Collective Acts of Complicity

By Paul Findley

James P. Moran is a 49-year-old Democrat representing a suburban area of Northern Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives. By congressional standards, he is a newcomer, now completing his second two-year term, but he has already made his mark for both perception and courage.

On March 10 he responded to the Hebron massacre and subsequent violence with these words:

"These senseless acts of brutality were not committed by a lone individual but, particularly in the case of the mosque in Hebron, collective acts of complicity in a pervasive injustice.

"An Israeli security guard admitted today that they were instructed as Israel security policy to shoot only Palestinians, never Jewish settlers .... If (Israeli) security guards were there in the mosque at the time of the massacre, they would not have been able even to shoot the gunman in the leg.

"This is undoubtedly why, after being let out of a car in front of the mosque, at least three guards watched this man [Jewish settler Dr. Baruch Goldstein] carrying an assault weapon into the mosque, carrying a bag of ammunition, with earplugs inserted to protect his ears from the sound of high velocity gunfire. "

Representative Moran then added an eloquent warning that should be heeded by all Americans, especially Washington officials. He pinned major responsibility for the atrocity directly on the United States: "This type of atrocity will continue unless the United States exerts its leverage free of political considerations but motivated by the principles of justice and human rights ......

Sadly, there is no sign that Moran's brave warning will be heeded. President Bill Clinton, reeling from attacks over charges of corruption while he was governor of Arkansas, continues to avoid even a hint of pressure on Israel to dismantle the Jewish settlements. Nowhere is there "leverage free of political considerations. " Once again, the world's superpower abjectly follows the Israeli lead in all things, rather than demanding that its client state abide by the rule of law in its treatment of Palestinians.

Clinton's position is warmly endorsed by Stephen S. Rosenfeld, deputy editor of The Washington Post editorial page. Insisting that U.S. pressure on the settlements issue would be "premature," Rosenfeld writes that Washington is "appropriately leery of assuming the heavy responsibility of imposing a particular result. " In short, one of America's most influential editorial voices argues that Washington should not insist that its client state obey international law by dismantling illegal settlements. To this curious observation, Rosenfeld adds empty fluff: "Washington's current and sensible policy is to nudge along a result that would be in the first instance the work of the parties themselves operating under the considerable `normal' stresses incident to life in the MidEast. "

Never once has Clinton called the settlements illegal.

Leery is the right word. Never once has Clinton called the settlements illegal. Still worse, Clinton has departed from past policy by referring to the occupied territories as "disputed," rather than "occupied." As The Nation magazine observes, early in his administration Clinton shielded Israel from United Nations Security Council outrage over the expulsion of 400 Palestinians to southern Lebanon, offered a plan to revive the deadlocked peace talks that critics called "Likudlike," and is now urging the United Nations to rescind all past resolutions that have criticized Israeli policy. 7he Nation concludes: "In effect, [Clinton] has written [Israeli Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin a blank check, allowing him to defer discussions on all the central issues (settlements, Jerusalem, land and water use) and to delay implementation of the first stages of the Oslo accord, leaving him subject only to the pressures of the Israeli right and the settlers. "

The arrangement between Israel and the PLO negotiators is no partnership at all. One of the two major parties alluded to by Rosenfeld has no power. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres admits as much. Discussing the future of the West Bank settlements with reporters recently, Peres said: "The PLO can give us very little. They have no land, they have no authority, they have no means."

In other words, the future of the West Bank is up to Israel and Israel alone. The United States is the only nation with the potential to apply leverage. Instead of applying leverage, the U.S. keeps other outside interest groups, whether acting through the United Nations or as individual nation-states, from attempting to exert influence.

Whatever adjustments Rabin ultimately makes on settlements will reflect internal Israeli sentiment, not Palestinian.

After the Hebron massacre, a cleavage erupted between Israeli Jews and those living in settlements in the occupied territories. A rabbi warned: "If, God forbid, we are evacuated [from the West Bank] ... there will be a split in the Jewish people that could be as dangerous as the one that occurred before the destruction of the Second Temple [in 70 A.D., when all Jews were driven from Jerusalem]. Two Jewish nations will develop here, and the loser will be the country."

Gidon Levy, a Haaretz columnist, writes that some Israelis feel less sympathy when a settler is killed than when a Jew in Israel is killed. Jews living in Israel have become "us," and those in the settlements are "them. "

Yisrael Harel, chairman of an organization serving settler interests, states: "The Israeli public has lost its attachment to the settlements and its empathy for the settlers. "

Memory Fades

As memory of the massacre fades, the cleavage will likely ease. Despite the massacre furor, Rabin permits continued construction of controversial settlements and the infrastructure serving them. Curfews still apply to Palestinians, but not to settlers. Palestinians are still isolated into four main "Bantustans."

By postponing the settlements issue, Rabin preserves his own options. He has never said he ultimately favors dismantling the settlements or otherwise vacating the territories. Those goals are expressed by the PLO, his powerless partner in the negotiations. The Labor Party, often cited as the liberal voice in Israeli politics, hasnever been willing publicly to face this fact: a self-governing Palestine is incompatible with settlements whose residents are committed to the dream of Greater Israel.

Syndicated columnist William Pfaff writes in the Baltimore Sun: "President Clinton is right to say that if the PLO refuses to resume peace negotiations it will hand victory to the extremists (like Baruch Goldstein, the perpetrator of the Hebron massacre). But the Israeli government bears its own responsibility in what is happening. It no longer is possible to equivocate about the settlements. If the Israeli government can contemplate closing them down several years from now, it can contemplate closing them today. Either the Hebron massacre inspires a resolute move forward toward peace, or Baruch Goldstein has won."

Pfaff could have, and should have, added that the U.S. government also bears responsibility for what is happening. With one brief exception during the administration of President George Bush, the U.S. government never once used its enormous leverage to halt construction of the settlements.

Perhaps the warning of Rep. James Moran will stir his colleagues in Congress as well as his fellow Democrat in the White House. Moran quite correctly placed the responsibility for redress squarely on the U.S. government. It is a question of "complicity in pervasive injustice. " Our government must "act with a sense of urgency, fairness and above all principled course. "

Former Congressman Paul Findley (RIL) is chairman of the Council for the National Interest.