June 1995, Pages 68-69

American Jews and Israel

By Nathan Jones

Clinton Appearances Set Precedent For Jewish Groups

Is it the best of times or the worst of times for American Jewish organizations? Since President Bill Clinton personally addressed three of them in the space of a month this spring, it seems that things are going very well both for organized Jewry and for Israel, the cause that unites them. Headlines in the weekly Jewish press, however, and the heated rhetoric at some of their meetings, tell a different story.

The good news for American Jewry was the president's schedule. In the first week of April he became the first U.S. chief executive to address a Jewish federation. In a 20-minute speech to the Jewish Federation Council of Los Angeles he touched on the Middle East peace process and Middle East terrorism, but the real message was to convince Jewish donors and voters in a state whose election support is absolutely essential to his re-election that he has been a better friend to them than their governor, presidential aspirant Pete Wilson, could ever be. In Los Angeles Clinton also attended a $50,000-a-plate fund-raiser for his campaign, at which many of the attendees were Jewish.

Then, on May 1, after attending a Holocaust remembrance ceremony with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the president announced to a World Jewish Congress meeting in New York his embargo on American sales to or purchases from Iran. The embargo, which has little international or even national support outside pro-Israel circles, officially is retaliation for Iran's opposition to the Middle East peace process. However, Clinton's audience accepted it as the consequence of Iran's alleged search for nuclear warheads and for launching devices capable of carrying them to Israel.

Capping the president's month of Jewish organization appearances was a May 7 dinner at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at which Clinton shared speaking honors with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It was the first time an incumbent U.S. president had ever spoken at an AIPAC convention, and the Clinton appearance was only a part of an intoxicating lineup which included talks by Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, House Republican Leader Newt Gingrich and House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt. The fact that some 53 senators and some 100 House members also attended made the AIPAC conference a heady experience indeed. (See AIPAC conference report on page 11.)

Nevertheless, all is not well, either for AIPAC or other Jewish organizations whose raison d'etre is support for Israel. For the second straight year, attendance at the AIPAC convention was down from the 1993 level and, more important, so are membership and membership contributions. For some American Jews, Israel's dazzling successes both with the Clinton administration and with Congress have lessened the need for an advocacy organization. They also have heard the words of Israel's outspoken Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin. Last year the Labor Party leader told American Jews to use their money to give their children a better Jewish education and at least one exposure to Israel as teenagers. "Israel needs your children, not your money," he said.

This year, when questions from an American audience focused on how well the PLO has met its commitments under the Oslo agreement (an important question in view of the upcoming review of this matter in Congress as a necessary step in deciding whether the U.S. keeps its financial commitments to the Palestinian National Authority), Beilin bluntly told his listeners that the government of Israel, not American Jews, would have to be the judge.

In fact, it is the peace process, or failure of it, and Israeli discrimination against non-Orthodox Jews that are dividing members of virtually all American Jewish organizations. Hard-liners who do not approve of the Oslo agreement are bringing Likud and other right-wing Israeli speakers to the United States and lobbying Congress against the peace process. Dole's proposal at the AIPAC meeting to break ground in 1996 and complete the move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by the end of 1999 was not an AIPAC or Israeli-government inspired idea, but one created by Likud supporters to blow up the peace process.

Similarly, a proposal by Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), chairman of the House International Relations Committee and a committed Jewish supporter of Israel, to investigate whether the U.S. should hold up payment of the $100 million dollars it has promised to the Palestinian Authority over the next five years springs not from a desire to please the Israeli government, but rather to please some of its right-wing critics in the leadership of U.S. Jewish organizations.

"I hope you understand that the Israeli government is not pushing a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem at present," Rabbi Israel Dresner of Temple Beth Tikvah of Wayne, NJ told Gilman at a public meeting in Washington, DC. "I hope you understand the Israeli government is not pushing to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority. I hope you understand that the Israeli government is not pushing 'no American troops' in some future hoped-for agreement with Syria.

"All of these moves are being pushed by people who are opposed to the peace process," Dresner said. "I hope members of the International Relations Committee will be apprised of the fact that those are not pro-Israel moves at present; they are destructive moves."

Members of Congress are used to letting their Jewish constituents dictate their votes on Middle East-related matters. They are not used to Jewish delegations of equal strength coming down on both sides of Middle East issues.

The dispute is reflected in various umbrella groups for Jewish organizations. Tsomet and the Zionist Organization of America have withdrawn from the American Zionist Movement over the AZM's pro-peace stance. AZM then suspended Friends of Likud for non-payment of dues, which undoubtedly stemmed from the same disagreement.

Then the religious split surfaced when three Orthodox Jewish groups also withdrew from AZM. Amit Women, Religious Zionists of America and Emunah Women walked out because AZM, at the urging of the Reform (ARZA) and Conservative (Mercaz) Zionist organizations, had adopted a resolution urging the Israeli government to treat all Jewish religious organizations equally rather than continue the monopoly in Israel of Orthodox Judaism.

Even though the pro-Israel groups seem at the apex of their power, their members suspect that very soon a new round of repositioning by the leadership will begin. A Likud government is widely expected to come to power in the 1996 Israeli elections, replacing the present Labor coalition government.

Likud probably is in line with the sentiments of many of those organized American Jews whose lives are centered on support for a beleaguered Israel. It may be less in tune with the American Jewish rank and file, however, which would welcome a warm peace with Israel's Arab neighbors and Israeli integration into the Middle East. Such a move could open enormous economic opportunities to Israel, and to American Jewish supporters who have invested in it over the years. Looming over all of the uncertainty, however, is the certainty that things cannot go on as they are forever. American popular support for aid to Israel was plummeting even before the current budget cuts, which will shine a pitiless spotlight on any expenditures taken "off the table" by Congress, as aid to Israel has been so far. Yet, neither party in Israel seems to be making allowances for this inevitability.

The Labor coalition government has done little to privatize the country's heavily subsidized economy and feather-bedded industries. This leaves Israel more classically Marxist in practice than the states of the former Soviet Union. Conversely, the Likud program envisions none of the territorial concessions to the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors that must precede any serious attempt to integrate Israel economically into the Middle East, so that Israelis can start paying their own way.

All this may be acceptable to American leaders whose Jewish organizational roles give them such personal clout on the national scene. It may be less welcome, however, to the members of those organizations whose numbers and personal contributions are in decline. As always, American Jews and Israelis seem locked in a symbiotic relationship which, as gadfly Beilin repeatedly points out, may serve the best interests of neither.