Soviet Jewry and the International Peace Conference

By Jane Hunter

As spring verges into summer, the prospects for an international conference on the Middle East, unfurled so hopefully last February, are withering in the heat of Israeli domestic politics. In Israel, this conference which might never be has been kept alive by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who is using it as a political crowbar to dismantle the national unity government with results advantageous to his Labor Party. He, and therefore his American political ally, Secretary of State George Shultz, however, envision such a conference as a largely ceremonial affair, with opening speeches by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, after which Israel and Jordan sit down to talk turkey, or more precisely, to carve up the occupied West Bank between them. If that is the case, with both Washington and Tel Aviv anxious to exclude the USSR and the PLO from their speculative scenarios, there is little resemblance to the original proposal, put forward in February by the European Council of Ministers. That proposal, endorsed by the USSR, called for including all parties who could contribute to the peace process.

In all the visualizing, however, scant attention has been paid to what has been going on between Israel and the Soviet Union, even though that is certain to have an impact on relations between Moscow and Washington. Any change in Israeli-Soviet relations will turn on two issues: Soviet Jewry and the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Each issue presents Israeli leaders with a dilemma.

Diplomatic Relations

As part of its active engagement in the Middle East peace process, the USSR approached Israel early this year with the possibility of resuming talks on consular relations, broken off last August after a short meeting in Helsinki. Israel was faced with two choices: to take the plunge into the unknown and seize the opportunity to establish consular relations with Moscow; or to cling to the known, the present situation of isolation, tension, and paralysis.

Formal relations with Moscow would open diplomatic doors for Israel all over the world, and behind those doors would be opportunities for greatly increased trade. To the 73 nations which presently recognize Israel would immediately be added the other Warsaw Pact nations, all of which—except Rumania—broke relations with Israel in 1967. (Almost all the Eastern European nations, especially Poland, have increased the tempo of their contacts with Israel over the last few years, motivated, to a certain extent, as the USSR has also been, by their desire to improve ties to Israel's ally, Washington.)

African nations, which Israel has been fruitlessly courting to resume the diplomatic relations all but four of them broke in 1973, would certainly be influenced by Moscow's move; so might be some non-aligned governments of Asia and the Pacific.

However, for all the potential benefits Israel stood to reap from expanded relations with the Soviet Union, the effort quickly faltered owing to an excess of publicity from Israel. At the very time that West German officials told Israel the USSR was ready to renew diplomatic relations, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced that he had been invited to Moscow, forcing the Soviet Union to issue a denial. An April meeting in Rome between Peres and two high-ranking officials of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party was inconclusive.

Why did the diplomatic rapprochement stall? In return for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, the Soviets have insisted that Israel relinquish territory it seized in 1967, including East Jerusalem, which was occupied by Jordan at the time. However, the Likud Bloc adamantly opposes relinquishing any of the occupied territories to anyone, and the Labor Party, while in favor of limited withdrawal in the context of an Israeli-Jordanian peace, still refuses to consider relinquishing East Jerusalem. Unwilling to pay the political price for diplomatic relations with the Soviets, even though such ties would greatly help the Jewish state's ailing image and economy, Israeli leaders who were enthusiastic about Israeli-Soviet relations a few months ago have been very quiet lately.

Soviet Jewry: Most Emigrate To US

The USSR has already demonstrated a willingness to accommodate Israel on its other key demand for a seat at the conference table: the large-scale emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. During a March visit to Moscow, World Jewish Congress Chairman Edgar Bronfman, a Canadian citizen, and Morris Abram, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, offered to have the US suspend the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment (linking US trade concessions to Jewish emigration) in exchange for the direct emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel. The fact that Russian leaders did not question the right of a Canadian citizen and a leader of an American Jewish organization to speak for the American government supplies a whole new dimension to the term "Soviet realism."

In addition, Israeli and Soviet officials have discussed putting emigrants from the Soviet Union on direct flights to Israel, or routing them via Rumania or Poland. The aim was to omit Vienna as a transit point, as most emigrants reaching there have decided to go to the US, instead of Israel.

These discussions came only weeks after Prime Minister Shamir and the Israeli Cabinet called on the Reagan Administration to stop giving refugee status to Jews from the Soviet Union, which enables them to enter and remain in the US. Shamir's argument that the Jews were given Israeli visas in the USSR and "at that moment they are Israeli citizens," is consonant with Moscow's position that it makes an exception to its anti-emigration policy for "family reunification" for Jews with relatives in Israel. (In the past the Soviet Union has sought to condition emigration on a pledge from Israel that newcomers would not be settled in the occupied territories.) It has been a source of continuing embarrassment for both Israel and the USSR that, after an initial surge of immigration to Israel in 1969, the "drop out" rate—meaning those Soviet Jews who, upon arriving in Vienna with Israeli visas, decide not to go to Israel—has traced an upward curve, and presently stands somewhere between 70 and 90 percent.

