American Jewry and the Oslo Years
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Copyrighted Material – ISBN 9781137273772 American Jewry and the Oslo Years Neil Rubin Copyrighted Material – ISBN 9781137273772 american jewry and the oslo years Copyright © Neil Rubin, 2012. All rights reserved. First published in 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978- 1- 137- 27377- 2 Design by Scribe Inc. First edition: October 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America. Copyrighted Material – ISBN 9781137273772 Contents 1 Introduction to the Study 1 2 US Jewry on the Eve of Oslo 19 3 The Rabin- Peres Years 43 4 The Netanyahu Years 63 5 The Barak Years 87 6 Conclusions 117 Notes 143 Selected Bibliography 183 Index 199 Copyrighted Material – ISBN 9781137273772 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Study Rise and Fall of the Oslo Accords he general sense of optimism surging through the Jewish and diplo- matic world on September 13, 1993, clearly rivaled that of other key Tmoments in modern Jewish history, included heralded events such as David Ben- Gurion’s much- anticipated proclamation of Israeli statehood on May 14, 1948, and the seemingly miraculous success of the Arab- Israeli Six- Day War (June 5– 10, 1967). Yet the first event was tempered by the belief, even among top Israeli military officials, that the fledgling Jewish state’s survival was uncertain. This meant the pending battles could result in a newly acute refugee crisis, not to mention tens of thousands of dead Jews, including Holocaust survivors who had recently arrived from Europe’s emptying displaced persons (DP) camps.1 The joyous relief greeting the second event was preceded by weeks of fear of imminent attack by a numerically overwhelming multinational Arab force that might launch a “second Holocaust.”2 In addition, within months after the Six- Day War, a few veteran Israeli political leaders as well as Diaspora activists began wondering what burden the newly acquired territories would place on the state, given the fact that the Arab world refused to recognize, nego- tiate, or make peace with Israel.3 And while both the 1948 and 1967 events were one- sided celebrations for the Jewish world and its friends, they were mourned as both physically and morally devastating episodes by the Arab states and their allies.4 By comparison, the Washington- hosted 1993 event— the signing of the first Oslo Accords— was a moment of globally poignant and highly choreographed peace making. It captivated the hearts and minds of most Jews, Arabs, Muslims, and governments across the globe. Indeed, the now familiar photograph of a reluctant Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin reaching for the hand of an eager Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat—a beaming Copyrighted Material – ISBN 9781137273772 2 ● American Jewry and the Oslo Years US president Bill Clinton urging them onward— could be modern diplomacy’s most indelible snapshot.5 The initiation alone of the Oslo Accords resulted in a joint 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for its three principal actors— PLO chairman Ara- fat, Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, and Israeli prime minister Rabin. The reward came simply for the act of signing the document, not for successfully implementing its extremely ambitious plan of setting into motion negotiations for a permanent settlement to conflict. Other benefits for principal actors were fast in coming as well. First, there was a promise of at least $2.4 billion in aid for the Palestinians at an October 1, 1993, Washington- hosted international donors conference.6 Other results included the improvement of official political and economic relations between Israel and Arab states (particularly Jordan, which on October 26, 1994, signed a peace treaty with Israel);7 the acceptance by Israel of the PLO as the legiti- mate political representative of the Palestinian people (enabling it to shed the global terrorist label gained since its members’ series of sensational commercial airliner hijackings and terrorist events of the 1970s);8 and the warming within the United States of ties between American Jewish and Arab/Muslim groups. There were, of course, dissident voices from the American Jewish commu- nity, which echoed similar ones in Israel. A loud cry came in particular from the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which around this time began its vocal sharp turn to the Right. In fact, on September 20, 1995, the ZOA formally broke ranks with the organized American Jewish community by argu- ing in front of the US Congress against $500 million in American aid to the Palestinian Authority. The acrimony during the testimony became so intense that during a break, Richard Hellman, president of the Christians’ Israel Public Action Campaign and a strong pro- Israel advocate, was overheard asking ZOA