5 Pro-Israel Voices Who Have Hillary Clinton's Ear on Foreign Policy: Jake Sullivan, Laura Rosenberger, Andrew Shapiro, James Steinberg, Tamara Cofman Wittes

(JTA) — It’s the season of the unconventional foreign policy adviser: Donald Trump takes advice from his son-in-law and real estate attorney, and Bernie Sanders cites folks who didn’t know they were advising him.

In this field, Hillary Clinton’s inner circle of foreign policy advisers stands out for not standing out. The names she has on her side are a who’s who of the last 20 years of national security policy, from Madeleine Albright, the second term secretary of state of her husband, President Bill Clinton, to Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the rising Democratic star who is the top party member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Other major insiders include Tom Donilon, the first-term national security adviser of President Barack Obama known for his closeness to Israel; Leon Panetta, a former Obama defense secretary of who has said the president missed opportunities to stem the bloodshed in Syria, and Michele Flournoy, a former defense undersecretary who turned down the opportunity in 2014 to be the first female defense secretary because she was unhappy with White House micromanagement.

Others advising Hillary Clinton are not immediately recognizable, but possess the credentials that – at least until this topsy turvy election season – were prerequisites for an entrée into a senior advisory role for a presidential campaign: top schools, experience in government and proven loyalty to the candidate.

Another tie that binds Clinton’s advisers to her: Many of them, like Clinton, tack to Obama’s right on national security. On Israel-specific issues, that means tending to be more skeptical of the Iran nuclear deal and more reluctant to criticize Israel openly.

But “same old, same old” is what the Clinton campaign hopes will emerge as one of its strengths. Albright, speaking last week on a campaign call after Republican front-runner Trump’s first major foreign policy speech, put it this way: “Do you want someone unpredictable with the nuclear codes?”

Here’s a look at five top Middle East advisers and the chops they bring to the campaign and could carry into a Clinton administration. Jake Sullivan and Laura Rosenberger are paid staffers, and the others belong to campaign advisory groups and have helped shape policy papers.

Jake Sullivan

A Yale law school alum who advised Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and went on to advise Obama, Sullivan was Clinton’s deputy chief of staff when she was Obama’s secretary of state. He moved to Vice President Joe Biden’s office after she left at the end of Obama’s first term.

Sullivan, 39, is now the campaign’s foreign policy chief, and is touted to become the youngest-ever national security adviser should Clinton win the presidency.

Sullivan was Clinton’s point man in helping to shape the talks that led to the Iran nuclear deal. According to Politico, as Biden’s national security adviser, he brokered the historic 2013 phone call between President Obama and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani.

Clinton

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