Who Changed the Rules?

By Jonathan S. Tobin

When President Clinton invoked a national security waiver last week to avoid having to move the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he did it without fear of an uproar among American Jews.

Clinton's decision was no surprise. It was, in fact, no more than a reaffirmation of a decades-old American policy against recognizing Jerusalem's status as Israel's capital. It resulted in a few feeble pro-forma protests from American Jewish groups and the government of Israel. Nothing new there. The debate about moving the embassy is an old one, with most of the familiar players going through their familiar paces without much fire or passion.

Among the few not following the script were members of the Zionist Organization of America and their counterparts on the left: representatives of the Reform movement and Americans for Peace Now. ZOA strongly condemned the Clinton action, while Peace Now and friends enthusiastically supported it.

While paying lip service to the concepts of relocating the embassy and a united Jerusalem, Peace Now said "President Clinton absolutely did the right thing." It also endorsed a resolution to the status of Jerusalem that would be "accommodating the national aspirations" of Palestinian Arabs as well as Israelis. It urged that the United States do nothing "that would prejudice the outcome of the final-status talks on Jerusalem one way or the other." Especially it seems, making clear to the Palestinians that the United States will not pressure Israel to make concessions on Jerusalem.

That ZOA would blast Clinton and Peace Now would support him isn't news.

What I do find interesting is that while ZOA's position might once have been considered completely mainstream and Peace Now's so marginal as to border on heresy, I don't think you can really say that is true anymore.

When you look at the fact that Peace Now supporters have friends in high places in the Clinton administration, Clinton's utter fearlessness about offending Jewish sensibilities on Jerusalem becomes very understandable.

Legitimized by the Oslo peace process and the growing electoral strength of the Israeli left - as well as by their insider status in Clintonian Washington - it is a difficult sell trying to paint Peace Now as a heretical out-of-the-mainstream group anymore.

Clinton's fan club

Dispute their stands on the issues if you will (and I do), but it is no use pretending they are way out on a limb anywhere. Theirs may not be the majority view among American Jews (I hope not), but in the age of Clinton, they are in the "mainstream."

On the other hand, ZOA's position, which stresses a hard line on Jerusalem, opposition to a Palestinian Arab state and strict Palestinian Authority observance of the Oslo agreements - the kind of positions you would think would be the Mom and apple pie of American Jewish attitudes toward Israel - are often (unfairly) depicted in the secular as well as the Jewish media as extremist.

This is illustrated by the lack of confidence in support for these mainstream positions. An aide to U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., (who has been the lead sponsor of attempts to move the embassy) ruled out a challenge to Clinton's stand because he feared the outcome would suggest to the Palestinians that American support for an undivided Jerusalem is wavering!

Ironically, this change has been encouraged by the Israeli Labor Party (now "One Israel"), which now faces the task of defending Israel's hold on Jerusalem in the peace talks. Labor fought hard to squelch the ZOA's questioning attitude toward Oslo during its last term in office (1992-96). Over the past three years, when Laborites took their turn on the Knesset's opposition benches, they also encouraged their American supporters to back Clinton in his disputes with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now that the worm has turned once again, they have signaled American Jews to ignore ZOA's attempts to raise the issue of Palestinian Arab murderers of Americans in Israel. Raising this issue is now considered bad taste.

I'll admit I thought the American Jewish consensus in favor of an undivided Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem would never be challenged. I was wrong. Though I doubt incoming Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is interested in making concessions on the city, supporters of such a retreat have lost their pariah status.

Aid to Israel isn't necessarily kosher

Jerusalem isn't the only issue where heretics are now moving into the Jewish mainstream. Support for aid to Israel has always been integral to pro-Israel activism in the United States. It's hard to imagine one without the other.

All our arguments showing the benefits of aid to Israel for the United States were correct. The only thing we failed to realize was that at a certain point, it may have begun to hurt - not help - Israel.

In fact, outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens did the unthinkable this past week by telling The Jerusalem Post that Israel should consider giving up the $1.8 billion in U.S. military aid it receives annually.

Though Netanyahu himself promised Congress three years ago that Israel would phase out U.S. economic aid, few (let alone one so wise in the ways of both the Israeli and American military-industrial complexes as Arens) have questioned military aid.

While it is doubtful that Arens' proposal will garner much support, he is dead right.

Arens, who was the champion of the ill-fated Lavi - Israel's attempt to build its own modern jet-fighter aircraft - knows all too well that the primary beneficiaries of American military aid to Israel are American military industries. As vital as American military aid has been to Israel, at this point, it may be counterproductive.

An even stronger argument can be made about the ill effects of economic aid on Israel. Though Netanyahu made some progress toward privatization of Israel's state-dominated economy, little was done to lessen the need for American economic aid.

The influx of "free" foreign money on Israel's political system has been catastrophic. Fed into the state's elephantine socialist bureaucracy, it has created a pool of resources upon which the Jewish state's patronage-hungry politicians dine. The aid is part of the foundation of a system of entitlements that could ultimately wreck all the gains Israel has made from its high-tech economy.

Peace and aid

Another irony is that the peace process that many thought would eventually free Israel of this dependence is increasing the debt to the United States. The Wye River Memorandum, signed by Netanyahu last fall, included in its provisions large outlays by the United States to soften the blows to Israel's security with money. Similarly, the handover of the Golan Heights to Syria would mean another gargantuan American aid package.

A reassessment of the aid-dependency syndrome is long overdue. Questioning U.S. aid may still be a heresy of sorts, but it may not be forever.

That's the problem with marginalizing groups and individuals with unpopular views. History is dynamic, not static. No matter how wrongheaded and potentially dangerous a cause may seem (and I would classify Peace Now's guiding philosophy under that heading), you can't guarantee it won't eventually become the conventional wisdom of the day.

Similarly, a questioning of such conventional wisdom (like the rationale for U.S. aid or optimism about the peace process) may eventually be overtaken by events or an outbreak of common sense. As unlikely as the prospect of the latter may seem, it is always possible.

The bottom line is: Make up your own mind and stick to your principles. In some instances, being right is more important than being mainstream.

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. He can be reached at jtobin@jewishexponent.com.