Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, pages 10, 17

Words to Remember

Some Former U.S. Officials, Journalists Cite Indulgence of Israel as Cause of American Troubles Overseas

Compiled by Richard H. Curtiss

(From the time U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dares-Salaam were bombed on Aug. 7, leaving some 258 persons dead and as many as 5,000 injured, a few American journalists, former high-ranking U.S. officials, and even an incumbent U.S. senator began blaming—gingerly, to avoid the wrath of Israel’s vindictive U.S. lobby—American reluctance to rein in an out-of-control Israeli government for many of America’s troubles in the Islamic world.

Although such widespread comments speak for themselves, it is significant that none come from the U.S. media’s most frequently quoted “terrorism experts,” who avoid causes of terrorism and mention only effects, and other journalistic friends of Israel, whose enthusiasm about fighting rather than avoiding a “long-term war against terrorism” initially almost drowned out American voices of reason. Nevertheless, as the following quotations demonstrate, there were such voices of realism, starting with a significant exchange on CNN’s nightly “Crossfire” television program only five days after the initial shock of the embassy bombings:)

Columnist Bob Novak: “Let’s be honest, the reason we’re in trouble is not because we’re having some great internal power struggle with some other superpower. It’s our policy on Israel that’s causing this. Isn’t that correct?”

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger: “I think that’s had a lot to do with it, Bob. I can’t argue that at all. Again, the issue of whether our policy with regard to Israel is correct or not is another question. But when we have a policy and when others object to it and take to shooting us, it seems to me that we ought to first of all take a look at the policy. I don’t argue that.”

Novak: “I had lunch today at the embassy of a major power—I won’t mention the name—no security at all. It isn’t the security preparations, it’s the policies that make you vulnerable. As long as we knuckle under to Israel on issue after issue we’re going to be a pariah and in trouble around the world... Policy ought to be changed on Israel.”

—Excerpts from “Crossfire,” Aug. 12, 1998

“We can pursue policies and strategies that in the long term weaken terrorism’s roots. We can pursue a peace in the Middle East that does not kowtow to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s obstructionism and betrayal of Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy.”

—Former CIA Director Robert Gates, New York Times, Aug. 16, 1998

“For many Middle East watchers, Washington is motivated above all else by concern for the survival of Israel, and its Middle East policy has been designed to forestall the emergence of any entity that could threaten that survival. It is only in this specific context that ‘dual containment’ of Israel’s potential adversaries, Iraq and Iran, makes any sense.”

—Retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer Curtis F. Jones, The News and Observer, Raleigh, NC, Aug. 16, 1998

“The main reason for Arab unhappiness with U.S. policy in the Middle East remains a perception that the United States is leaning too far toward Israel in negotiations aimed at forging a broader Arab-Israeli peace.”

—Staff writer Douglas Jehl, New York Times, Aug. 21, 1998

“[Overseas] reaction at street level [to U.S. retaliatory missile strikes] could also be harsh. The U.S. has provoked real anger with its inability to push Israel toward a Middle East peace agreement and its threats of military action against Iraq.”

—Editorial, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 21, 1998

“Israel’s expression of strong support for the American action only served to underline the close friendship between the two countries—a special relationship that, along with continuing Arab perceptions of an imbalance in regional U.S. policy, is one of the root causes of growing anger in the Middle East with the United States, among militants and mainstream people alike...More broadly, many Arabs perceive Israel, backed by its superpower ally, as an occupying force on Palestinian land, with the issue of Jerusalem’s Old City and its holy sites among the most sensitive. The Al Aqsa mosque is considered the third-holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and wresting control of the Old City from Israel is a rallying cry for many Muslims.”

—Staff writer Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 1998

“For a long time now the Clinton team has understood how much of a powder keg the Middle East was, but they have been reluctant to make the hard decisions to defuse that power keg—by confronting Saddam, recreating a moderate political center to combat fundamentalism, laying out a pathway for those in Iran who would like to move out of their isolation and insisting on progress in the Arab-Israeli peace process as a U.S. national interest.”

—U.S. Middle East specialist Stephen P. Cohen, quoted by New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, Aug. 22, 1998

“American credibility in the Arab world had already suffered because of Washington’s failure to secure an interim settlement in the Middle East peace negotiations. Arab countries are reluctant to provide public support for American military operations like Thursday’s, even when aimed at Bin Laden, who is working to undermine the established Arab regimes.”