The approximately 160,000 Soviet emigres now in Israel account for half of Israel's engineers, a third of its physicians and 70 percent of its music teachers. Israel, trying to stem an exodus, is eager for more such citizens. Yet most Jews who leave the Soviet Union continue to opt for the broader opportunities of the US.

While the Reagan Administration sidestepped the refugee status issue, US Jewish organizations dealt with this threat to the status quo by harshly rejecting Shamir's proposition, arguing that the USSR is such an evil place and Jews there so oppressed that they should be "rescued," regardless of their final destination.

In any event, between January 1 and the end of April, more than 1,300 Jews left the USSR, as compared to 914 in all of 1986. But only 207 went to Israel. This might have caused Israel to back away from better relations with Moscow. Foreign Minister Peres said that "10,000 to 12,000 Jews a year is not enough for Soviet participation" in a Middle East peace conference; he demanded the emigration of 30,000 to 40,000 Jews annually as a "necessary first step" to improve Israeli-USSR relations. Prime Minister Shamir said that if the Jews leaving the Soviet Union did not go to Israel, "there is no importance in their migration."

Soviet Jewry: How Many Want to Leave?

Roughly two million citizens of the Soviet Union have declared themselves Jewish. How many of these Soviet Jews wish to emigrate? US and Israeli "Soviet Jewry" activists contend that there are at least 400,000 "refuseniks"—those who have asked to leave and have been denied visas. However, there is nothing to indicate substantial numbers of would-be emigrants beyond the approximately 11,000 who have actually applied for visas and whom the Soviet Union is clearly allowing to leave.

In fact, as a recent segment of CBS television's "Sixty Minutes" suggested, the great majority of Soviet Jews wish to remain where they are. Despite the impression conveyed by publicity about persecuted "prisoners of Zion," in November 1984 (prior to the liberalization that has taken place under Gorbachev) the Israeli daily Ha'aretz pointed out that these reports of persecution "concern not more than a few dozen persons," mostly Hebrew teachers and emigration activists. This disinterest in emigration apparently does not stem from lack of information. In October 1985 the Moscow Rabbinate sent a protest letter to the US Ambassador to the USSR, Arthur Hartman, complaining about the appearance of US diplomats at weekly services in Moscow's Choral Synagogue. The diplomats offered worshippers help in emigrating from the Soviet Union.

If these reports are accurate—if there is no widespread, systematic persecution of Soviet Jewry, and if the majority of Soviet Jews prefer to stay where they are—how can Israel's behavior be explained? If there are not that many Soviet Jews who want to go to Israel, perhaps Israeli leaders have concluded that they have more to gain by keeping the cause of "Soviet Jewry" before the American public than by bringing to Israel those few Soviet Jews who actually want to come to the Jewish state.

In the early days of the Reagan Administration, when the USSR was referred to as the "Evil Empire," Israeli officials were fond of pointing out the service they were rendering as a "strategic asset," blocking Moscow from playing any role in the Middle East. Israel's task now is not to block the Soviet Union from the Middle East, but to block its American ally from making common cause with Moscow, and perhaps forcing Israel to accept a peace which includes territorial concessions and a Palestinian state. Both superpowers are in a concessionary mood: Ronald Reagan wants to be remembered in history for an arms control agreement, and Mikhail Gorbachev is intent on improving his nation's economy, both through cuts in military spending and increased trade with the US. It is not difficult to imagine scenarios in which the US and the USSR find reason for cooperation in the Middle East.

Israel had to make its decision in the context of the present thaw in US-Soviet relations, and the most convenient means at Israel's disposal for preventing a superpower-imposed solution is the issue of the Soviet Jews. There has always been a good deal more public interest in them in the US than in Israel. According to the Paris daily Le Monde, a series of demonstrations called in Israel prior to the November 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev Geneva summit drew far fewer people (and most of those were recent American immigrants)than a concurrent Tel Aviv ultra-orthodox demonstration against Saturday soccer matches. In the US, however, in response to a call by Israeli leaders, thousands turned out to support then-Prime Minister Peres' contention that the Geneva summit should consider Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union "as a unique issue transcending the rest of the problems on the agenda."

Now, two years later, billions throughout the world are anxiously watching the current Geneva negotiations in hopes that a first step will be taken toward nuclear disarmament. Public opinion in the US has moved squarely behind arms control and detente. That the issue of Soviet Jewry provides a rallying cry for those who want the US to maintain a hard line—and a growing nuclear stockpile—against the USSR, apparently did not trouble Israel when it made its decision about the Soviet Union.

Jane Hunter is editor and publisher of Israeli Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 19580, Sacramento, CA 95819.