TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040389/04038900.041

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.6 KB | 186 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 18

The Diaspora's Discontent


U.S. Jews are leaning on Shamir to bend his rigid policies

By Laurence I. Barrett


    As darkness fell over Jerusalem's Old City last Wednesday,
Orthodox Jews recited evening prayers at the Western Wall, the
remains of King Herod's great temple and the symbol of the fall
of Israel two millenniums ago. Armed border police stood guard
against terrorists while 1,500 leaders of the Diaspora, more
than half of them Americans, assembled for a "Conference on
Jewish Solidarity with Israel." Mordechai Gur, commander of the
troops that wrested the Old City from Jordan in 1967, read a
closing proclamation: "We support the democratically elected
government of national unity in its efforts to achieve peace and
security with its neighbors."

    The gathering, declared Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, was
"a great success" that "demonstrated total support of all
Jewish people for the State of Israel."  But the fact that he
found it necessary to convene such an international pep rally
before his first meeting next week with President Bush
underscored Shamir's well-founded worries about his standing
abroad, notably in the U.S. Shamir's convocation could not
disguise the growing impatience of many Jews outside Israel.
They bridle at his stubborn resistance to any accommodation with
the rebellious Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West
Bank and Gaza. Nor could the event paper over his fear of the
increasingly assertive attempts to force him to adopt a more
flexible stance. That activism strengthens Washington's effort
to prod Israel into direct talks with the Palestine Liberation
Organization.

    Traditionally, the politically potent American Jewish
community has been a buffer against U.S. Government pressure on
Israel. Though their support for Israel, as the embodiment of
the Jewish people, remains as solid as the stone blocks in the
Western Wall, many American Jews balked at being used as extras
in Shamir's biblical unity epic. Some of those invited journeyed
to Jerusalem with misgivings; others stayed home. The open
criticism from American Jews is raising fears in Jerusalem,
which depends on the U.S. for military and economic survival.
Says Yossi Ahimeir, director of the Prime Minister's bureau:
"When the U.S. Administration sees that support of American Jews
for Israel is diminishing, it can allow itself to take more
critical positions."

    Divisions among Israelis compound Shamir's difficulties. At
the start of the three-day meeting in Jerusalem, stories in
Israeli newspapers described a new intelligence analysis
contending that the intifadeh -- the popular uprising by
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank -- could not be
suppressed by force. Only political measures, including talks
with the P.L.O., would lead to a solution.

    Shamir initially denounced the stories as "lies," but later
his spokesman acknowledged that the intelligence report
existed. While the document offered no specific recommendations,
it did say Jerusalem could no longer ignore the P.L.O. The
intelligence assessment came a fortnight after a critical report
from the prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel
Aviv University. In a study sponsored by the American Jewish
Congress, the think tank concluded that none of the long-term
peace options that either Shamir or the Palestinian leadership
considers acceptable have any chance to succeed. The scholars
argued that moving beyond the status quo requires a long process
of mutual accommodation starting with direct talks with the
P.L.O. and possibly ending with creation of a circumscribed
Palestinian state.

    Such domestic pressure reinforces the Bush Administration's
strategy: declining to put forth a made-in-Washington peace
plan that Shamir would immediately reject, while allowing
mounting diplomatic heat to force him to come up with his own
proposal. The White House has made clear that it expects the
Israeli leader to bring along some ideas when he sees Bush on
April 6. At the same time, the Administration suggests modest
concessions by both sides as first steps toward an eventual
agreement. On Israel's part, such "confidence-building measures"
would include releasing at least some Palestinians imprisoned
during the intifadeh and holding elections leading to a limited
form of autonomy for Gaza and the West Bank. The U.S. is also
urging Jerusalem to start talking to Palestinian leaders who
live in the occupied territories but do not belong to the P.L.O.
Much to Shamir's displeasure, Secretary of State James Baker
declared last week that it would be a "major mistake" to rule
out direct Israeli-P.L.O. negotiations in the likely event that
no Palestinian leader would sit down with the Israelis without
the approval of the P.L.O.

