Chapter 8 The Inexorable Momentum of the Reagan Years 1981-1988 part 1

Chapter 8

The Inexorable Momentum of the Reagan Years
1981-1988


Israel has never had a greater friend in the White House than Ronald Reagan. . . . Yet, the atmosphere of American relations underwent a change. Israel came under unprecedented and sometimes exasperated public criticism from officials of the Administration. The power of Israel and its friends to influence American policy in the Middle East weakened. . . .
-- Alexander Haig

Ronald Reagan, viscerally pro-Israel, could have been the one president able to redirect the U.S.-led peace process away from its focus on the Palestinian Arabs. Instead, he embraced Jimmy Carter’s legacy of disassociation with a pliancy that was astonishing. Dazed and worn out, the Jewish leadership offered virtually no opposition when his State Department maneuvered the PLO into saying the “magic words” recognizing Israel and forswearing terror. Providence ordained that, in the final days of Reagan’s second term, a formal U.S.-PLO dialogue was authorized. This historic action codified a redefinition of the nature of the Arab-Israel conflict.

An interest group cannot be expected to influence policy when it is made politically frail by internal divisions and required to operate in a politically inhospitable environment. Ravaged by cleavages and obliged to champion the “no talk” issue whose fundamental raison d’être was made moot by changing events, the U.S. Jewish leadership was completely out-maneuvered by a focused and determined Administration. The irony was that elements in the Jewish leadership played a critical role, throughout the Reagan years, in paving the way for a U.S.-PLO dialogue.

I

This section identifies instances of political suasion and other episodes in the political environment during 1981 which contributed to a perceptual shift on the part of the Jewish leadership. Examined by the American Jewish leadership from this vantage point, the conflict remained in transition though now more non-zero-sum than total and more Palestinian versus Israel than Arab versus Israel. The Jewish self-image was that of a liberal Jewish leadership constrained to defend a hard-line “right wing” Israeli Government, while contesting plans by a conservative Republican President to sell lethal weapons to Israel’s Arab enemies. Their image of the Arabs was also in flux: Egypt had exchanged de jure peace in return for Israeli-held land. The Saudi regime accelerated its public diplomacy which hinted at a willingness to embrace a non-zero-sum approach. The consistent goal of the Jewish leadership was to see progress in the West Bank Autonomy talks. In addition to opposing arms sales to the Arab countries, they consistently pressed the U.S. to adhere to its 1975 policy toward the PLO. With equal constancy, they loathed Begin’s personality and held his policies in disdain.

Joseph Polakoff, the veteran Jewish Telegraphic Agency journalist, identified disassociation as a guiding mechanism of American policy in the Carter years. He did so before it became evident that Reagan would pursue much the same strategy. The essence of disassociation was encouraging Jewish support for American (and Israeli) pressure aimed at forcing Israel to disgorge the West Bank. Polakoff traced the policy to Professor Ian Lustick, who worked briefly at the State Department on Middle East issues in 1979-1980:
Lustick plainly called for the U.S. to treat Israel with disdain. “A policy of steady, public, convincing disassociation from Israel’s policies toward the West Bank and Gaza” would help an “international political context supportive of elements in Israel that already are or will be aware of the necessity to reach a political accommodation with Palestinians.” He did not identify those elements. “A policy of disassociation rather than mediation or pressure,” he said, “would help the growing numbers of those both in Israel and in the U.S. Jewish community, who are striving to frame Israel’s choices in a way that focuses attention on the long-term costs of fulfilling maximalist ideological commitment. “Under the policy of “disassociation,” Lustick wrote, “the U.S. would continue current very high levels of military and economic aid to Israel but would publicly, concretely and regularly express its opposition to settlements, land expropriation, deportations, seizure of water sources, annexation of East Jerusalem, or any other aspects of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza reflecting Israel’s ambitions that go beyond insuring order and security.” Like other Administration articulations legitimizing the PLO, Lustick suggested altering Camp David provisions because the peace processes “weaken U.S. credibility in the Arab world” and “an atmosphere develops in which Syria, Saudi Arabia and the PLO become less convinced of the possibility of a political accommodation with Israel.”2


It is debatable whether Lustick did any more than give coherence to a policy that had been desultory and incremental since Kissinger’s days and had simply matured under Carter. It is significant that Reagan’s State Department pursued much the same policy. To be sure, there were differences in nuance as well as substance as a result of the Administration’s early emphasis on the global context of the Arab-Israel conflict.

Carter’s defeat at the polls was seen as a deliverance from heaven for many in the pro-Israel community even if they found Reagan’s conservatism anathema. “Carter saw Israel through the warp of biblical history and the weft of hard-ball Jewish domestic power,” Samuel W. Lewis explains.3 Had he been re-elected, Carter would have had a free hand to impose his own solution to the Palestinian problem. Even outside of government, many Carter Administration officials persevered as staunch advocates of the Palestinian cause. Hermann Eilts, former Ambassador to Egypt, called for “open [emphasis added] U.S. contacts with the PLO leadership,” so as “to gauge whether the PLO would be willing and able to participate responsibly in broader peace negotiations.”4

But expectations that a Reagan White House would turn the tables on the State Department and reverse U.S. policy toward the PLO were dashed, when Secretary of State-designate Alexander Haig told The New York Times that: “One must be careful in the use of the term PLO. The PLO is an organization made up of elements with various interests. Some are just and reasonable while others are obviously dominated by the East financially as well as ideologically.5 John West, whom Carter had appointed Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, criticized the policy of not talking to the PLO (though the State Department spokesman said that West was speaking for himself).6 A more significant policy clue was the retention of Harold Saunders as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Saunders had helped both Kissinger and Vance formulate a policy grounded in the “legitimate rights” of the Palestinians.7

There were many in the Jewish leadership who were crestfallen by the election of a conservative President. On the assumption that this might mean less pressure on Israel to abandon Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Edgar Bronfman of the World Jewish Congress warned Isarel not to expect “blind support” from world Jewry.8 Regardless of any discomfiture with Reagan, an unreformed PLO remained the central nemesis of the Jewish establishment. Growing acceptance of the importance of the Palestinian problem did not translate into a readiness to embrace the PLO as a peace process participant. In an effort to ascertain how far U.S.-PLO ties had developed under Carter, the American Jewish Congress, meantime, filed a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request with the federal government searching for documents relating to the PLO.9

Despite mixed signals from the Administration there were indications that Israel would enjoy a less strained relationship with the Reagan White House. That Haig would continue the policy of not dealing with the PLO while it advocated “views incompatible with the peace process” was hardly revolutionary.10 As with previous Administrations, U.S. policy would be to “neither recognize nor negotiate with the PLO for as long as they refuse to accept the provisions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 and other U.N. resolutions.”11 But there was an evident change in tone. First, the Secretary publicly linked the PLO to Soviet support for terrorism.12 More significantly, Reagan’s perception of the essential nature of the Arab-Israel conflict and his views about Jewish rights to the Land of Israel were decidedly opposite those of Carter.
As to the West Bank, I believe the settlements there – I disagreed when the previous Administration referred to them as illegal, they’re not illegal. . . . I do think, perhaps now with this rush to do it and this moving in there the way they are is ill-advised because if we’re going to continue with the spirit of a Camp David, maybe this, at this time, is unnecessarily provocative. . . . I know that’s got to be a part of any settlement. I think in arriving at that, here again, there is the outspoken utterance that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist; there is the terrorism practiced by the PLO. I never thought that the PLO had ever been elected by the Palestinians. Maybe it is recognized by them as their leadership, but I’ve never seen that that’s been definitely established. But, again, it starts with the acceptance of Israel as a nation.13


Presidents Conference Meets Waldheim

The Presidents Conference turned its attention to the United Nations where the PLO’s international standing continued on the ascendant. In a two-hour meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, a delegation from the Presidents Conference, led by Chairman Howard Squadron, cautioned Waldheim that the pro-Israel community in the United States was growing increasingly disenchanted with the world body.14 But the United States faced countervailing international pressure from Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, who urged policy makers to use the PLO to induce Lebanese hostage-takers to release their captives.15

Settlements “Unhelpful”

If Reagan did not personally believe that Jewish life in the Administered Territories was “illegal,” the State Department swiftly convinced him that it was “unhelpful.” The strategy of the United States was to facilitate the entry and participation of the Palestinians (the PLO under the right circumstances) into the peace process. That had not changed. The U.S. still wanted to keep the door open to the possibility of an exchange of West Bank land for a commitment of peace. Understandably, therefore, the U.S. opposed actions by Israel which would diminish the prospects of such an exchange. In February 1981, the State Department strongly criticized Israeli settlement activities as “unhelpful.” The statement stopped short of embracing the Carter-line that they were also “illegal.”16 Yitzhak Shamir, the Foreign Minister, rebuffed the American criticism. But there is little doubt that the American Jewish leadership was growing weary of the bickering. The Jewish leadership’s overall assessment of the Arab-Israel struggle was undergoing an incremental deviation from Israel’s appraisal.17

Any resemblance between Reagan and Carter Administration policies was offset by the new Administration’s willingness to move away from an exclusive focus on the Palestinian Arabs. In contrast to Carter who was riveted to it, Haig de-emphasized the Palestinian issue. Soviet expansionism in the Middle East was the focus of American policy; the Arab conflict with Israel, a sideshow. As Lewis points out, “Reagan looked at Israel through the prism of East-West global confrontation as a natural ally.”18

The irony was that the cornerstone of the Reagan-Haig emphasis on the Arab states (not the Palestinian Arabs) required the Administration to furnish them with the latest weapons in the American arsenal. Haig’s first trip to the Mideast as Secretary of State revolved around the Administration’s plans to sell sophisticated military aircraft, F-15s, to Saudi Arabia. Only secondarily was the visit billed as an effort to re-start the Autonomy talks. Prior to leaving for the Middle East, Haig met with Squadron and Hellman. The Presidents Conference leaders lobbied against the F-15 sale.19 They also sought American support for expediting the Autonomy talks along the lines outlined at Camp David.20

Meanwhile, Nixon wrote Reagan to counsel that he go outside the Presidents Conference in his dealings with the U.S. Jewish community and suggested Max Fisher as a conduit: “He is one of those rare individuals supporting Israel’s position who can always be counted upon for total, loyal support for whatever decision is made by the administration. Equally important, he can keep his mouth shut.”21 Haig later explained that Fisher was brought in because “it is always helpful to have an extra channel that influences more formal dialogue.”22 Reagan did invite Max Fisher and another key Jewish Republican, Gordan Zacks, to the White House. They discussed events in Lebanon, the West Bank and the proposed arms sales. The President told his guests that he remained totally committed to Israeli military superiority.23 Whatever the impetus, the Presidents Conference decided not to launch a full-scale campaign against the F-15 sale.24