—Staff writer Steven Erlanger, New York Times, Aug. 23, 1998

“When targets are clearly identified, as they seemed to be in this instance, military strikes can be justified. But such strikes are secondary to diligent efforts to weaken terrorism’s inner dynamic. In this regard, renewed commitment to a workable peace between the Palestinians and Israel is crucial. That core conflict remains an engine of terrorism...Finally, the point made last week by President Clinton in his statement about Afghanistan and Sudan attacks can’t be too strongly reiterated; Islam is not a target or an enemy. Terrorism, with its taking of innocent lives, is an affront to Islam as it is to Christianity.”

—Editorial, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 24, 1998

“Reasons for anger range from the American retaliation coming too quickly to the role of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But the chief reason for such widespread opprobrium, analysts say, is that U.S. policy toward the Mideast is often perceived as unjust, arrogant and heavy-handed. They point to this administration’s reluctance to pressure Israel, while Israel is seen to be responsible for the collapse of the Mideast peace process...‘The No. 1 problem is the peace process,’ says one Syrian analyst who asked not to be named. ‘Arab anti-Americanism is not genuinely anti-American: It is directly related to the Israel-Arab conflict.’”

—Staff Writer Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 24, 1998

“Sending the right signals to the Muslim world will not be an easy task. Pakistani officials give Clinton high marks for comments saying that the strikes were not aimed at Islam. Yet the fundamental issue is one of a perceived American attitude of indifference, and a blind spot in its support of Israel.”

—Staff Writer Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 24, 1998

“What do they [the Muslims] perceive? They see a Washington unwilling to act evenhandedly in the Arab-Israeli peace process and infinitely tolerant of a hard-line government in Israel that denies Palestinians land, dignity and statehood. They perceive double standards that allow Israel to violate U.N. resolutions, but not Iraq; that Israeli nukes are OK, but not nukes in Muslim hands...They see themselves routinely humbled by use of overwhelming Israeli power...Muslims are concerned that there are no Muslim Americans involved in high-level U.S. policymaking in the Middle East, but that Jewish Americans occupy nearly every single senior position relating to U.S. Arab-Israeli policy.”

—Rand Corporation Middle East specialist Graham Fuller, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 24, 1998

“It’s no coincidence that the low ebb of Mideast terrorism came in the mid-1990s when PLO chief Yasser Arafat returned home and peace at last appeared headed Israel’s way. But with the peace efforts now in ruins, many Muslims blame the U.S., viewing it more and more as an advocate of Israel, no matter what.”

—Staff Reporter Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, Aug. 25, 1998

“Arab resentment has risen in part because the United States demands strict enforcement of U.N. resolutions by Iraq—while seeming reluctant to press Israel on peace process issues. No U.S. official wants to address this situation publicly. But one need only recall the negative Arab reaction to our talk of a military strike on Iraq last February to appreciate how these issues are intertwined.”

—Former Asst. Sec. of State Richard W. Murphy, Washington Post, Aug. 26, 1998

“In the Arab world, the president’s statement that America is a target because it is acting ‘to advance peace, democracy and basic human values’ will sound off the mark to Palestinians and their supporters.”

—Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David D. Newsom, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 26, 1998

“The Israeli government essentially continues to play games...What I fear more today is that desperate men do desperate things when you take hope away. And that’s where the Palestinians are today.”

—Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

“The supreme irritants in U.S. relations with the Muslim world—the Arab-Israeli conflict and the perception that America sides with Israel—must be removed. Among other things, this means pressing Israel’s government to stop stalling and withdraw from more of the West Bank as promised. Congress can do its part by stopping its ‘don’t press Israel’ grandstanding.”

—Editorial, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 31, 1998

“The Middle East struggle is the dispute that, along with the Irish question, spawned the terrorist age we now suffer, and it is this crisis, above all others, that holds a number of keys to success in curbing the excesses of that age. Movement in the peace process also would help to persuade others to join us in the struggle. The hard truth is that we cannot make serious progress in the fight against terrorism without the help of other governments. Yet without progress in the peace process, many governments will hesitate to join us in taking tough steps because they fear the reaction of their own populations.”

—Charles William Maynes, president of the Eurasia Foundation, Washington Post, Aug. 31, 1998

“The Clinton administration’s unwillingness to challenge Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel on his undermining of the Oslo peace accord has already turned public opinion in even moderate Arab states more anti-American.”

—Syndicated columnist Anthony Lewis, New York Times, Sept. 1, 1998