Bush's Bombshell is Shattering the Political Status Quo in Israel

By Leon T. Hadar

President Bush's decision to confront the Shamir government and its supporters in Washington over Israel's request that the US government guarantee $10 billion in loans to the Israeli government has produced an outcry among the "usual suspects" in the American media. Predictably, these include the Likud's three stooges—columnists A.M. Rosenthal, Charles Krauthammer and William Safire—and a less passionate supporter of Israel, New York Times columnist Leslie Gelb.

Gelb characterized Bush's attempts to link the approval of the loan guarantees to Israeli cessation of its settlement policies in the West Bank and Gaza as "ugly and self-defeating" and implied an anti-Jewish attitude in Bush's approach. "Few Israelis," Gelb claimed, "can accept the linkage of settlements to humanitarian aid or a US demand to stop settlements before peace negotiations begin." Bush's policies will not weaken the Israeli hard-liners, Gelb predicted, but instead "are forcing most Israeli politicians to rally around Prime Minister Shamir."

The "Backlash" Spin

According to the spin developed by Gelb and other writers, the Bush administration actions will backlash in Israel, with a circling-the-wagons even among nonsupporters of the Likud government and "peaceniks" who reject Shamir's settlement policies. Eventually, according to this scenario, faced with an "anti-Israeli" US president and growing US hostility even over the "humanitarian" issue of absorption of Soviet Jews, the Israeli public will back the Likud.

Safire predicts that the Bush actions will "boost superhawk Ariel Sharon. " The Likud apologists predict that Shamir will emerge strengthened politically at home and less inclined to attend the American-led peace conference. "Bush's linkage between American loan guarantees and Arab-Israeli negotiations could wreck" the peace process, suggests Krautharnmer. The president, if successful in his effort to delay approval of the loan guarantees, will win a Pyrrhic victory, contends Safire, and lose his ability to serve as a "global peacemaker."

Is that so? Almost two months have passed since Bush's dramatic challenge to Israel's vaunted US lobby, but none of these doomsday predictions have come true. Instead, the "lobby" backed off, the Congress "postponed" consideration of the loan guarantees, Israel and the Arabs are closer than ever before to participating in an American peace conference, and surprise, surprise, the Israeli public is not joining Shamir in "circling the wagons. " Instead, it is falling in line with President Bush, with some 60 percent of Israelis supporting a linkage between the loan guarantees and the settlement policies.

As usual, however, some American Jews have proven to be more Catholic than the Israeli pope, encouraging Shamir to stand tall and not back down from his confrontation with Bush. For example, Kenneth Bialkin, former president of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations, urged that Shamir "forgo the loan guarantees instead of compromising your principles."

According to several press reports, Israel's US lobby was more enthusiastic over a possible fight with Bush than Shamir himself. While the Israeli prime minister and some of his colleagues early on expressed some willingness to reach a compromise with Bush, the signals from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAQ were clear: Victory is at hand! Don't give up! Some observers publicly attribute the Israeli government's decision to allow a $2 billion deficit in its latest budget proposal to advice coming from Stuart Eizenstat, a former Carter administration official and currently a lobbyist on behalf of Israel. (Eizenstat subsequently denied that on a recent "Nightline" program.)

Ironically, while Bialkin and other officials of Jewish organizations in the United States rejected any deal with the president, and a few even joined Israeli Minister Rehavarn Ze'evi in accusing Bush of harboring anti-Semitic sentiments, most mainstream political figures and commentators in Israel, including members of the Likud party, pointed an accusing finger at the Israeli prime minister. The Israeli politicians suggested that Shamir was endangering American-Israeli ties, and called upon him to adopt a more conciliatory approach toward the peace process.

While a former AIPAC official and one of Israel's top lobbyists in Washington, Douglas Bloomfield, in an interview in the Israeli Haaretz, characterized Bush as "anti-Israeli" and "a servant of Arab interests, " one of Labor's leaders, Micha Harish, in a speech before the Israeli Knesset, called Bush a "great friend and supporter of Israel."

Whereas US senators and congressmen, whose financial ties to pro-Israeli PACs are well documented, refused to criticize Israel's settlement policies, arguing that they did not want to "interfere" in Israel's domestic politics, Israeli Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai told the Israeli press that the accelerating settlement campaign is a "provocation" against the United States and an "act of stupidity. " Moreover, joining the American president's attack on the Israeli lobby were some major Israeli columnists. Haim Hefer, a noted Israeli poet and a columnist for Yediot Ahronot, argued that it is Shamir and the Israeli lobby and not Bush who are helping to ignite anti-Semitic feelings in the United States and posing before American Jews the dilemma of "dual loyalty."

"In a typical arrogant nationalist posture, the Israeli government took over American Jews as hostages," wrote Hefer. "We ordered them to attack Capitol Hill, to coerce the senators and to twist the arms of the representatives, and to request that they pressure the administration to surrender to the Israeli pressure—and immediately. " Is it surprising that Bush "sees in the one thousand AIPAC activists on the Hill one thousand little Pollards?" Hefer concluded.

"Imagine the outcry in Israel if a foreign nation, say, Poland, would have tried to put pressure on our government through Polish Israelis in order to achieve goals that run against our national interest, " suggested Boaz Evron, another columnist for Yediot Ahronot. "Is there any doubt that we would have demanded that the Polish Israelis should decide immediately whether they are our citizens or representatives of a foreign nation and that, if they disagree with our policies, they should get out and leave?