Irrespective of the Administration’s focus away from the Palestinian Arabs, elsewhere in the political system, the attention of the prestige press remained fixated. The extent to which the Arab-Israel conflict had evolved into a Palestinian-Israel affair, in which Israel was portrayed as a settler colonial state, is captured by a series of articles published in The Washington Post by William Clairborne and Jonathan Randal in mid-March of 1981: “By all appearances, the spirit of humanitarianism – which Israel’s political and military leaders invoke to this day as justification for waging sporadic war on sovereign Lebanese soil – had led Israel into the same kind of colonial trap of which it relieved Britain when it obtained independence in 1948.”25 This was the same tone underscored at a Palestine Congress of North America sponsored policy round-table on “Domestic Implications of the Mideast Crisis and U.S. Policy” held at the Rayburn House Office Building. Under the auspices of Walter Fauntroy, the Delegate from the District of Columbia, the gathering was aimed mostly at Black legislative aides and academics. Critics of Israeli policies, including Randall Robinson of TransAfrica, charged that there was a conspiracy between Jews in America, South Africa and Israel to support Apartheid.26

Despite such snipping, U.S.-Israel relations, particularly with regard to the PLO, had never been stronger. Abba Eban, now an opposition Knesset member, told the Presidents Conference in New York that he was encouraged by the Reagan Administration’s unfavorable attitude toward the PLO.27 Indeed, NSC Adviser Richard Allen vindicated Israeli Air Force strikes against PLO bases in Lebanon, saying they were hitting the “source of terrorism.”28

Downhill

The Administration’s strategy of building an anti-communist coalition called for the sale of advanced weaponry to pro-American Arab countries (even if they were technically still at war with Israel). The Carter Administration had pledged to sell AWACS (highly sophisticated early warning radar aircraft) to the Saudis. According to Haig, he and Shamir were quietly negotiating the sale when Weinberger stated publicly that “not only were we selling the Saudis AWACS, we were going to sell them [advanced sidewinder air-to-air missiles and extra fuel tanks designed to increase the AWACS range approximately 900 miles]. And then Shamir is blown out of the saddle by Begin. . . .”29 A crisis atmosphere conducive to political suasion had suddenly developed.

Jewish opposition to the AWACS sale now eclipsed other issues in the U.S.-Israel relationship. In early April 1981, the President’s Conference warned that it was prepared for a bitter fight if necessary.30 The organized Jewish community pursued the AWACS fight with its full political resources. In short order, the AWACS battle came to virtually dominate the Jewish community’s agenda. In an effort to widen the circle, typical of political suasion, and bring in figures who would fragment the opposition, a White House meeting was arranged for leading Jewish Republican figures.31 Then on March 31 Reagan was shot. Haig’s awkward “I’m in control here” White House statement opened him up to ridicule and diminished his influence. With the AWACS battle looming, Haig met in Jerusalem with Begin and Opposition party officials Peres and Eban. They were left with the impression that the U.S. and Israel shared an identical outlook toward the PLO, that the PLO would not be a participant in any forthcoming peace talks and that the U.S. continued to oppose a separate Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.32 Also contributing to the sense of uniformity of views was the Reagan Administration’s opposition to PLO involvement in the El Salvador civil war.33 But it was the Arabist views of Weinberger and Vice President Bush which were in the ascendant.34

The AWACS battle, subsequent Lebanese missile crisis, and the 1982 Lebanon War provide an environmental context necessary to understand the role of the Jewish community in U.S.-PLO relations. For now it is enough to note that, beyond straining the U.S.-Israel relationship, the corrosive political battle over the AWACS unnerved and psychologically debilitated the pro-Israel community.35

Consolidation of the consensus the United States and Israel ostensibly shared with regard to the PLO, was further hampered by a series of events in Lebanon and Iraq. The chronology includes terrorist incursion attempts, artillery bombardments, and increased tensions along Israel’s northern border. This was followed by the shooting down of two Syrian helicopters attacking Christian-Arab forces aligned with Israel. In retaliation, Syria sent SAM-6 anti-aircraft missiles into Lebanon, potentially restricting Israel’s ability to strike at PLO targets. The President appointed Philip Habib to serve as his special envoy charged with resolving the Syria-Israel missile crisis peacefully.36

Another instance of the Administration framing the agenda to its own advantage came in May 1981. The Administration ordered the closing of the Libyan Embassy in Washington, D.C. in order to prevent possible terrorism against U.S. targets. But a State Department official said that the PLO mission would not be similarly closed because it had been in compliance with American laws and was staffed by U.S. citizens or resident aliens.37 Elsewhere, the PLO’s international standing continued on the ascendant. West German Chancellor Schmidt called for PLO participation at an international peace conference. The Presidents Conference leadership met with Schmidt when he visited Washington to argue against the new West German stance.38

The following month, the U.S. announced that the Autonomy Talks would resume in the Fall of 1981. In another important strategic choice selection, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South East Asian Affairs Nicholas Veliotes made clear that U.S. policy on the issue of Jerusalem remained firm. The status of the City would be determined through negotiations. The dexterous use of insinuation is an important component of political manipulation. In remarks analogous to Haig’s pre-inaugural interview with The New York Times, Veliotes also reiterated that the PLO was an umbrella group with some “terrorist elements.” Privately, the Administration was engaged in efforts to bring the PLO into the U.S.-led peace process.39

Attack on Iraqi Nuclear Plant

We do not know to what extent the Israelis were aware of State Department efforts to bring the PLO into the peace process. Ostensibly at least, the U.S. and Israel were in broad agreement on the PLO issue. Once again, however, other factors intervened to undermine U.S.-Israel relations and force the American Jewish leadership to expend its precious political resources.

Characteristic of political suasion, the United States engaged in situational advantage seeking in its response to the Israeli air strike against Iraq. On June 8th, IAF planes destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor facility near Baghdad. The United States condemned Israel’s action as “unprecedented.”40 Irritation was expressed about whether, in violation of U.S. laws, American supplied planes had been used in the attack. The State Department added that it had no evidence that Iraq was working on nuclear weapons. The U.S. voted to condemn the Israeli military strike in the U.N. Security Council. Meanwhile, the American Jewish leadership became entangled in this latest controversy in U.S.-Israel relations. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger forcefully pressed the case within the Administration to penalize Israel. The State Department emphasized that there was no evidence to justify Israel’s apprehensions about Iraqi nuclear aspirations. Ultimately, the Administration retaliated by suspending delivery of F-16s to Israel. The underlying message was that in a non-zero-sum Arab-Israel theater military solutions were inappropriate. Beclouding the issue somewhat, the President made several conciliatory-sounding statements about the Israeli action.41

In this ambiance of crisis, Nahum Goldmann, a founder of the Presidents Conference and now the iconoclastic former President of the World Jewish Congress as well as of the World Zionist Organization, called for the establishment of a Palestinian state as essential to an Arab-Israel peace.42 Goldmann was the quintessential outside elite player (of the trans-national variety) engaged in facilitating PLO entry into the peace process. Goldmann had entrée into the corridors of power and the Op-Ed pages of the prestige press. Later, former Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders, in an address to the National Press Club, observed that Israel remained divided over what to do about the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Any solution will result in a “national trauma of some sort.” He continued: “There is no doubt in my mind . . . the PLO will play a role in this process. . . . If they are not at the table they will play a role behind the scenes.”43

More ominous still, from the Israeli viewpoint, was a Los Angeles Times report that for the past seven years the U.S. had held secret contacts with the PLO. Prime Minister Begin sought to downplay the revelation, saying that he was only aware of indirect U.S.-PLO contacts on such issues as the release of American hostages.44

But the attention of the U.S. Jewish leadership, publicly at least, was directed elsewhere. With Israeli officials stunned by the continued intensity of U.S. criticism over the IAF strike against Baghdad, Squadron and Presidents Conference Executive Director Hellman met in Jerusalem with Begin. In Squadron’s view, the media had unfairly portrayed the Israeli moves.45 They returned pledging to work harder at explaining Israeli actions in Lebanon and Iraq. The Presidents Conference decision not to politically target the newly revealed U.S.-PLO talks may simply be a case of following Israeli cues. The leadership certainly had its hands full. But the decision not to forcefully raise the issue could not but have sent a signal to the Administration that, if handled discreetly, U.S.-PLO contacts were politically tolerable to the Presidents Conference.

The interlocking nexus of international and domestic political systems now benefited the PLO’s stature as a legitimate actor on the world stage. Despite criticism from Peres and the Israeli Opposition that the recently U.S. brokered cease-fire arrangement in Lebanon had enhanced the status of the PLO, there was nothing that could be done to reverse the inexorable momentum.46 In Europe, Vatican officials were said to be in regular contact with the PLO.47 Arafat met with French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson, who advocated including the PLO in future Middle East peace talks.48

By now, the Haig-Reagan policy of building a Middle East strategic consensus incorporating Israel and the moderate Arab states in an anti-communist coalition, relegating the Palestinian issue to the back-burner, had been discredited.49 Indeed, Israeli moves aimed at crushing the PLO proved futile and counterproductive, and indeed propelled the Palestinian issue to center-stage.50 Fierce Israeli retaliations against PLO targets in Lebanon often resulted in collateral damage to civilians and that undermined popular support for the Jewish State among Americans. The Administration and media portrayed Begin as obdurate. Each onslaught of anti-Israel media coverage stunned and virtually incapacitated the Jewish leadership. Some in the Jewish leadership shared the Administration’s apprehension of Begin. Israeli air strikes aimed at overwhelming the PLO militarily only served to distance the Administration diplomatically. In the face of mounting tensions, the Jewish leadership was irresolute and full of remorse.51 The strategic mindedness of American policy, on the other hand, remained steadfast. Toughness toward Israel did not translate into softness toward the PLO. Despite a direct appeal from Sadat to Reagan calling for U.S.-PLO talks, the President and Haig stood by their commitment not to negotiate with the PLO unless U.S. demands were met.52

