriers”) that would make any attack on the home islands difficult if not impossible.

Few people associate Jerusalem with American history. The city, shaped by Israelites, Romans, Arabs, and Crusaders, is so ancient that it makes the events of 1776, or even 1492, seem almost contemporary. Yet hidden within its narrow stone streets lies a gem of U.S. history, the American Colony Hotel.

Frequently voted the best hotel in the Mideast, the American Colony has changed much in its 120 years. It was founded as a temporary home where American evangelicals could “sit still” while awaiting the Messiah, and it is now a luxurious Oriental-style hotel, a hangout for diplomats and journalists. Its sun-drenched patios and cloistered bars bear witness to quiet meetings between the elites of Israeli and Palestinian politics. Despite the shift from humble Christian settlement to power-broker haunt, the American Colony has maintained a welcoming neutrality, a much-needed rarity in the tumultuous region.