Shielding Israel From Sanctions Recalls Failed Policies of Past

By Alfred M. Lilienthal

The Clinton administration's puzzling "agreement" to protect Israel from U.S. Security Council sanctions against Israel for its deportation of some 400 Palestinians reveals a familiar mindset. It has resulted in the U.S. ignoring continuing violations of the human rights of Palestinians under occupation since 1967.

Of my 30-odd tours of the Middle East since the creation of Israel in 1948, none was more revealing of this mindset than that of the spring of 1980, when I spent two months in the region, including 17 days in the occupied territories. The Palestinians' heretofore timid resignation to their fate was then giving way to growing determination to take drastic action against their continued oppression by the Israelis.

The intifada was still seven years in the future when I arrived in Amman and requested Ambassador Nicholas Veliotes to communicate my impressions of what I had witnessed to the secretary of state, which he did in a priority cable to the department, repeated to American embassies in Cairo, Damascus, Jeddah, Tel Aviv, the American consulate general in Jerusalem, and the U.S. mission to the U.N. in New York. I've since received the text of the cable, declassified under Freedom of Information procedures. It read:

SUBJECT: SITUATION IN WEST BANK

1. DR. ALFRED LILIENTHAL CALLED ON AMBASSADOR MAY 20 TO DISCUSS HIS RECENT VISIT TO THE WEST BANK. LILIENTHAL NOTED HE WAS UNABLE TO CONTACT CONSUL GENERAL GROVE PRIOR TO HIS DEPARTURE AND ASKED AMBASSADOR TO COMMUNICATE HIS VIEWS TO WASHINGTON.

2. DR. LILIENTHAL SAID THAT HE HAD EXPECTED TO FIND THAT THE PRESS WAS EXAGGERATING THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION ON THE WEST BANK. TO HIS SURPRISE AND HORROR, HE LEARNED THAT THE PRESS HAS UNDERSTATED THE SERIOUSNESS AND EXPLOSIVENESS OF THE SITUATION. HE TRAVELED THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE WEST BANK, INCLUDING TIME SPENT IN JERUSALEM.

WHAT HE SAW MADE HIM HEARTSICK. HE DESCRIBED THE BEGIN GOVERNMENT AS USING "NAZI POLICY" TO RID THE WEST BANK AND EAST JERUSALEM OF PALESTINIANS JUST AS THE NAZIS HAD TRIED TO MAKE EUROPE "JUDEN REIN." HE DESCRIBED THE BLACK PESSIMISM OF MODERATES SUCH AS ANWAR KHATTIB AND ANWAR NUSEIBEH, AND RELATED THE FOLLOWING VIGNETTE AS INDICATIVE OF THE EXPLOSIVENESS AND POTENTIAL FOR WIDESPREAD VIOLENCE. LILIENTHAL VISITED THE TOWN OF ANABTA NEAR NABLUS TO PAY HIS CONDOLENCES WHERE A YOUTH HAD BEEN KILLED BY ISRAELI SOLDIERS FOLLOWING A ROCK-THROWING INCIDENT AND A CURFEW HAD BEEN CLAMPED ON THE TOWN SUPPOSEDLY UNTIL THE MAYOR WOULD MAKE A PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR THE ACTION OF THE DEAD YOUTH IN THROWING STONES. AFTER SEVERAL DAYS, THE MAYOR WAS PREPARED TO MAKE SUCH AN APOLOGY IN ORDER TO ALLEVIATE THE SUFFERING OF THE TOWNSPEOPLE.

HE DID NOT CARRY THROUGH BECAUSE OF THE OPPOSITION OF HIS PEOPLE, WHO WARNED HIM THAT ANY SUCH PUBLIC ACT OF CONTRITION ON HIS PART WOULD RESULT IN THE TOWNSPEOPLE DENOUNCING HIM.

3. LILIENTHAL SAID THAT HE IS CONVINCED THAT THE NEW MILITANCY IS ANCHORED AT THE GRASS ROOTS AMONG THE MASSES OF WEST BANKERS. THE MAYORS AND OTHERS WHO PURPORT TO SPEAK FOR THE WEST BANKERS MUST TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION IF THEY ARE TO SURVIVE POLITICALLY. HE DECRIED THE INSENSITIVITY OF THE BEGIN GOVERNMENT TO THE DISASTER THAT IS LOOMING IN THE AREA AS A RESULT OF CALCULATED ISRAELI POLICIES.

4. DR. LILIENTHAL SAID HE HAD TRIED TO SEE PRIME MINISTER BEGIN BUT WAS TURNED DOWN, "NOT SURPRISINGLY." HE ASKED THAT, ALONG WITH HIS COMMENTS, WE REPORT THE TEXT OF THE HAND-WRITTEN LETTER OF MAY 17 THAT HE HAD SENT TO BEGIN.

5. BEGIN TEXT: PRIME MINISTER MENACHEM BEGIN:

I MUST PROTEST THE BARBAROUS MEASURES OF REPRESSION AND AGGRESSION WHICH YOUR MILITARY GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN PRACTICING AGAINST THE PALESTINIAN ARABS ON- THE WEST BANK—THOSE IN THE CITIES AND VILLAGES, AS WELL AS THOSE IN THE REFUGEE CAMPS. I KNOW WHEREOF I SPEAK BECAUSE I HAVE JUST VISITED NABLUS, BIR ZEIT, ANABTA, EL BIREH, THE OUTSKIRTS OF HEBRON AND THE REFUGEE CAMP OF JALAZON.