Perceptually, it became ever more untenable for the pro-Israel community to argue that the Arab side still sought a zero-sum outcome to the struggle. Media coverage of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon hardly fostered the image of a Hebrew David slaying the Palestinian-Arab Goliath.53 Saudi King Fahd’s peace plan, made public in the summer of 1981, tacitly accepted Israel’s existence within its 1948 borders. The plan, not incidentally, also called for the creation of a PLO-led state, and payment of reparations to the Palestinian Arabs.54 Sadat, meanwhile, continued to lobby regularly for bringing the PLO into the peace process. During August, he directed his efforts at the American Jewish leadership holding a meeting in New York with a joint delegation from the Presidents Conference and World Jewish Congress. In spite of their discomfiture with Likud policies, Squadron was hardly ready to lobby the Israelis on behalf of the PLO. He told Sadat “that the PLO is a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel.” It was up to the PLO to recognize Israel first, Squadron said.55

The focal point of political discourse remained on the Palestinian Arabs, not on the confrontation states. Those advocating Palestinian centrality included former President Carter, who called on the Palestinians to recognize Israel and for the Jewish State to end its “military occupation.”56 Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s NSC Adviser, now openly called on the U.S. to deal with the PLO.57 Ezer Weizmann, the former Israeli Defense Minister (and Likud party campaign manager turned passionate dove) echoed these calls. Weizmann said it was time to consider a “Palestinian entity” in Gaza and the West Bank.58

It remained difficult to convince the Likud Government that Arab intentions had sincerely changed. They were, at least, equally concerned about American objectives. The State Department’s response to an August 1981 terrorist assault on a synagogue in Vienna, in which two people were killed and 18 injured, seemed characteristic of situational advantage seeking. While evoking a State Department condemnation, the United States refused to blame the PLO for the incident.59

The idea put forth by various U.S. decision makers that the PLO was a complicated body, not merely a terrorist organization, was basic to sanitizing the group’s image and a prerequisite to ushering it into the peace process. Indeed, calls for direct U.S.-PLO talks became almost de rigueur. Adding their voices to the growing chorus were Talcott Seelye, the retiring U.S. Ambassador to Syria, and Senator Barry Goldwater.60

Begin Visit to U.S.

Begin no doubt knew that solidarity among American Jewish leaders for his policies was deteriorating. Though criticism was muted, Begin had to have been aware that some in the leadership thought him abrasive.61 Their perceptual analysis of the conflict now differed markedly from the official Israel evaluation. Nevertheless, on his way to Washington for a mid-September meeting with the President, Begin stopped in New York to address the Presidents Conference. And, again on his way back to Israel, the Prime Minister made another stop-over in New York and used the opportunity to lash out against two influential Israeli newspapers, The Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz, complaining that their biased reporting was undermining support for his government.62

At the White House, Begin and the President met for the first time and discussed closer U.S.-Israel military ties as well as the planned resumption, after an 18-month suspension, of the Autonomy talks. But it was the AWACS battle that continued to dominate the domestic side of U.S.-Israel relations. Former President Nixon warned that elements of the U.S. Jewish community will “have to take the consequences if Congress kills the AWACS sale.” Furthermore, former State Department official George Ball remarked that the AWACS controversy was a test of strength between the President and the pro-Israel community. Innuendoes leaked by unnamed government officials questioned whether Jews were more loyal to Israel than to President Reagan.63



Sadat Assassinated

In early October 1981, Islamic extremists assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The murder was a reminder that determined elements in the Arab world abhorred the very idea of peace with the Jews. The White House dispatched three former Presidents to attend the Sadat funeral.

Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter used the opportunity to discuss the role of the PLO. Carter and Ford then issued a joint public call urging that the PLO be brought into the peace process. Haig’s reaction was that U.S. policy would not change until the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist.64 While the U.S. was not ready to publicly negotiate with the PLO, it was continuing to criticize the Israelis for taking steps that would make the creation of a Palestinian state all but impossible. Haig and NSC Adviser Allen reiterated that Jewish West Bank settlements were not conducive to successful Autonomy talks.65

Reagan reaffirmed long-standing U.S. policy of not talking to the PLO until it recognized Israel’s right to exist: “There would be a condition, always has been. There never has been any refusal to talk with the PLO. There has been only one condition: until they would recognize the right of Israel to exist as a nation which they still have never done.66 The U.S. was intent on not sitting idly waiting for the PLO to shift gears. Indeed, some days later, the State Department denied a Newsweek account which reported that Haig had asked former President Nixon to develop contacts with the PLO during his travels in the Arab world. Newsweek reported: “The Reagan Administration is working quietly to bring the PLO into the peace process . . . after discussions in Cairo with Secretary of State Haig, former President Nixon last week urged Saudi leaders to induce the PLO into accepting (Saudi) Prince Fahd’s eight-point peace plan, if only in principle, as a springboard for expanded negotiations later.”67

The Israeli attitude toward the Fahd plan – not restricted to the Likud alone – was harshly cynical. Insight into Israeli assessments of Arab intentions, during this period, can be garnered from the following indignant remarks by Former Foreign Minister Eban:
Every Israeli and every friend of Israel across the world should consider anybody who supports the plan as a dangerous adversary. The aim and consequence of Prince Fahd’s formula is to reduce Israel from a strong and self-reliant democracy to a stunted, impotent, humiliated ghetto, useless to itself, to the Jewish world and to the international community. The Arabs . . . should support the Camp David process. What Israel needs least of all is recognition of “its right to exist.” The phrase is full of insult and contempt. Israel did not need recognition from Saudi plutocrats or an organization like the PLO which has no juridical or moral right to award or deny recognition of states.68


Reports that Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s NSC Adviser, had met with Arafat merely underscored the growing political isolation of Israel and the American Jewish leadership.69 All the while, support for the PLO came from a variety of sources, including Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreous, who invited Arafat to visit Athens.70 PLO diplomatic and public relations gains were immaterial as far as the Israelis were concerned. Their assessment of PLO intentions remained constant. Speaking during a Knesset debate, Foreign Minister Shamir said the Jewish State would never negotiate with the PLO even if it recognized Israel.71 But they could hardly be sanguine about the direction of U.S. policy. The Administration’s affinity for the Fahd peace plan unnerved the Israelis. Begin requested and received American assurances that the State Department did not seek to replace the Camp David Accords with the Fahd Plan. On that score the Administration seemed ready to accommodate. At a November appearance on Capitol Hill, Haig did not refer to the Fahd Plan at all and instead affirmed that Camp David is the “best basis for progress.”72 In a rather enigmatic twist, Haig later questioned Jewish criticism of Israel. He told a Washington, D.C. gathering of Jewish leaders that Jews were Israel’s sharpest critics. Haig concluded that he would not join in such criticism.73

Defeated on AWACS

After a politically merciless battle, which ended in an Administration victory, the vaunted power of the Jewish lobby (always more smoke and mirrors than reality) seemed at a low ebb.74 Plainly, American policy was tilting toward a more even-handed Mideast policy and this would have repercussions for U.S.-PLO relations. More portentous still, from Israel’s vantage point, was the perception in some circles that the Jewish lobby had been enfeebled by accusations of disloyalty to the country. The use of political manipulation, particularly insinuation, had been fairly transparent. Somewhat disingenuously, Secretary Weinberger complained that criticism of Jewish lobbying efforts against the AWACS deal had taken on “an ugly tone.”75 At the end of November 1981, Reagan met with a joint delegation of Presidents Conference leaders as well as prominent Jewish Republicans to assuage Jewish apprehensions in the aftermath of the AWACS deal. According to Goldin: “The leaders voiced their distress over the anti-Semitic rhetoric that emerged around the AWACS debate. The meeting, however, did little to mitigate the bitterness that lingered between Washington and Jerusalem.”76 The White House did leak word that a staff member had been rebuked for suggesting that American Jews were being disloyal to the United States in opposing the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia.77 Earlier, Reagan’s off-the-cuff, and reassuring, remark that he favored Israeli sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem was “clarified” by the State Department which explained that the status of Jerusalem had to be decided through negotiations.78

Relations between the Reagan Administration and the Begin Government had gotten off to a bad start. They quarreled over arms supplies and the AWACS sale. Moreover, after their meeting, Reagan thought Begin committed himself not to “lobby” against the sale and felt betrayed when Begin publicly opined that he was against it. The U.S. decision to withhold delivery of F-16s as punishment for the Osirak air strike had yet to be resolved. Nevertheless, Sadat’s assassination and the planned resumption of the Autonomy talks left Begin “overconfident” that the shared ideology of the two leaders would prevail over transient events.79 According to Lewis, Sharon proposed “a broad blueprint of potential areas of regional military cooperation of embarrassing pretension. Weinberger and others blanched, but the die was cast for much that unhappily followed.”80 Weinberger grudgingly signed the U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation, which Lewis explains was replete with symbolism but devoid of substance. Certainly “it was a pale version of Israel’s original proposal.”81 Both the State and Defense Departments downplayed the agreement, suggesting that all that was involved was the storage of medical supplies and joint planning.82 The principal source of U.S.-Israel tension, resolution of the Palestinian Arab issue, was transparently papered over with an agreement that fit neatly within the parameters of the disassociation strategy. Communication had replaced understanding. The U.S. remained staunchly committed to an Israeli withdrawal from the areas captured in the 1967 war. Begin’s hobbled claim to Jewish rights in Eretz Israel (tempered by a commitment to adhere to Camp David and relevant Security Council Resolutions), combined with the complete disinterest, on the part of the American Jewish leadership, for Likud’s territorial line, set the stage for trouble ahead. Meanwhile, the PLO continued to make significant diplomatic strides, obtaining invitations from various South American countries and Canada for high-level delegations to visit.

So, when the Knesset voted to extend Israeli law to the Golan Heights, a major fissure in U.S.-Israel relations was exposed. The vote was undertaken precisely because certain Knesset members were not lulled by the appearance of goodwill between Israel and its patron. These members wanted to formally solidify control over the Golan. Begin supported but did not orchestrate the bill’s passage, which jolted the Administration. The United States retaliated by suspending the recently signed cooperation accord and joined in a U.N. vote condemning Israel.

