Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, page 36

An Israeli in America

While 80 Percent of American Jews Supported Oslo Accords, The U.S. Jewish Lobby Helped Netanyahu to Destroy Them

By Neve Gordon

I was living in Israel in 1993 when Israelis and Palestinians alike, glued to the TV, watched Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat as they shook hands on the White House lawn. It was a moment full of promise, and it managed to infuse hope into a region where people had become accustomed to strife and violence.

This September marked the fifth anniversary of the Oslo peace agreement, but the hope it initially inspired has been replaced by despair. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected the accords which implicitly recognize the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, a notion that is tantamount to statehood. He believes that giving the Palestinians political freedom is a compromise Israel should not make; autonomy over civil institutions like education and health is okay, but a state is inconceivable. His intransigent policies have all but buried Oslo, and, with it, the promise.

While it is up to the Israeli public to stand up to Netanyahu’s dangerous decisions, which have led to the destruction of the peace process, the Jewish lobby in the United States must also be held accountable for the degeneration in Israeli-Arab relations. It, too, is culpable insofar as its leaders are supporting Netanyahu while persistently ignoring the opinion of their constituents, namely the Jewish population in the U.S.

Allow me to explain. Within the American Jewish community, Netanyahu’s position concerning the peace process is unpopular. According to Tom Smerling of the Israel Policy Forum, an organization that conducts regular polls within the Jewish community, 70 percent of Jews “express strong support for the Oslo accords” and want the Clinton administration to take a pro-active stance to move them forward. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of Jews—80 percent—“support the Clinton administration’s current efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.”

Despite the evidence that American Jews are pro-Oslo, several Jewish lobbying groups, ranging from the center to the extreme right, have endorsed Netanyahu’s approach. Most prominent of these is AIPAC—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—which wields great power on Capitol Hill. In a January issue of its Near East Report, AIPAC published a long article entitled, “The Year in Review.” Concealed in seemingly impartial language, the editors fully appropriate Netanyahu’s line, while rationalizing the decision to support all of the prime minister’s policies by claiming that “Netanyahu’s Likud [is] undergoing an extraordinary ideological transformation.”

AIPAC’s claim is deceitful. Most Israeli analysts, on both sides of the debate, would probably agree that Netanyahu has not altered his beliefs since he gained power and has, in fact, succeeded in accomplishing his long-standing objective of undermining Oslo.

Along similar lines, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations—which is an umbrella organization for more than 50 Jewish groups—does not embrace a pro-Oslo stand. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the conference, claims that the organization is in favor of peace, but that it is by no means committed to the Oslo agreements. Hoenlein prefers to speak of peace only in abstract terms, forgetting that anyone can be an advocate for abstract peace—even the late American-born Israeli fascist Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Both AIPAC and the conference have urged President Clinton not to pressure Netanyahu, knowing full well that the latter has abandoned the Oslo accords. How is it, I ask myself, that in a country whose very existence is grounded on the revolutionary slogan “no taxation without representation” a majority of American Jews continue donating money to lobbying groups which do not represent their interests?

Jews who believe that Israel’s future lies in a peaceful resolution should support groups that actually represent their views, like Friends of Meretz, Peace Now, or the new lobbying group Beit Shalom. These groups are Zionist and believe in a Jewish homeland. Yet, unlike AIPAC, they have joined the Israeli peace camp which supports the establishment of a Palestinian state. These groups realize that only a two-state solution will bring peace to the region, because only a two-state solution is just.