December 1995, Page 74

American Jews and Israel

Just Before His Death, Rabin Made Unprecedented Attack on U.S. Jewish Leaders

You won't be reading about it again, but only a month before his death an exasperated Yitzhak Rabin made an unprecedented attack on American Jewish opponents of the peace process. The Israeli prime minister had distrusted and disliked self-selected (and highly paid) U.S. lobbyists for Israel ever since he served as Israeli ambassador in Washington after the Six-Day War of June 1967. Their dealings with members of Congress and with Israeli leaders at home often short-circuited or undercut Rabin's own diplomatic dealings with then-President Lyndon Johnson.

Therefore, when Rabin became prime minister in June 1992, he made it clear that he, not Israel's American friends, would be in charge not only of Israeli foreign policy but also of Israeli-U.S. relations. A major shakeup of both the board and staff of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel's principal U.S. lobby, followed. But the Israeli prime minister had been unable to control many of the American Jewish organizations that are independent of Israeli government funding, and leaders of some of them had become vocal private and public critics of the peace process, and Rabin's handling of it.

The Israeli prime minister's simmering resentment broke into the open only hours after he signed the Oslo II agreement in the White House when he met in closed session with members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. In language that one of the presidents told James Besser, political columnist for a number of Jewish weeklies, was "breathtakingly blunt and thoroughly revolutionary," Rabin criticized American Jews for not providing enough political or financial support at the time Israel most needed both. The American Jewish community, Rabin added, has let down Israel in the areas of immigrant absorption and aliyah—immigration to Israel.

"We are ashamed that you are not partners," Rabin said. "You argue with us on other issues that are not important, but you don't help us on these important projects." Rabin said specifically that the contribution of American Jews to Israel's economy had become minimal.

The Israeli prime minister reserved his greatest scorn, however, for American opponents of the peace process who have mounted their own lobbying effort against it with Congress.

"Never before have we witnessed attempts by Americans who live here to put pressure on Congress against the policies of the governnment of Israel," Rabin said. "We have never before seen this. It cannot be tolerated."

"People were taken aback," Malcolm Hoenlein, conference executive vice chairman, told Besser. "The issues are legitimate ones for discussion that are on our agenda, including the fund-raising question. But many questioned whether this was the appropriate place to say these things."

"What [Rabin] said wasn't that different from what Yossi Beilin said about American Jewish 'charity' no longer being needed," another Jewish organization official complained. "There was an undercurrent of alarm that what he said could make it even harder to raise money from the Jews."

Perhaps most alarmed at Rabin's outburst was Jewish Agency chairman Avraham Burg, who issued a statement from Israel calling the "attack on all American Jews" an "historic error."

"Cutting, derogatory, defamatory and alienating remarks" will not rekindle enthusiasm for Israel among American Jews, Burg said. "Some of the detachment" between U.S. Jews and Israel, Burg added, "is our own fault because of the way we express ourselves, our alienation and our lack of understanding of what is happening there."

Harry Wall, director of the Jerusalem office of B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League, also struck a conciliatory note. "Of course American Jews have the right to get involved in Israeli affairs on their own political turf," Wall said. "But it's not a question of rights, it's a question of wisdom."

Instead of presenting a coordinated and coherent message to members of Congress as American Jews traditionally have done in the past, Wall said, "a vocal and passionate minority is presenting an altogether different agenda, and in the short run that can confuse the Congress."

Nevertheless, Wall added, "I'd go so far as to say that however important Israel is to the United States, the kind of largesse, political backing and strategic support we've seen from the American government in the past decades has to a good extent been due to American Jewry's strength, activism and perceived clout in Washington."

—Richard H. Curtiss

With Powell's Withdrawal, Most Jews Say They Will Support Clinton

In the 1996 presidential election, how will most American Jews vote? According to political columnists in the weekly Jewish press, most will vote the way they did in 1992, when exit polls showed Bill Clinton received 85 percent of the Jewish vote, with George Bush and Ross Perot sharing what little was left.

There is a general consensus within the American Jewish community that Bill Clinton is the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history, easily surpassing the three previous candidates for that honor—Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. However, according to a report in the Nov. 3 Jewish Week of New York by Stewart Ain and Lawrence Cohler, there is another factor besides Clinton's unquestioning support for Israel that contributes to overwhelming support for Clinton within the Jewish community.

In 1996 "it's going to be social welfare issues," according to David Luchins, an aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), who is quoted in the article. "Jews, more than others, will have to take care of their parents in nursing homes. And Jewish institutions run many of those homes, for both Jewish and non-Jewish elderly. Now we're going to be expected to care for all these elderly and aged. If I were a Democratic consultant, I'd say that's the wedge issue."

In fact the superbly organized American Jewish community finds its network of tax-exempt or federally supported institutions that administer everything from child day-care centers to elder care and special programs for Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union will suffer disproportionately from cuts for the simple reason that these Jewish institutions have benefited disproportionately from federal largesse up to now.

American Jews, like most other Americans, looked with interest at Colin Powell, but with his withdrawal from the race there seems little else to attract them to the Republican Party. Most agree that the country isn't ready for Arlen Specter, and despite Sen. Bob Dole's pandering bill to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by 1999, columnists in the Jewish weeklies will see to it that their readers don't forget that in the 1988 election Dole opposed such a bill and in 1989 Dole advocated a 5 percent across-the-board cut in the foreign aid budget—a cut that would have hit Israel hardest since it was, and remains, by far the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

The consensus of political writers in the Jewish weeklies, therefore, is that the overwhelming majority of American Jews will stick with the guy who brought them to their present peak of political influence, Bill Clinton, and that the minority of Jews who support the Republican Party already are backing the likely winner of the Republican nomination, Bob Dole. The lack of interest among most Jewish Republicans in taking a chance on any of the newer faces is why Pete Wilson of California already has folded his campaign tent and stolen away, and why Arlen Specter may soon do the same. Pat Buchanan, as a perceived "enemy of the Jews," Phil Gramm as a born-again Christian or something close to it, and Lamar Alexander as a candidate who has revealed little interest either in Israel or other "Jewish issues," all have failed to attract Jewish support. Nor has Ross Perot, who is lampooned in the Jewish press even more cruelly than in the mainstream media. The reason is that most Jewish political observers consider him erratic and impossible to influence because of his independent wealth, and perhaps an anti-Semite as well based on remarks made to friends long before he entered the political arena.

—Richard H. Curtiss