Begin vowed that the Golan Heights law, passed by 2/3 of the Knesset, would not be revoked. The U.S. reaction to the Golan law was, for Begin, the final straw in a series of perceived slights. He implied that the Administration was waging a campaign of psychological warfare:
On June 7 we destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osirak near Baghdad . . . an act of national self-defense. Nonetheless you announced that you were punishing us – and you revoked a signed and sealed contract that included specific dates for the supply of planes. . . . Not long after, in a defensive act – after a slaughter was committed against our people leaving three dead and 29 injured – we bombed the PLO headquarters in Beirut. . . . You have no moral right to preach to us about civilian casualties. . . . A week ago, at the instance of the government, the Knesset passed on all three readings by an overwhelming majority of two-thirds the Golan Heights law. Now you are once again boasting that you are punishing Israel. You have imposed upon us financial punishments – and have (thereby) violated the word of the President. When Secretary Haig was here he read from a written document the words of President that you would purchase for $200 million Israeli arms and other equipment. You canceled an additional $100 million. What did you want to do – to hit us in our pocket? . . .

Now I understand why the whole great effort in the Senate to obtain a majority for the arms deal with Saudi Arabia was accompanied by an ugly campaign of anti-Semitism. What kind of expression is this – punishing Israel? Are we a vassal-state of yours/ Are we a banana republic?83

Squadron endorsed Begin’s criticism. The Presidents Conference was critical of the tone set by the Administration’s handling of the Golan Heights annexation issue. Referring to Begin’s gibe that, “No one will frighten the great and free Jewish community of the U.S. No one will succeed in cowing them with anti-Semitic propaganda. They will stand by our side,” Squadron cabled the Prime Minister: “Yasher koach (right on!).”84 Actually, the Jewish leadership had never stood with Begin on the most fundamental principle at issue: the future of the captured territories. It was the spirit of the Administration’s reaction (not to mention Begin’s own emotional rejoinder) more than the substance of its critique that irritated the Jewish leadership. The substance of the matter was not lost on two leftist groups, Americans for a Progressive Israel (affiliated with the Israeli Mapam party) and the New Jewish Agenda. They protested the Golan law on the grounds that it would make a land-for-peace exchange more difficult.85

* * * * *

Privately, the Administration had been indirectly negotiating with the PLO and its plans were to continue to do so.86 Overt perceptual shifts, meantime, had been reinforced by a number of disparate events: The Soviet Union called upon the PLO to embrace a non-zero-sum approach (the two-state solution). The Peoples Republic of China made a similar call.87 King Hassan of Morocco had already opined that the Arabs would live in peace with Israel once the Territories captured in the Six Day War were abandoned. King Hussein made no secret of his efforts to convince Arafat that Israel had a right to exist.88 The PLO leader authorized his officials to work out a joint PLO-Jordanian arrangement to pursue the peace process and suggested that Jordanian-Palestinian confederation might be possible once a Palestinian state was created.89 Iraq’s Saddam Hussein told Congressman Stephen Solarz: “No single Arab official includes in his policy now the so-called destruction of Israel or wiping it out of existence but there is not one Arab who believes in coexistence with an aggressive and expansionist enemy.”90 Prince Saud al-Faisal suggested that in return for Israeli acceptance of Palestinian rights and withdrawal from the Administered Territories, Saudi Arabia was prepared to “accept” Israel. The Saudi Foreign Minister said: “Arab countries did not accept Israel before, in 1948. The change has taken some doing. There has been a tremendous shift on the part of Arab countries to accept this situation.”91 Two days later, the Saudis disavowed the conciliatory remarks. “What His Highness Prince Saud said with regard to recognition was in essence a reference to the requirement that Israel recognize the rights of Palestinian people to return to their land, to self-determination and to the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.”92 Nevertheless, even the revised remarks were not bellicose and left the impression that an accommodation was possible. As Zartman has pointed out, a non-zero-sum encounter does not require the parties to like each other: “Each party wants the other to be satisfied too, not because they care about each other per se, but so that the other will make and keep the agreement that gives the first party its share.”93 This was the direction the Arabs and their sponsors seemed to be taking.

Most significantly, in terms of the overall perceptual transformation, the PLO also intensified its efforts to develop contacts with “pro-peace” forces in both Israel and the American Jewish community. This campaign was masterfully waged by Arafat operative Issam Sartawi.94 Elsewhere, Hassan Ali, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, called for direct contact between Israel and the PLO. He called on Israel and the PLO to mutually recognize one another. Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij also called on the PLO to recognize Israel. On the Israeli side, Yossi Sarid, a left-wing member of the Knesset, said he was willing to meet with Arafat.95

Parenthetically, the second year of the Reagan Administration began with the resignation of Jacob Stein, the White House liaison to the Jewish Community. The 65-year-old former Chairman of the Presidents Conference gave no reason for his decision.96

II

Jewish Perceptual Framework

While the precise instant is impossible to pinpoint, 1982 was a perceptual turning point. By the close of the year no doubt would remain about the categorization of the conflict: it would be non-zero-sum and comprehended almost exclusively as an Israeli v. Palestinian Arab dispute. It is worth reiterating that once a non-zero-sum struggle was seen as prevailing the American Jewish leadership had no fall-back position with regard to Israeli claims to the West Bank. The Jewish leadership had not been bolstering Begin’s claim to Judea and Samaria. Its primary contention rested on security grounds related to Arab capabilities and intentions.97 During 1982, there were no significant public contacts between the American Jewish community and the PLO, largely due to the Lebanon War. The image of the PLO as a savvy public relations foe likely to strike a deal in return for the best possible outcome, was reinforced in the course of the year. The self-image of the Jewish leadership was that of a community hard-pressed to defend Begin’s hard-line and discouraged because the Reagan Administration seemed to be demanding additional Israeli concessions in the peace process, placing the onus for progress on Israel. The leaders found themselves more willing to defend Israel in the face of what they considered unfair media treatment of Israel in connection with the Lebanon war. In the short term, the war led to a hardening of the leadership’s attitude toward the PLO. Their consistent goal was to get the Administration to ameliorate its multifarious criticisms of Israel. They continued to oppose a change in the 1975 U.S. policy toward the PLO. The Presidents Conference protested U.S. efforts to restrain Israel from dealing a crushing blow to the PLO in Lebanon. Privately, some in the leadership were seeking ways to distance themselves from Likud policies and publicly embrace the policies of the Labor Opposition. Other key environmental issues have already been noted, namely, the conciliatory statements made by various Arab actors and their patrons which reinforced the idea that the conflict was in transition. The continuous media coverage of the Palestinian cause throughout 1982 was the year’s most important environmental factor and had long-term perceptual consequences. Moreover, the vigorous protests orchestrated by the domestic Israeli opposition against their Government’s policies in Lebanon gave impetus and legitimacy to American Jewish criticism. Even as the Israeli Government sought to crush the Palestinian-Arab cause militarily, the Israeli opposition was telling the American Jewish leadership that the Palestinian issue was here to stay. The unveiling of the Reagan plan and its acceptance by Labor and elements of the U.S. Jewish leadership ended with finality the idea that U.S. Jewish lobbyists would take their cue from the Israeli Government. On a personal level, Jewish leaders sought to cultivate a relationship with George Shultz, the new Secretary of State (in part, to counteract the role of Weinberger who was almost uniformly detested by the leaders). Some of the key players influencing, and influenced by, the 1982 perceptual environment were: Max Fisher, Squadron, Julius Berman, Schindler and Bronfman.

* * * * *

The Reagan Administration’s proposed sale of advanced communications equipment, valued at $79 million, to an Arab consortium which included the PLO and Libya, can be analyzed from the vantage point of political suasion because of what the deal insinuated.98 The President gave a direct assessment of the chances of a U.S.-PLO dialogue in an exclusive interview to Readers Digest. Asked if he would recognize the PLO if it acknowledged Israel’s right to exist, Reagan answered:
This is a decision to be made after they do it. I know the PLO has kind of held a position that their non-recognition of Israel is a bargaining chip that they could bring to a negotiating table. . . . I think they’re wrong. I don’t see how you sit down to bargain with someone who has taken a position where they deny your right to exist and that you should be destroyed. That is not a bargaining chip. And, I am hopeful that, as we continue dealing with the more moderate Arab states, we will bring them to accept recognition that Israel is a nation that is going to continue existing.99


The Administration’s line remained consistent. Edwin Meese, a key Presidential aide, revealed that Reagan had again rejected a call by Mubarak for a U.S.-Palestinian dialogue.100 The Administration, like previous Administrations, was pursuing a two-track approach: refusing to elevate the PLO diplomatically without significant concessions, while sanitizing the PLO’s image for the future. During the first six months of the year, the Administration routinely played down the significance of PLO military activities in Lebanon.101

The media’s coverage of, and emphasis on, the Palestinian Arabs provides added context in which to understand the shift in American Jewish public opinion. Television images, especially, can easily sway public opinion under the proper conditions. The ABC TV program 20/20, for instance, sought to sway public opinion when it televised a segment on the conditions of Arab life in the Administered Territories. Little pretense was made at providing context, balance or objectivity. Producer Stanhope Gould said “balance isn’t always just a matter of what you do in one story.” Moreover, it was easy to overlook “Israeli repression” unless people were made to feel it at the emotional level.102

The first Reagan Administration Human Rights Report issued by the State Department, in February, criticized Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza.103 Since the purpose of the report is to document abuses and embarrass abusers, it served as another political suasion tool. Plainly, the Israelis and their Jewish supporters in the United States were pained by the continued inclusion of Israel in the Report. The agenda was now set so that discussions about the future of the West Bank would encompass charges of abuse by Palestinian Arab human rights advocates. The PLO also pressed the human rights claim by financing visits of American clergymen to squalid refugee camps in Lebanon.104

As the Arab-Israel conflict underwent conversion into the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and the Palestinian cause gained adherents worldwide, Israel’s ineffectual response was to call attention to PLO-inspired violence. Invariably, Israeli threats of retaliation were met by American calls for self-restraint.105 Except for the Israelis, and many in the U.S. Jewish leadership, everyone agreed that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had become a solvable, albeit not easy to unravel, political dispute. The Administration made plans to sell ground-to-air missiles to Jordan while paying lip-service to the Camp David process in order to facilitate the final stages of Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai.106

Jewish concerns were not assuaged by the Administration’s ostensibly strict adherence to its well known conditions for talking to the PLO.107 American officials, such as Admiral Bobby Inman of the Central Intelligence Agency, appeared to be making a conscious effort to portray the PLO in a positive light. Inman, for example, disparaged reports that the PLO was aiding the Marxist government of Nicaragua.108 Still, Arafat’s own pronouncement, that PLO pilots were in Nicaragua and El Salvador, was undisputed.109 Squadron said openly that there was simply no one in the Administration who understood Israel or appreciated its fears.110

