. . . We meet today at end of a most remarkable year, a year full of surprises, unexpected twists of plot, and challenges that we have never faced before. For American pro-Israel community, I think it is fair to say that it has been a year Israel was tested by a series of events and stories that put Israel in a negative light with U.S. -Israel relations on a lower plane than when year began. Voices declared that we had seen the end of honeymoon; beginning of a era in which U.S. -Israel relations had supposedly their peak and would be headed downward. But most remarkable fact about 13 months that have passed since we last assembled is that this new conventional wisdom has been proven flat wrong. In spite of predictions of prophets of doom, past year has in fact been a period of striking achievements and advances in U.S.-Israel relationship and we are ending this period on a notably higher plane than we began. What I would like to do this afternoon is to review story of past year in order to analyze it and extract very carefully its meaning, because I believe that it contains vital lessons about nature of our work and how we ought to conduct ourselves in future. My working assumption, as we go through this, is that our achievements in face of adversity this past year were not an accident, but fruits of very sound principles that we have observed in past and ought to stand by in future. With all negatives, it is not surprising if perhaps our adversaries were rubbing their hands with glee, and our friends were beating their breasts with despair, believing that mood was turning against Israel and there will be an end to honeymoon period. The problems are familiar-Pollard spy case, shipment of arms to South Africa, Israel's entanglement in Iran-Contra affair, renewed speculation of Israel's nuclear policy, leadership confusion in Jeru*Thomas A. Dine is executive director of AIPAC. This is text of his speech given on 17 May 1987 to AIPAC Conference.