    Though P.L.O. chief Yasser Arafat has become more flexible
and wily in his diplomacy, his organization's intransigence
nearly matches Shamir's. In his first formal session with the
P.L.O. last week, a four-hour meeting in Carthage, U.S.
Ambassador to Tunisia Robert Pelletreau failed to persuade
Arafat's representatives to order a halt to the rock throwing
and other violence of the intifadeh. The rebuff, together with
continued raids from Lebanese territory, showed that progress
toward a settlement is more than a matter of moving Shamir's
government.

    Still, Arafat's recognition of Israel's right to exist --
expressed in language acceptable to Washington if not to
Jerusalem -- has altered the political dynamics. The fact that
five prominent American Jews coaxed Arafat until he finally got
his rhetoric right in December demonstrated the changing role
of American Jewry. When one of the quintet, Menachem Rosensaft,
returned from the Stockholm meeting with Arafat, an effort was
made to oust him as head of the Labor Zionist Alliance and
member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations. He survived the attempted purge, and remains a
vehement critic of Likud policy. "I am particularly troubled,"
he says, "by the arrogant position that they do not have to come
forward with anything constructive."

    Most of the leaders of mainstream Jewish organizations are
more circumspect in their public utterances, but they have been
bombarding Jerusalem with private warnings that Shamir is
losing support in the U.S. Both the Conference of Presidents and
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ignored Jerusalem's
cue to protest Washington's decision to deal with the P.L.O.
Moreover, there has been a growing inclination by Jewish leaders
to display what has been quietly obvious for years: a preference
for the Israeli Labor Party's more flexible approach. Theodore
Mann, former head of the American Jewish Congress, argues that
Jewish activists should "try to make a difference. Through some
process there should be an exchange of land for peace with
security."

    A poll sponsored by the American Jewish Committee shows
similar feelings among rank-and-file American Jews. The survey
found that 58% of American Jews endorse and 18% oppose
Israeli-P.L.O. negotiations, provided Arafat's recognition of
Israel and renunciation of terrorism are genuine. The poll found
that, by a lesser margin, they favor Labor over Likud.

    The strongest consensus in the poll was opposition by 86%
to a change in Israeli law "so as to recognize only those
conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis." When last fall's
election gave neither Likud nor Labor a clear majority, each
considered forming a coalition with ultra-Orthodox religious
parties. The price would have been high: giving the fanatic
religious groups exclusive power over the religious conversion
of immigrants to Israel. By implication, the legitimacy of
Conservative and Reform Jews would have been undermined.
Outraged protests from abroad helped torpedo that idea and
forced creation of another inaptly named "unity" government
joining Likud and Labor. It also made it easier for Diaspora
Jews to vent their unease over other issues. Says Alexander
Schindler, head of the U.S. Reform movement: "The `who-is-a-Jew'
issue gave license for many to express their cumulative
distress."

    Still, that distress has limits. Neither Schindler nor many
other prominent leaders are ready to write off Shamir as
hopeless. There is also understandable skepticism about the
genuineness of Arafat's conversion to moderation. Despite the
anguish over Israel's harsh response to the intifadeh, donations
to the United Jewish Appeal and the purchase of Israel bonds
continue to grow.

    Ten years ago last week, another adamant Likud leader,
Menachem Begin, signed a peace treaty with Egypt and embraced
his foe, Anwar Sadat. At a meeting of Israel-bond volunteers in
Washington commemorating that breakthrough, Nobel laureate Elie
Wiesel movingly evoked the dilemma felt by many Jews. Wiesel,
a survivor of the Holocaust, warned against allowing
frustration over the absence of peace to be translated into
disunity. "I feel so much gratitude to the people of Israel and
to the State of Israel," he said, "that I simply cannot bring
myself to become a judge over my people."

    That is the emotional chain that has bound America's 6
million Jews to Israel's 3.6 million. Together with their fears
of Arab animosity, the connection has maintained Jewish
solidarity for decades. But the nature of that unity is being
redefined. With many Israelis openly yearning for a change in
direction, American Jews now feel free to help them bring it
about.