With Haig’s discreet encouragement, meanwhile, confidential negotiations between the United States and the Palestine Liberation Organization were making painstaking progress. The talks were conducted by John Edwin Mroz (in conjunction with Cluverius, Veliotes, and CIA operative Robert Aims). The two sides bargained over a document intended to bridge PLO-U.S. differences on the diplomatic prerequisites for a dialogue.111 Arafat may have had these sub-rosa talks in mind when he told the ABC News Program Nightline that he would forfeit the respect of the Palestinian masses if he accepted American conditions for a dialogue.112 Arafat and Mroz met on May 5, 1981 and planned to sign an agreement at a session set for June. But that meeting never took place because of Israel’s war against the PLO in Lebanon.113

Meanwhile, in the public arena, intensified lobbying on behalf of a U.S.-PLO dialogue was being pursued by the American Friends Service Committee.114 The Presidents Conference, for its part, emphasized the “major sacrifices for peace” Israel had taken and took issue with the drift in U.S. policy.115 With the Presidents Conference unalterably opposed to both the tone and policy direction of the Administration, the White House opted to circumvent the official leadership and seek Jewish support elsewhere. In a session arranged by the Jewish affairs liaison for Republican National Committee, Richard Krieger, the White House invited Max Fisher and five other prominent Jewish Republicans: Albert Spiegel of Los Angeles; Gordon Zacks, Columbus, Ohio; Richard Fox, Philadelphia; George Klein, New York; and George Klein of Beverly Hills, California and president of AIPAC. This rather transparent effort to widen the circle of Jewish leaders in order to achieve a desired outcome was promptly denounced by the organized Jewish leadership. Squadron termed the session a “deeply disturbing break in Jewish unity.” The Presidents Conference chairman complained that the Reagan Administration was pursuing a divide-and-conquer approach precisely because of Jewish opposition toward Administration policies:
From the beginning of this Administration, an effort has been made to bypass the Presidents Conference so that the White House could designate its own “Jewish leaders.” The effort was vigorously rejected by the organized Jewish community on the grounds that it is not up to the President to select the Jews who represent the Jewish community. It is up to the Jewish community itself. . . . (The) most representative group in Jewish life today is the Conference of Presidents, the one body which by common consensus speaks for American Jews on issues affecting the security of our fellow-Jews in Israel and other lands abroad. . . . Of course, no President likes to hear criticism. That is why some self-appointed Jewish spokesmen, political supporters of the President, have tried to create a new group to serve as a buffer between the President and the organized Jewish community. American Jews reject this concept. We have no intermediaries, no “court Jews” to represent us in the halls of government. We speak for ourselves.116


The extent to which the Administration sought Jewish support for its policies was evidenced by the fact that it took Squadron’s grievances to heart. Within two weeks, Vice President Bush hosted a delegation of 75 Presidents Conference guests in Washington.117 Later, Jacob Stein arranged a “secret” meeting in New York between a group of Jewish leaders and Weinberger.118 They discussed the full range of issues involving the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The Administration was well-informed about the thinking of the Jewish leadership and must have known of their discomfiture with Begin. In this context, Schindler’s remarks, delivered at a Presidents Conference “leadership meeting” held in Washington in April, help to illuminate the conflicted thinking of many in the Jewish establishment.
There is an attempt being made to divide Begin from Israel, to distinguish somehow the Prime Minister from the people, to insinuate that the so-called “hard line” of Begin does not represent the true feelings of citizens of Israel. This is slander against one of the great statesmen of our time. . . . This is not to say that I agree with his every decision. . . . Against the scheming and maledictions of our enemies, we will extend our stake in Israel. We will not yield. We will stay and we will build.119

The leadership’s internal divisions and inconsistencies did not directly translate into softness on the PLO issue. Nevertheless, the PLO made substantial political advances in the American political system. Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-IN), a key member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, denied press reports that he had invited the PLO’s Farouk Kaddoumi to visit Washington.120 However, former President Ford, in his capacity as a private citizen, offered to talk with Yasir Arafat as a prelude to PLO recognition of Israel.121

The Lebanon War

The 1982 War in Lebanon was a milestone event on the road to a U.S.-PLO dialogue. The war and its aftermath monopolized the political activities of the organized Jewish leadership. It also unleashed a deluge of images which transfigured Jewish perceptions about the nature of the Arab-Israel conflict. Arguably, had Israel been allowed free reign, it could have militarily decimated the PLO, dealing it a serious, perhaps even fatal, blow.

The public relations difficulties of Western oriented democracies in waging war in the age of “real time” television is a subject beyond the scope of this study. It is enough to speculate that Israel’s mission in Lebanon came unraveled in large measure because of American opposition to the brutalities of war as hammered home by television.122 From the rubble of Beirut, America worked diligently to salvage the PLO as a diplomatic entity and to rescue its leadership including Yasir Arafat. Far from diminishing the Palestinian-Arab cause, in the final analysis, the war served to amplify the pivotal role of the Palestinians. How this occurred, in the context of the quadrilateral dynamic that is the focus of this case study, merits closer examination.

* * * * *

On June 3, 1982 Arab terrorists ambushed and shot Israel’s Ambassador to England, Shlomo Argov, in London. Israel immediately blamed the PLO, though it developed that the perpetrators were associated with the Abu Nidal gang, a PLO breakaway faction. Israel retaliated against PLO targets in Lebanon and the PLO reacted by shelling the Galilee. The shelling presented the Israelis with a pretext for a massive onslaught against the PLO in Lebanon. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon’s debatable grand strategy – a plan he had been considering for some time – was intended to rout and emasculate the PLO militarily and weaken it diplomatically, while formalizing an alliance with Lebanon’s Christian-Arabs.123

At the war’s outbreak, on June 8, 1982, the Presidents Conference defended Israel’s foray against the PLO in Lebanon as a campaign against terror. The Jewish leadership called upon the international community to take measures “outlawing and quarantining the PLO” because of its assassination attempt against the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain.124

Berman New Chairman

Shortly after the war began, Julius Berman, a leader of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations of America, succeeded Squadron as chairman of the Presidents Conference. Raised in Hartford, Connecticut, Berman was both a rabbi and a lawyer.125 His term was dominated by the Lebanon war and by the inability of the Presidents Conference to harness the political influence of the U.S. Jewish community to support Israel’s Lebanon mission. On June 29 he declared: “I believe generally that there is an overwhelming consensus of the American Jewish community” to support Israel’s war aims.126 Just several weeks later, Berman admitted: “I can’t say that every Jew is behind the operation. . . . There are ads (signed by Jews opposing the invasion) but the basic consensus of American Jewry is solidly in support.”127

Chafets offers this explanation about the war’s unpopularity:

The devastatingly bad press Israel received during the war was the product not only of technology but of a number of trends and attitudes that had been ripening for years. A decade of sympathy for Palestinian nationalism and declining Israeli popularity and credibility combined to make Israel the target of a melodramatic and sometimes vitriolic press campaign, which was aided and abetted by Israel’s own conduct, both of the war and its press relations. . . .128


Of course, no Israeli Government would have tolerated the use of Lebanon by the PLO as a staging area for attacks against Israel. Still, Israel’s attack against the PLO in Lebanon was motivated, in part, by the Government’s desire to strengthen control over Judea and Samaria. While the Administration’s Middle East team was initially divided on how to handle the crisis (Haig tried to buy the IDF time), they nevertheless moved expeditiously to politically salvage the PLO.129 The President’s call for an immediate cease-fire and Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon can be understood under the rubric of political suasion as situational advantage seeking. His meeting with Begin at the White House on June 21 further contributed to the already present crisis atmosphere.130

The connection between the Lebanon campaign and the future of the Administered Territories was widely understood. Senator Robert Packwood, perhaps the staunchest pro-Israel voice in the U.S. Senate, urged the dismantling of the PLO in Lebanon in order to demoralize pro-PLO forces in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.131 Israeli officials spoke openly about the need to achieve a decisive PLO defeat in Lebanon to make autonomy easier.132

The war, however, did not proceed according to the plans developed by Sharon.133 If the war was intended to finish off the PLO as a political force, the great irony is that it accomplished just the opposite. In fact, the domestic political climate within Israel swayed some in the American Jewish leadership to oppose Begin’s stance on the essential nature of the conflict. Many Israelis vehemently opposed the war on the grounds that the conflict was not an absolute necessity. About two weeks into the war, on June 15, Peace Now issued its first protest statement. Three weeks after that, 100,000 Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the war. Meanwhile, Uri Avneri, an Israeli Leftist, appeared in Beirut to be photographed embracing PLO leader Yasir Arafat. Plainly, the perception was that, even at this early stage, the war inspired little popular support. Actually, a majority of Israelis supported the war.134 In mid-July, 200,000 people rallied to back the Government’s policies. Nevertheless, a national consensus on how to proceed eluded Begin. The Labor Party publicly withdrew its support from the war once it became clear that Israel would not adhere to the limited goals outlined by the Cabinet at the outset of the conflict.135

The political environment, in which the U.S. Jewish leadership acted, was greatly influenced by a deluge of media coverage from Beirut which portrayed the fighting as unfair and one-sided. The Palestinian Arabs were depicted as victims of Israeli military adventurism. Against a smoldering Beirut skyline, NBC network news anchor John Chancellor brazenly told American TV viewers: “. . . Nothing like it has ever happened in this part of the world. I kept thinking yesterday of the bombing of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem on its border is fifty miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut? The answer is that we are now dealing with an imperial Israel . . . world opinion be damned.”136 ABC’s Mike McCourt “described (but had no pictures of) ‘two square miles of West Beirut [that are] now dust and mortar. The rest of the city, nearly all of it, resembles some ancient ruin. . . . The total in human terms has been appalling. Ten thousand dead, up to twenty-five thousand wounded, and more than half a million people, mainly Lebanese, left homeless.’ The kindest thing that can be said about this description is that it was untrue in every detail.”137 Even without such purposeful falsifications, the brutality of modern war, delivered in real time to their television sets, proved traumatic to many American (and especially American Jewish) viewers.