"Never in the history of relations between two states has a major superpower, in return for nourishing and supporting a distant and small second state, been ridiculed instead of being treated with gratitude and consideration by the beneficiary," stated Knesset member Yosef Sarid, a leader of the liberal Ratz movement. "The tail not only wagged the dog, it also barked, while for many years the dog remained silent and embarrassed."

This "strange arrangement" is coming to an end, Sarid wrote. The United States has finally decided to call things by their right names, saying "Rain is rain and spit is spit, and now that we have defeated the Evil Empire, we can even take care of the Shamir government."

This Israeli elation over Bush's remarks suggests that contrary to the hysterical reaction coming from New York Times columnist "Abe" Rosenthal and his colleagues, most Israeli observers understand the political implication of the president's decision. Even before Bush went public with his challenge to Israel, some Israeli analysts suggested that quick approval of the loan guarantees, with no strings attached, could only strengthen Shamir's hand.

Ha'aretz, in a late July editorial, had noted that "if the loan guarantees are handed to Shamir without a commitment on the part of the government to end its settlement policy, it will mean a political victory for Shamir and the evolution of Israel into a bi-national state, a la South Africa." Haaretz diplomatic reporter Akiva Eldar was even more blunt suggesting that "a yes to Shamir's loan guarantees would mean yes to the occupation."

Bush's decision to challenge Shamir to gunfight at the diplomatic O.K. Corral not only has produced some positive reaction inside Israel, in the long run, it can lead to a political bloc supporting the land-for-peace formula as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many Israelis, including Labor party leaders, certainly welcome Bush' pressure on their government to face the new music. They know that when America speaks, Israelis listen. They hope that the president's message will demonstrate to the Israeli electorate that the Likud strategy is failing and that, as one of Labor's young leaders, Ephraim Sneh, suggested, the Likud government "cannot continue to have it cake and eat it too" by counting on U diplomatic support and economic aid while perpetuating its occupation of land populated by almost two million angry Arabs.

Inducement for Political Change

While the American-Israeli tremors have not yet produced a political earthquake in Israel, they certainly provide inducement for political change. Notwithstanding his criticism of Bush's comments, Israeli foreign minister David Levy is emerging as one of the major challengers to the Likud's extremist policies. Levy's position is significant since the Moroccan-born foreign minister represents close to 700,000 Israeli Jews of North African origin who for years have been considered the political backbone of the Likud party.

Political analysts suggest that Levy reflects growing impatience among the members of this lower-middle-class demographic group, who feel that the Likud government's settlement policies, combined with the rising costs of absorbing the new Soviet-Jewish immigrants, are diverting resources needed for domestic social and economic programs. If it came to making a choice between the continuing occupation and reaching a diplomatic solution that would allow Israel to focus on dealing with its huge economic problems, many of these Moroccan Jews could find themselves on a collision course with the official Likud policies.

Members of another demographic group who are starting to project growing antagonism toward the Likud government are the Soviet immigrants. Unlike the Soviet Jewish activists who arrived in Israel in the 1970s, most of these new immigrants lack any major commitment to Zionist ideals. They see Israel more as a place where they expected to find a professional job and make a good living. While they might be less sympathetic to the modified socialism of the Labor party, they are certainly not receptive to any attempt to place them in the midst of a hostile Arab population on the West Bank.

Bush's decision to link the approval of the loan guarantees to Israel's settlement policies sends a powerful message to these two politically significant groups. It suggests to the lower-middle-class Moroccan Jews that the funds that would otherwise be available this year to renovate their inner-city slums remain in the American treasury because of Likud settlement policies. It tells the Soviet Jewish immigrants that their prospects for finding a house and a job in Israel are endangered by the efforts to achieve the Likud goal of a Greater Israel.

In short, Bush is going to be perceived by more and more Israelis as the Terminator who is sending to their government and to them a clear message: "It's Judgment Day. You will have to make some hard choices if you want to maintain your ties with the United States." As the American pressure increases, and as the peace process moves ahead, this message finally is going to affect Israeli politics and policy making.

Leon T Hadar, Ph.D., teaches international relations and Middle East studies at the American University in Washington, DC

SIDEBAR

Good-bye to Two of the Best

It's always awful to say good-bye to the kind of brilliant, long-suffering, creative and marvelously innovative staff members who keep the American Educational Trust's head above the ever-rising tide.

Sally Nyhan, AET book club manager and Washington Report human rights editor for three years, who has done such extracurricular things as step in on no notice and typeset a whole issue, is going off to Canterbury, England for graduate studies. Then she hopes to teach. Among tales she can tell are how she doubled our monthly book business, turning figures that used to be achieved only at Christmas into the normal year-round base. And how she's traveled all over the US (and Canada) to set up book displays at meetings and conventions to find us new buyers and subscribers.

Parker Payson, news editor of the Washington Report, fact finder, photo scrounger, and number cruncher extraordinary, is entering the MBA program at the University of Chicago. In his two years with the Washington Report, his byline has become familiar as he revealed from FEC figures the extent of pro-Israel PAC penetration of the US political system. His name will live on at AET so long as Stealth PACs, the book he helped make possible, is in print.

We wish them both good luck in a future endeavors. They've earned it, while helping to make a real difference on the American political scene.