In a Peaceful Middle East, Will Israel Lobby "Normalize"?

By Eugene Bird

Each of the 50 national Jewish organizations represented in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which have been united principally by a commitment to provide Israel with political and diplomatic support and military aid, now faces a major challenge. Middle East peace, of a sort, may be at hand. If so, what future role remains for so many and such dedicated supporters of a foreign state founded upon a principle of racial and religious discrimination that condemns it to remain a pariah within its region, if not throughout the modern world?

If such a state, with its discriminatory categories of firstclass citizenship for Jews and second-class citizenship for non-Jews, remains unable to support itself economically, how much longer will average American voters tolerate the continued financial pressure tactics on its behalf that are corrupting American politics as well as the politics of Israel?

Each of the 50 national Jewish organizations has adopted, or is in the process of trying on, a new face in the mirror, to borrow a concept popularized by Yael Dayan, daughter of the late Moshe Dayan, one of Israel's political-military leaders. The new faces are required because thoughtful American Jewish leaders recognize the gathering taxpayer revolt against granting billions annually to an endlessly dependent, and increasingly corrupt, Israel, when the U.S. no longer has the resources to solve its own problems.

"New Face in the Mirror"

The new face being adopted is different for each organization, or would like to be. But from outside all seem to be seeking a rationale for accelerating the outpouring of U.S. taxpayer funds for an Israel no longer even remotely threatened by its neighbors, but still not making even a pretense of being self-supporting.

While the American-Jewish organizations advance their variations on why an Israel at peace needs more U.S. taxpayer capital in the coming years than ever before, their dilemma is increased by such members of Israel's present government as Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, who told American Jewish supporters that Israel no longer needs their money at all but instead needs their children as immigrants.

This sat very badly with Israel's U.S. fundraisers. Like Pavlov's dog, leaders of American pro-Israel organizations know only how to campaign for more aid for Israel, and against closer relations between the United States and even moderate Arab countries. The leaders of Israel's U.S. support organizations realize that things are changing, but they have not yet found a role for themselves in a possible future of Palestinian independence and an Israel at peace.

"Accelerating Transition" to What?

From the left, the American Jewish Congress and its new president, David Kahn of Chicago, has described an "accelerating transition" for the 75 year old organization. "As Israel diminishes as an object of unrestricted charity, " he said when he took over in mid-April, the AJC will adjust and adopt new projects. The organization, like many of the 50 major Jewish organizations, now is searching for a new executive director.

Reading between the lines of both Kahn's speech and others made at the annual convention of the AJC, the organization will be doing much more here in the U.S. than ever before. The troubled Black/Jewish agenda will be part of that effort.

Despite all the oratory, it is hard to divine what the AJC may do about the real issues of U.S. relations with the Jewish state and its Middle Eastern neighbors. Traditional Jewish concerns with fairness' providing economic opportunity and combating bigotry may make the AJC's transition from hardball domestic politics to good works in general more credible with American Jews of liberal persuasion.

But AIPAC is Different

Not so for Israel's principal Washington lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It, too, has suffered discernible losses of income and of dedicated supporters as the peace process increasingly promises Israelis a relatively secure coexistence with the Palestinians. AIPAC's recent annual convention was not as fervent as in earlier years. Half of the 2,000 claimed attendees were college students recruited through AIPAC's efficient campus networks, not the well-heeled potential political campaign donors who give the AIPAC founded political action committees their congressional clout.

Former AIPAC executive director Tom Dine himself did not make an appearance at the convention, despite, or perhaps because of, his new prominence in the Clinton administration as director of the entire U.S. aid program for the new countries of the former Soviet Union. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made a key appearance before the organization, whose former officers he helped "take down" just as surely as former President George Bush took down Israel's predecessor Likud government in 1992.

Many of the young Zionists at AIPAC gave Rabin an ovation as "their prime minister. " But others expressed an interesting independence of mind concerning Israel's immediate and longterm future, and took little part in the tough arguments in the corridors between representatives of the new Rabin government and AIPAC members who still support the hardline Likud policies of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Many of the young Zionists at AIPAC expressed an interesting independence of mind.

The latter already were a minority at the convention, demonstrating that the government of Israel likes to control its lobbyists in the United States. The success of Israel's present Labor/Meretz coalition government in forcing former AIPAC directors to resign has made it clearer than ever that AIPAC should be considered an agency of the government of Israel, and not just one of the 50 national Zionist organizations.

Unlike the AJC and many of the other Jewish organizations, AIPAC has little role in a world of peace in the Middle East. It soon may have about as much relevance to the present situation as the Warsaw Pact to post-Cold War Europe.

After Palestinian independence is established in the occupied territories, if it is, and Yasser Arafat or a possible hard-line successor is in place, perhaps many of the components of the Zionist Lobby will instead become a Jewish lobby, losing some of its most abrasive aspects in U.S. politics. Such a JLobby may learn to work without the strong financial carrots and sticks that members of Congress find so terrifying, and budding politicians at the state level find so tempting.

The end of U.S. aid, if it comes as some are predicting by the 50th anniversary of Israel on May 15, 1998, would strip the network of at least 116 deceptively named pro-Israel political action committees of their raison d'étre.

Foreign Government Lobbies Losing Out in 21st Century?

A lowered profile for American Jewish organizations directly identified with Israel would come none too soon for the future of Jews in America. Some pro-Israel organizations already are being compared to the German-American Bund that sought to diminish U.S. support for Britain and France in the lead up to U.S. entry into World War II, and the post-World War 11 "China Lobby" that played a catalytic role in the ugly chapter in U.S. domestic politics known as McCarthyism. Most Americans, by now, see such pressure groups as too overt, not in accord with the development of a sound American political system, and even highly embarrassing to most members of all of America's ethnic and religious minorities.

Therefore, the call by AJC President Kahn for "normalizing" relations between American Jews and Israel, and between Israel and the United States, is more than timely. Now what's needed is a similar realization among leaders of some of the other 49 national Jewish organizations.

Eugene Bird is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest, a membership organization based in Washington, D. C.