Relentless U.S. pressure on Israel for a cease fire, withdrawal and for the safe passage of the PLO leadership, made a mockery of Sharon’s plan to crush the PLO politically as well as militarily.138 Haig’s resignation as Secretary of State in late June, further debilitated Sharon’s strategy. The ostensible catalyst for Haig’s resignation was discord within the Administration over the management of American policy on the Lebanon crisis. His departure worried Israel and the American Jewish leadership. Haig had been perceived as the Administration figure – after Ronald Reagan – most empathetic to the Israeli cause. Though we now know that secret U.S. contacts with the PLO had been taking place during Haig’s brief tenure, the Palestinian issue was by no means the centerpiece of his Middle East policy. On the other hand, incoming Secretary of State-designate George Shultz was known to have close business ties in the Arab world through the Bechtel corporation.139 Fisher, acting independently, sent Shultz a cable from Jerusalem stating: “I resent the implications that you might be biased in your judgement because of your present business association, I have always known you to be a fair, honorable man with a real sense of integrity. Be assured of my cooperation.”140

Berman, meanwhile, was keenly aware that American Jewish support for the war against the PLO in Lebanon was fluid. Publicly he continued to argue that most U.S. Jews supported Israel’s actions.141 Nevertheless, the withering effect of the negative media coverage was draining Jewish resolve. Squadron candidly acknowledged that Israel had not handled the public relations aspect of the war satisfactorily.142 A further indication that the Lebanon war actually enhanced the PLO’s political standing came from Time magazine, which reported that the Reagan Administration threatened to deal directly with the PLO unless Israel cooperated in ending the war on American terms.143

Unquestionably, for Shultz the Palestinian conundrum was at the crux of the Arab-Israel conflict. An American policy which did not take this into account was untenable. During his Senate confirmation hearings, he remarked that the Lebanon situation only underscored the importance of the Palestinian issue.144 Clearly, the United States would not allow Israel to use the Lebanon war to rule out the PLO politically. Shultz implied that the PLO was capable of altering aspects of its character so that a diplomatic role would be possible. Like Haig, he refused to characterize the PLO as a terrorist organization suggesting that it could potentially serve as the “one voice” of the Palestinian Arabs.145 During his Senate committee testimony, Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas urged Shultz to get “tough” with Israel about Jewish settlements in the Territories.146

Quest for the Magic Words

While the fundamental American position on the PLO had not deviated since 1975, Shultz’s arrival at Foggy Bottom in July 1982 reinvigorated the public, as well as private, diplomatic campaign aimed at getting the PLO to “say the magic words” – recognizing Israel and denouncing terror. When the PLO floated conciliatory-sounding statements about Israel, U.S. officials invariably calibrated their response with a mixture of encouragement and skepticism. Thus, in July, Shultz dismissed vague press reports that the PLO was ready to recognize Israel. Shultz listed the now familiar prerequisites for a U.S.-PLO dialogue: the PLO must clearly say it recognizes Israel; and U.N. Security Resolutions 242 and 338; must lay down its arms and stop terrorism. “Then,” said Shultz, “we are dealing with a different organization.”147

Coordinating the diplomatic flirtation on behalf of the PLO, early in Shultz’s stewardship, was Issam Sartawi. Sartawi kept the conciliatory messages flowing. The 44-year-old cardiologist, with close ties to Yasir Arafat, announced that the PLO accepted Security Council Resolution 242 and thus “implicitly” recognized Israel. Uri Avnery, an Israeli proponent of bringing the PLO into the peace process, pointed out that Sartawi’s pronouncement had not been repudiated by the organization.148 But the State Department remained firm in pressing for an official and explicit statement from the PLO.149 “Inadvertent” meetings such as the one between Hatam Husseini and officials at the State Department took place. The Department was at a loss to explain the circumstances under which Khaled Hassan, another close Arafat colleague, entered the United States.150 This diplomatic dalliance continued week to week, month to month and year to year until December 1988.

In late July 1982, as the Administration was seeking to facilitate the withdrawal of PLO forces from Beirut, several U.S. Congressmen, among them Nick Rahall, Mary Rose Oakar, David Bonior, Paul McClosky and Marvyn Dymally traveled to Beirut as a show of support for the Palestinian cause. McClosky later announced he possessed a signed statement from Arafat that recognized Israel by acknowledging all U.N. resolutions pertaining to Palestine. That such recognition was implied, however, was denied by PLO radio the next day. While the State Department dismissed the document as not being “clear and unequivocal,” the rejection was balanced by spokesman Dean Fischer’s reminder: “If our conditions are met . . . we will be willing to talk to the PLO.”151 By facilitating the trip of the Congressmen and engaging in public discussions about conditions for a dialogue, the Administration was controlling the political climate and setting the agenda.

Begin’s Israeli critics had obliging access to the American media and could address themselves virtually directly to the pro-Israel community.152 Paradoxically, the pace of events in Lebanon enhanced the PLO’s diplomatic prospects even as they left many influential American Jews dispirited.153 Despite intra-Arab recriminations over the refusal of any Arab state to come to the military aid of the Palestinian Arabs, irrespective of the PLO’s precarious military and logistical predicament on the ground, the prestige and political standing of the PLO in the United States had seldom been more buoyant. To undergird this positive development, a number of influential Palestinian Arab leaders living in the West met in London:
The group, which included Dr. Walid Khalidi, Dr. Hisham Sharabai and Edward Said, all from the U.S., decided to hold a meeting in Europe next month in which some 300 wealthy Palestinians will be invited in order to raise $100 million for the project The meeting was revealed in the London-based Arabic-language weekly Al-Majallah and reprinted by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. . . .

According to Al-Majallah, some of the participants felt that the Palestinian military effort had “collapsed” and that efforts should be focused on securing the rights of the Palestinian people, concentrating on the U.S. since it “holds most of the cards.” The plan calls for creating a Palestinian lobby in the U.S. which would include contacting leading figures within or close to the Reagan Administration. The weekly listed Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and former Treasury Secretary John Connally. . . .154


“Are you losing patience with Israel?” a reported pointedly asked the president. “I lost patience a long time ago,” Reagan replied.155 In the face of this debilitating political situation, Berman appealed to Reagan, in writing, to explicitly call on the PLO to evacuate Beirut.156 The Administration, however, was intent on sending an altogether different signal. As a further reproach, the United States halted delivery of cluster bombs to Israel.157 To the PLO, the President repeated that there would be no U.S.-PLO dialogue unless the previously enunciated conditions were met.158

Political suasion was much in evidence when Foreign Minister Shamir met with Reagan at the White House on August 2. Shultz recalls: “I had discussed it carefully ahead of time with the president. We knew it would be a tough encounter. Reagan did not smile . . . Shamir was calm and tried to be friendly. President Reagan kept after him, stressing the disproportionality of Israel’s response to relatively minor PLO cease-fire violations.”159 Shamir sought to downplay the perception of asperity. But his efforts were in vain. A photograph published on the front page of The New York Times the next day pictured a sullen President looking steadily across the table at Shamir. For an Administration famous for using media images, this glum caricature of the state of U.S.-Israel relations is unlikely to have been etched accidentally.160 Rumors that the United States was contemplating sanctions against Israel were now circulated in the press. At a stop-over in New York, Shamir told the Presidents Conference that he “cannot imagine” that the U.S. would impose sanctions against Israel. But Reagan reiterated publicly that Israel’s actions in Lebanon were “disproportionate.”161 Berman told Shamir the PLO should either leave Lebanon or face the consequences. The next day he and a delegation from the Presidents Conference went to Washington to meet with Shultz, Weinberger and Bush. They were assured that the Administration was not considering sanctions against Israel.162 Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, on a visit to New York, told a gathering at a UJA luncheon that he too opposed a PLO role in the peace process. He stressed, however, the importance of dealing with the Palestinian issue while not spelling out precisely how. At another New York appearance before the Presidents Conference, Peres defended Israel’s incursion into Lebanon.163

Salvaging Palestinian Prospects

The PLO may have been facing military defeat in Lebanon but it was also achieving a political victory in the United States. The President pronounced himself outraged by Israeli air-raids against Beirut.164 Far from exploiting the trouncing of the PLO to undermine its future, United States policy makers sought to do precisely the opposite.165 Opposition leader Peres, on a visit to Washington, told the President and Shultz that the PLO’s troubles created new opportunities: “The PLO’s record is hopeless. It is a Mafia whose structure is riven by blackmail, jealousy, terrorism; it leads the Palestinian people only to a dead end.” Shultz retorted: “The war is not a blessing. The Arabs feel helpless. . . . They are sure Israel will never leave Lebanon.”166 PLO and Syrian forces were finally evacuated from Beirut, in late August, with the aid of 800 U.S. marines. But the Administration appeared intent on helping the Palestinians save face. Shultz helped resuscitate talk of a Palestinian state by hinting that the U.S. could accept a demilitarized entity on the West Bank.167 The Presidents Conference sought and obtained a meeting with the Secretary of State. Afterwards Berman said: “We made it clear to him that the PLO had been destroyed not only militarily but politically as well . . . we stressed that it is important that the PLO will not be dealt with in any way.”168 Later, State Department spokesman John Hughes denied that the U.S. supported the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.169

Reagan Peace Plan

The removal of PLO and Syrian forces from Beirut did not alter U.S. emphasis of the Palestinian component in the peace process. To the contrary. And, if the Israelis thought the Lebanon campaign would solidify Jewish claims to the West Bank, the Administration promptly disabused them of any such notion. The President sent Begin a letter calling for a freeze in Jewish settlement activity and suggested that Judea and Samaria should be linked to Jordan.170 Then, on September 2, the President unveiled his own Arab-Israel peace plan. Of the war against the PLO in Lebanon, the President said: “The military losses of the PLO have not diminished the yearning of the Palestinian people for a just solution of their claims. . . . It is clear to me that peace cannot be achieved by the formation of an independent Palestinian state. . . . So the United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and we will not support annexation or permanent control by Israel.”171

Essentially, the conflict resolution formula now espoused by the president (it had been in discussion for months), while emphasizing the Palestinian issue over the state-to-state aspect of the conflict, was largely a re-working of the Jordanian option favored by the Labor Party. It called for an exchange of land-for-peace and confederation of Judea and Samaria with Jordan. Shultz insisted that the U.S. still saw no role for the PLO.172 But the Israeli Government viewed matters differently. Begin decried what he saw as an effort to divide Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel].173 A Government statement said:
Were the American plan to be implemented, there would be nothing to prevent King Hussein from inviting his newfound friend, Yasir Arafat, to come to Nablus and hand the rule over to him. Thus would come into being a Palestinian state which would conclude a pact with Soviet Russia and arm itself with every kind of modern weaponry.174