head Mort Klein and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) head Neal Sher, “Why can’t you guys in the Jewish community just get along?”9 Also, giving a hint of the Jewish organizational infighting that would occur throughout the Oslo years on the local level as well, the Baltimore chapter of the ZOA would break off and form the independent Baltimore Zionist District (BZD), standing by its notion that Diaspora Jews should not publicly criticize the democratically elected government of the State of Israel.10 Such voices aside, in retrospect the celebrated 1993 signing was both the beginning and apex of what became known as the Oslo process (1993– 2000), named for the Norwegian city in which Israeli and Palestinian negotiators— with the mediation of their Scandinavian hosts— secretly crafted their agree- ment during 1992.11 Israel and the PLO would in turn draft and sign the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip (often called Oslo II) in Washington, DC, on September 28, 1995. It was a much more detailed blueprint for Israeli- Palestinian progress,12 one widely expected to lead to a Copyrighted Material – ISBN 9781137273772 Introduction to the Study ● 3 Palestinian state and final settlement on what not long before were acknowl- edged as intractable issues in the more than hundred- year- old conflict between Jewish Zionists and the heavily Arab- dominated Middle East. After wild swings from progress to despair, the Mideast peace process— known simply to those involved with it as “the process”— collapsed in late September 2000. With that came the advent of the Second or Al- Aksa Inti- fada (named for the silver- domed mosque on the top of the Temple Mount, a structure revered in the Muslim world).13 (The First Intifada began in late 1987, eventually dying out with the advent of the Oslo process.) Suddenly many interested observers not only were stunned at how remote the prospect of peace between the beleaguered Palestinian and Israeli communities but also worried whether another Arab- Israeli war would break out. Indeed, ever since that phase of the conflict was ignited in the days follow- ing then Likud opposition leader Ariel Sharon’s highly publicized and heavily secured September 28, 2000, walk upon the Temple Mount, ties between Israeli Jews and Palestinians (and by extension the Muslim world) have plunged to a level of deep pessimism and mistrust, not to mention outbursts of serious vio- lence. This has included strings of horrifying Palestinian suicide bombings and shooting rampages throughout Israel, repeated Israeli reprisals (including tar- geted assassinations of Palestinian terrorists and counterterrorism raids by Israel Defense Forces regular and undercover units), and three inconclusive minor Arab- Israeli wars.14 Today, such conflict makes that warm September 1993 day on the White House lawn seem as distant in time as black- and- white images of Zionist pioneers clearing rock- strewn fields. How Oslo Changed American Jewry While much scholarship has been devoted to the years of the Oslo process from a political and military perspective, less attention has focused on its profound effects on American Jewish identity and American Jewish organizations. Yet events of the period have had a substantial impact in the United States, which in turn has made a mark on US Jewry’s lobbying for Israel, which is important to the general American electorate, due to American Jewry’s disproportionate influence on congressional and presidential elections. (American Jewry’s role in US politics will be covered in more detail in Chapter 2.) Resulting changes for the American Jewish community due to the Oslo pro- cess were both external and internal. American Jewry was involved in a reshap- ing of old and forging of new coalitions due to Israel’s changing challenges. The importance of such relationships to American Jews cannot be minimized. Despite the high visibility in national affairs of both Jewish organizations and individuals, at slightly less than 2 percent of the overall US population, the Copyrighted Material – ISBN 9781137273772 4 ● American Jewry and the Oslo Years organized community needs friends. Noise is one thing, but political allies— the trade of Washington, DC, and local lobbying efforts— is another. These new ties include (for many Jews) the uncomfortable Evangelical- Jewish coalition on pro- Israel advocacy, which unleashed a strong debate within American Jewry over the ultimate cost of such a partnership versus the immediacy of Israel’s need for political friends.15 A subset here is how some Jews— particularly non-Orthodox ones— watched with rising concern the par- ticipation of Christians in major Jewish organizations such as the AIPAC, the organized Jewish community’s principal pro- Israel lobbying operation in Wash- ington, DC.16 Meanwhile, new strains arose between Jews and mainstream Protestants regarding Israel.