I DEMAND THAT YOU AT ONCE CEASE THIS CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION WHICH, WITH YOUR POLICY OF DEPORTATIONS AND OF ESTABLISHING NEW SETTLEMENTS AND OF EXPANDING OLD ONES, IS DESIGNED TO FORCE THE PALESTINIAN ARABS OUT OF A COUNTRY IN WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION FOR CENTURIES. YOU ARE A MAN WHO CLAIMS TO LIVE BY THE HOLY BOOK. MAY I REMIND YOU OF THE WORDS OF THE PROPHET AMOS:

"O, YE ARE TO ME, O CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AS ARE THE ETHIOPIANS." WERE THAT GREAT HEBREW PROPHET ALIVE TODAY, SURELY HE WOULD BE SAYING: "O, YE ARE TO ME, O CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AS ARE THE PALESTINIAN ARABS. "

INSTEAD YOU AND YOUR GOVERNMENT HAVE BEEN ENDEAVORING TO MAKE THE LAND OF PALESTINE FREE OF PALESTINIANS AS THE NAZIS ONCE SOUGHT TO MAKE EUROPE FREE OF JEWS—JUDEN REIN.

KINDLY DESIST IN THIS POLICY.

THROUGH THESE ACTS OF PERSECUTION AND TERROR, YOU ARE SOWING THE SEEDS OF HATRED AND ENSURING DESTRUCTION— NOT ONLY FOR THE ARABS AND JEWS OF THE MIDDLE EAST BUT FOR THE PEOPLES OF THE ENTIRE WORLD.

YOURS FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, CORDIALLY (DR. ) ALFRED M. LILIENTHAL, EDITOR, MIDDLE EAST PERSPECTIVE AND AUTHOR, WHAT PRICE ISRAEL? AND THE ZIONIST CONNECTION, WHAT PRICE PEACE? END TEXT

VELIOTES AMMAN 03355

I had actually gone myself to the prime minister's office on Kiryat Ben-Gurion Street, but was turned away and left the letter. The rejoinder to my letter, and to the cable from the U.S. ambassador in Jordan, came not from Begin, but in a cable from the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Samuel Lewis. His cable to the State Department was repeated to the embassies in the area, and also marked for the special attention of his deputy in Tel Aviv, Charles Hill, who apparently was in Washington. Hill, a dedicated Christian Zionist, subsequently became chief of staff to Reagan administration Secretary of State George Shultz and, colleagues reported, frequently disparaged the advice coming from the Bureau of Near East and South Asian Affairs, bastion of the career foreign service officers who knew the area at first hand, in favor of advice from the Bureau of International Organizations and the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, where political appointees were in charge and Zionist influence was overwhelming.

I have subsequently complied with Freedom of Information Act procedures to receive Ambassador Lewis's cable about me. Now declassified, the once classified telegram read as follows:

SUBJECT: DR. ALFRED LILIENTHAL

REF: AMMAN 03355

ADDRESSEES OF REFTEL SHOULD BE AWARE THAT DR. LILIENTHAL IS RABIDLY PROLIFIC, ANTI-ZIONIST ISRAEL-HATING POLEMICIST OF MORE THAN 30 YEARS STANDING. IN LISTING HIS PUBLICATIONS AT THE END OF LETTER REPORTED REFTEL HE OMITS A VOLUME ENTITLED ISRAEL'S FLAG IS NOT MINE. HE HAS A SELF-SERVING INTEREST IN PAINTING ISRAELI ACTIONS IN THE BLACKEST OF COLORS, AND HIS OBSERVATIONS SHOULD BE EVALUATED ACCORDINGLY. WHATEVER THE OBJECTIVE REALITIES ON THE WEST BANK, ALFRED LILIENTHAL'S ASSESSMENT THEREOF IS, IN OUR STRONG OPINION, NOT WORTHY OF SERIOUS CONSIDERATION.

LEWIS.

This was an attempt by Lewis to derail an early (and highly accurate) warning of the oncoming intifada. It was not surprising. In the years he served in Tel Aviv he sometimes seemed to act more as Israeli ambassador to the U.S. than as American ambassador to Israel—precisely in the same manner as had James C. McDonald who, before President Truman appointed him the first U.S. ambassador to Israel, had been an employee of the Jewish National Fund, a branch of the Jewish Agency, precursor to the government of Israel.

Lewis, since his retirement from the Foreign Service after serving eight years as ambassador to Israel under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, has headed the U.S. government-funded United States Institute of Peace. It has sometimes seemed to function more as a pro-Israel think tank than the U. S. government-sponsored forum for foreign policy discussion and international exchanges it was intended to be.

It is little wonder, then, that the pro-Israel establishment welcomed Lewis's appointment on Jan. 20 by the incoming Clinton administration as director of the State Department's policy planning staff, the secretary's in-house brain trust.

As President Clinton assumed office, seemingly surrounded now at every level by pro-Israel Jewish Americans and other Zionist connectors totally sympathetic to Israel, prospects for a just Middle East peace settlement, which seemed so close only last fall, had indeed become bleak.

Prime Minister Rabin described the Israeli offer to permit the return of 101 of the Palestinians as part of an arrangement with the United States under which the administration had agreed "to prevent any decisions in international forums that would have operational significance against Israel."

If the United States keeps insulating Israel from any international pressure to make concessions for peace, God help the Palestinians of this generation, the Israelis of the next, and all Americans, whose leaders are helping Israeli extremists to make the world a cruel, hypocritical and very dangerous place.

Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal is the author of There Goes The Middle East, The Other Side of the Coin, and the monumental The Zionist Connection. He edits the Middle East Perspective Reader.