Some in Likud suspected that the White House and the Labor Party had colluded to promote the Jordanian option just when the Palestinian-Arab position on the ground seemed weakest.175 Begin declared: “Israel is not Chile and I am not Allende.”176 But reaction from the American Jewish leadership, which Shultz carefully monitored, was more sanguine. AIPAC’s Tom Dine initially lauded the Reagan Plan because of its opposition to a Palestinian state.177 While acknowledging that the plan contained some positives, others in the Jewish leadership nonetheless viewed it as violating the spirit of Camp David. Presidents Conference head Berman complained that the effect of the Reagan plan was to preempt the outcome of Arab-Israel negotiations.178 Shultz’s reading of his meeting with the Jewish leadership emphasized their discomfiture with Begin: “They were disappointed, they said, that they had not been more fully consulted in advance. But they were clearly embarrassed by the vehemence of Begin’s rejection. They worried about a settlement freeze but could not really oppose the principles the president had outlined.179 Next, Shultz picked up the support of B’nai B’rith, which called the plan “worthy of consideration.”180 Shultz spoke before the UJA in New York where he received a polite reception. Haig later criticized the plan before the same audience. Haig said, having carefully studied the Camp David Accords, his conclusion was that: “Israel never committed itself to terminate permanent settlement on the West Bank. . . .” He then alluded to, and cautioned against, American political interference in Israeli internal affairs.181

Within weeks of the PLO’s expulsion from Beirut and the announcement of the Reagan plan, Saudi Arabia hosted the 12th Arab Summit Conference in Fez, Morocco. There the Arab leaders re-formulated the previously announced Fahd Plan. The proposal implied de facto recognition of a pre-1967 Israel and called for the establishment of a PLO-led state with El-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.182 This blueprint struck Abu Saleh, a member of the PLO and Fatah Executive Committee, as being dangerously conciliatory. He warned that it practically implied recognition “of the Zionist entity.”183

Military defeat in Lebanon continued to translate into a sort of surreal political victory elsewhere in the IR arena, for Arafat and the PLO. Both President Mitterrand of France and the Pope met with Arafat.184 But it was the assassination of Bashir Gemayel (it is widely assumed by Syrian agents) that further unraveled whatever political fruits Israel had hoped to derive from the Lebanon war. In retaliation, Christian-Arab militia members massacred mostly Moslem Palestinian Arabs in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla, an area of Beirut under IDF control. The tragedy elevated the Palestinian cause and further blemished Israel’s standing in the United States and among American Jews. Shultz believed that by allowing the Christian Arabs to enter the camps, the Israelis had “facilitated – and perhaps even induced” a bloodbath.185

Officially, both Israel and the American Jewish leadership rejected suggestions that the Jewish State was somehow culpable in the Beirut tragedy. Still, Schindler, Maynard Wishner and other Jewish leaders in the United States echoed a Labor Party demand for an independent investigation of the calamity.186

This growing wariness of American Jews, coupled with scenes of tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrating in the streets against Begin, brought a shadowy charge to the fore: was there a concerted psychological warfare campaign underfoot to debilitate Begin? Reagan disclaimed a United States campaign to “overthrow” or “undermine” the Israeli government: “We have never interfered in the internal government of a country, we have no intention of doing so, never had any thought of the kind. . . . We expect to be doing business with the government of Israel and with Prime Minister Begin, if that is the decision of the Israeli people.”187

Despite an atmosphere of palpable tension and growing disharmony within the ranks of the U.S. Jewish leadership, Berman set out to emphasize the positive.188 The Presidents Conference leadership traveled to Israel, early in October, for meetings with Israeli officials. From Jerusalem, Berman denied outright that the Jewish community was split over Israel’s policies in Lebanon and the Territories. Arguing that a return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders would be ruinous, Berman disparaged the Reagan peace plan for demanding such a withdrawal. He then delineated areas of consensus within the community: opposition to talks with the PLO; antagonism to the establishment of a PLO-led state; and support for maintaining Israeli sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem.189

Given the strain in U.S.-Israel relations and Shultz’s determination to focus on the plight of the Palestinian Arabs, several Arab leaders reasoned that the time was propitious to contrive a public U.S.-PLO meeting. They urged the President to receive the PLO’s Farouk Kaddoumi as part of an Arab League delegation scheduled to visit the White House late in October. But in keeping with its publicly enunciated position regarding talks with the PLO, the Administration rejected their entreaties.190

Delegitimizing Israel’s West Bank Policy

The symbiotic relationship between Israeli opponents of Begin policies and their American supporters is typified by the work of the West Bank Data Project headed by Meron Benvenisti. The American funding sources for Benvenisti’s work included private contributions, university sources and foundation grants.191 Benvenisti argued that, in all likelihood, opponents of Jewish control over Judea and Samaria had only about 36 months to reverse Begin’s policies.192 Benvenisti was concerned that the planning and development of relatively large urban centers in the West Bank would create organic links to Israeli centers within the “green line.” He collected data about West Bank land ownership, economics, and water administration. His intention was to demonstrate how, if current Israeli building continued, Arab towns and villages, with little room for natural growth and expansion, would find themselves surrounded by thriving Jewish communities. Moreover, the crisis atmosphere Benvenisti was helping to foster is characteristic of political manipulation. Ostensibly, Benvenisti targeted his criticism at the United States for not acting decisively to stem Israel’s “imperial concept” of West Bank settlement.193

The Shultz line dominated Administration thinking. Still, not everyone embraced it. Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick, for instance, continued to view the Arab-Israel conflict in zero-sum terms, telling a dinner-meeting honoring former Presidents Conference Chairman Howard Squadron that the goal of Israel’s enemies at the U.N. remained the destruction of the Jewish State.194 This assessment followed in the wake of remarks made by the former leader of Algeria, Ahmed Ben Bella, who said candidly that the Arabs would never accept the State of Israel.195 Shultz, meantime, wanted Max Fisher to press Begin to accept, at least in part, the Reagan peace plan. Fisher also wrote Shultz to provide him with insight into the thinking of the Jewish leadership: “As a result of your meeting (with American Jewish leaders, they have) a very warm personal feeling about you . . . on a personal level you have their confidence, which is vital. George, please don’t get discouraged. . . .”196 At the same time, shadowy hints of a joint United States-Israel Labor Party psychological warfare campaign aimed at undermining support for the Begin Government continued to circulate.197 One Shultz adviser had already gone public with complaints about Begin’s “intransigence” and insinuated that there was no alternative to a Palestinian state.198 Simultaneously, efforts by Israel aimed at reducing the influence of the PLO in the West Bank were disparaged. Shultz derided Israeli demands that college instructors certify that they were not PLO functionaries as recalling 1950s-era loyalty oaths against communism.199

Circumventing the PLO was the last thing on the minds of U.S. policy makers. Egyptian diplomats actively sought to broker a meeting between American and PLO representatives.200 Meanwhile, the United States was reportedly encouraging Egyptian-PLO relations.201 Though unwilling to publicly engage the PLO in negotiations, Shultz was fully committed to bringing the Palestinian Arabs into the peace process. He invited a mission of Palestinian Arabs to meet with him at the State Department. Preceding their arrival in Washington, some members of the delegation flaunted their PLO connections by flying to Tunis for a session with Yasir Arafat. The delegation included two West Bank mayors who had been expelled by the Israelis precisely because of their leadership role in the PLO. Nevertheless, State Department spokesman John Hughes rejected the notion that the U.S. had now opened indirect talks with the PLO, explaining: “We are confident they are not members of the PLO.”202 Plainly, the Administration was committed to bolstering the legitimacy of the PLO. When the PLO Central Council decided not to reject the Reagan peace initiative, the Administration interpreted the decision in the best possible light, praising the “process of consultation” within the Palestinian community.203

Talks were underway, in the interval, to bring about an end to the Lebanon debacle. But the Begin Government believed that the Administration was purposefully blocking Israeli efforts to achieve any semblance of diplomatic headway that would translate into a political defeat for the PLO.204 The Americans denied they were blocking an Israel-Lebanon peace agreement in order to pressure Israel into accepting the Reagan peace plan. But the United States did cajole Israel into dropping its demand that negotiations take place alternately in Beirut and Jerusalem.205

Impact on Internal Opposition

By year’s end the Israelis were faced with a vigorously led internal opposition, comprised of establishment figures from within the American Jewish leadership, who were dedicated to combating Begin’s policies. The 1982 Lebanon debacle, combined with fairly open encouragement from the Labor Opposition, gave the American Jewish internal opposition the legitimacy it needed to publicly challenge the Israeli government. Alexander Schindler emerged as one of the most articulate and vocal of Begin’s critics. The former Chairman of the Presidents Conference warned against incorporating the West Bank into Israel proper. The break with Begin was justified on grounds that world Jewry had a right to dissent from an Israeli policy which posed a danger to Israel’s survival. Schindler favored accommodation with the Palestinians but not with the PLO. Initially, the internal opposition sought to calibrate its criticism of Begin, stopping short, for instance, of sponsoring anti-Begin newspaper advertisements in the United States.206

Competing with Schindler for the leadership mantle of Diaspora opposition to Begin was Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress. Bronfman’s role can best be understood as a continuation of the outside counter-elite criticism previously associated with Nahum Goldmann. In a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed article, Bronfman advocated the right of Diaspora leaders to dissent from the West Bank policies of the Israeli government.207 In addition to Schindler’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the American Jewish Congress emerged as a vanguard force within the Presidents Conference, in opposition to Israeli policies. The AJCongress provided a platform for financier Felix G. Rohatyn and union leader Victor Gottbaum, personalities not previously known for an interest in Jewish affairs, to critique Begin’s West Bank policies and laud the Reagan plan.208 Not only were inhibitions on American Jewish criticism of Begin lifted by year’s end, public dissent from Israel’s policies became almost commonplace.

* * * * *


III

Jewish Perceptual Framework

An outside elite (including a trans-national component) critical of Israeli policies had existed, in one form or another, for decades. Fortified by ostensible dissidents from within the establishment, it would later play a central role in the U.S.-PLO dialogue drama. The Jewish peace camp, which steadfastly supported a PLO role in the peace process, had also already emerged in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War (and the American defeat in Vietnam). It too would play a supporting, albeit peripheral, role in the U.S.-PLO dialogue decision. But only in 1982 did elements of the official (mainstream) pro-Israel establishment begin to operate in internal opposition to the policies of the Israeli government; and only thereafter was the Presidents Conference unable to muster a consensus of support behind Israel’s policies with regard to Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

By 1983, the Jewish leadership categorized the conflict, almost uniformly, in non-zero-sum terms. The Lebanon war reconfigured the conflict – once and for all – in terms of Israelis versus Palestinians. No publicly known diplomatic contacts between American Jews and Palestinian Arabs took place in 1983. Now, however, gingerly handled criticism of the Likud government was considered perfectly acceptable. In terms of cognitive consistency, the Jewish leaders could argue, as Schindler did, that Israel’s survival obligated them to criticize Likud policies. Moreover, now they could point to public criticism in the U.S. of the Israeli government by the Labor Opposition. However, 1983 was dominated – not by the Palestinian Arab conundrum – but by Israeli efforts to withdraw from Lebanon. The Jewish leadership sought to smooth over relations between the Administration and Israel (frayed now over precise conditions for the Lebanon withdrawal) while supporting maintenance of the Egyptian-Israel peace treaty.

The mainstream leadership associated with the Presidents Conference continued to oppose bringing Arafat or the PLO into the peace process. They also worked to head off U.S. sanctions against Israel for its handling of the Lebanon withdrawal. Criticism by key groups associated with the Presidents Conference of West Bank settlements was no longer muted. Still, Berman (the last Orthodox chairman of the Presidents Conference for the period and the last politically sympathetic to the Likud line) stood solidly with Likud against a revival of the Reagan plan.

The political environment influenced and was influenced by a new assertiveness on the part of Begin’s Jewish critics. Bronfman, of the WJC, became a pacesetting force for the outside (and transnational) elite. Now, however, the establishment joined in the criticism. The UJA warned that Begin’s policies made it difficult to raise funds and the AJCommittee, flagship of the establishment, explicitly renounced Jewish rights to Gaza, Judea and Samaria and embraced the Labor endorsed Jordanian option. Elsewhere in the American political system, former Presidents Ford and Carter termed Israeli settlements in the Administered Territories primary obstacles to peace. Meanwhile, Reagan urged the Israelis not to condemn themselves to life in a garrison state. He spoke of the need for a Palestinian Arab national home. By 1983, then, the unofficial American Jewish stance weas largely identical to the Administration’s viewpoint except that the Jewish leaders were far more cynical about PLO intentions.

* * * * *

Begin’s determination to resist Arab sovereignty over the West Bank was framed by history and the Hebrew Bible which wedded Am Yisroel (the Jewish people) to Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel). Ideology, however, was buttressed by Begin’s reading of Arab intentions. Unlike the American Jewish establishment (and the U.S. Administration), Begin tenaciously clung to a zero-sum assessment of Palestinian Arab intentions. The raw data about PLO intentions, which circulated freely between Israel and the Diaspora leadership, was not in dispute. What was in contention was its evaluation.

At the 12th Palestine National Congress, held in June of 1974, the PLO enunciated a political program authorizing the establishment of “the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated.” In effect, the PLO pronounced itself willing to accept a mini-state solution on the West Bank alone. “Once it is established, the Palestinian national authority will strike to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory. . . .”209 By 1983 the Mini-State Solution had become acceptable even to such “radicals” within the Palestinian movement as George Habash’s PFLP.210 In Begin’s view, PLO moderation was a tactic in its strategy aimed at the phased destruction of Israel. Documents captured by the IDF from PLO headquarters in Beirut during the Lebanon war only reinforced the Government’s worst fears about PLO intentions as well as the veracity of the PLO “peace offensive.”211 Begin refused to “talk” to the PLO or countenance a PLO role in the peace process not, as is often suggested, because the PLO was a “terrorist” organization. Israel had shown itself ready to negotiate with the PLO qua terrorist organization. For example, Israel was in official contact with the PLO in an effort to gain information on its POWs.212 It was precisely in its political constitution that Begin rejected, as futile, negotiations with the PLO. When Arafat told a Kuwaiti magazine: “We are moving politically with our finger on the trigger of the rifle,” Begin took him at his word.213

The Diaspora leadership inched away from the idea of permanent Jewish control over the Administered Territories, though it rejected a role for the PLO. Initially, their critique was framed in terms of the right to dissent. The outside elite argued that, as Edgar Bronfman declared, Israel was strong enough to accept criticism.214 They criticized Israel’s West Bank policies but were divided over alternative approaches. The Israeli left was not so divided. The Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, led by Matti Peled and Uri Avneri, sent a delegation to Tunis for meetings with Arafat. Afterwards, Peled asserted that the PLO’s goal was coexistence. The Prime Minister’s Office termed them “a fringe element.”215

The prevailing perceptual tide within the American political system was that the Israelis were primarily responsible for lack of progress in the peace process. A concerted effort seemed to be afoot to present Jewish claims to the West Bank as “major obstacles” to peace.216 Concurrent with these political suasion efforts, the Jewish leadership was exposed to repeated, albeit vague, messages of moderation and conciliation from the PLO leadership.217 For the most part the Jewish leaders (internal opposition and outside elite) opted for a middle-course: opposition to PLO inclusion in the peace process; protest against the mere hint of U.S. sanctions against Israel over Lebanon; and coupling these positions with a rejection of Jewish settlement activities of the West Bank. All in all, this approach was based on an agenda set by the Administration.

The President told a visiting delegation of 150 Jewish leaders in February that he would not use the threat of sanctions against Israel to obtain concessions in the Israel-Lebanon talks.218 But the Administration would not brook a campaign to circumvent the PLO inside the West Bank. In an effort to maintain control of the political agenda, they denigrated Israeli efforts to promote the Village Leagues as an indigenous, rural, traditional, and essentially non-nationalist alternative to the PLO.219

Jewish leaders were well informed about gradations of PLO policy. Since the Reagan plan was premised on the notion that the struggle had shifted to a non-zero-sum track, the PLO’s attitude toward the plan is worth examining briefly. The Palestine National Council (PNC) met in Algiers in February. Attention focused on how it would respond to the Administration’s overture. The PNC’s message was equivocal. The idea that a self-governing entity on the West Bank linked to Jordan would be negotiated without a public role for the PLO was difficult for the PNC to embrace.220 There were those who wanted to reject the Reagan plan outright as inadequate. Arafat considered that impolitic. He told the PNC:
The struggle will continue until the aims of our Arab nation are achieved . . . to continue our militant road and armed revolution until we achieve our firm national rights which are not open to disposal, including our right to return, self-determination, and the establishment of our independent Palestinian state on our national Palestinian soil and until our fluttering banners are raised over holy Jerusalem, capital of our independent Palestine. . . . Our choice to establish a confederation with our people in fraternal Jordan is a genuine expression of our conviction in comprehensive Arab unity. . . .221

But a final PNC communiqué was blunt. The movement rejected: “Imperialist and Zionist plots and liquidation plans, in particular the Camp David Accords and the Reagan Plan . . . since it denies the right of return and self-determination and the setting up of the independent Palestinian state. . . .”222 Mindful, perhaps, of the need to sustain the peace offensive, Saleh Khalef (Abu Iyad, the PLO’s second-in-command) told American reporters that if the Reagan Administration recognized “the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the creation of a state,” the PLO would consent to taking a back seat to the actual negotiations.223 Issam Sartawi, coordinator of the PLO “peace offensive,” threatened to resign from the PNC because his request to address the session was denied.224 But Sartawi also told Radio Monte Carlo that he opposed recognition of Israel, favoring instead contacts with the Israeli peace movement in order to develop a “third force.”225

The PNC’s rejection of the Reagan plan did not alter the basic thrust of U.S. policy. The centrality of the Palestinian cause, the need to deliver the West Bank and Gaza, and the prospect of a PLO role were the pillars of that policy. The President remarked that the Palestinians required “something in the nature of a national home” and, at any rate, Israel could not forever live as a garrison state.226 That the Reagan Administration had largely adopted Carter’s judgment on the centrality of the Palestinian issue in promoting an Arab-Israel peace process was long evident.227 Reagan consulted with Carter prior to making public his September 1982 peace initiative.228 Touring the Middle East, Carter called the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria “illegal” and “an obstacle to peace.”229 More importantly, the former president also met with PLO officials. The State Department response to Carter’s meeting can best be understood in the context of insinuation which is part and parcel of political suasion. Foggy Bottom refused to be drawn into criticism of the Carter-PLO meeting.230 The Jewish leadership’s response to the cacophony of criticism of Israel’s West Bank policy was equally muted, in large measure because they had come to embrace the Administration’s overall approach (though differing on nuance and tactics).

In contrast to the leadership’s subdued reaction on West Bank and PLO issues, the Presidents Conference reacted energetically as bilateral relations between Israel and the United States deteriorated over Lebanon. The Administration withheld delivery of 75 F-16 military aircraft as leverage against Israel’s Lebanon policy.231 One well-placed Jewish community professional charged that Weinberger was conducting a “vendetta against Israel.”232

Internal Opposition Manipulates

Even as the Jewish leadership defended Israel on how to extricate itself from Lebanon, these apparently endless confrontations resulted in even further hemorrhaging of support for the Begin Government. It had become de rigueur to couch criticism in terms of the “right” of American Jews to rebuke Israeli policies. Stuart Eizenstat, a domestic policy adviser in the Carter Administration, made that case again in the Labor Party newspaper, Davar.233 But by April 1983, something far more extraordinary was in motion. In a seminal announcement, the American Jewish Committee – flagship of Jewish establishment organizations – issued a major policy statement opposing Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The AJCommittee openly embraced the Labor Opposition, saying it favored the “Jordanian option.” Ironically, Jordan announced that it would not negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs.234 Nevertheless, the import of the AJCommittee statement cannot be overemphasized.

The AJCommittee did not join the Presidents Conference until March 1991. But for over 23 years it held official observer status and arguably wielded more influence than many of the 46 organizations who are formal members.235 Never in the history of Israeli-American Jewish relations had elements of the Jewish leadership so openly sided with the official Opposition Party against the elected Government of Israel. Plainly, the AJCommittee was intent on influencing the political climate within the Jewish community. This was by no means an isolated instance of political suasion. To protest Begin’s line, a number of philanthropists threatened to stop supporting the United Jewish Appeal. Some UJA leaders wanted to exclude Begin from their fund raisers. The UJA relies heavily on a relatively few major contributors, so the boycott threat was taken seriously. “We are behaving as if Israel’s existence was threatened as in 1967 – which it isn’t,” a Begin critic complained.236 In this instance, the establishment came under the influence of the peace camp which charged that UJA money was going, albeit indirectly, to build settlements in the Territories. Brettschneider writes:
In 1979-1980 the New Israel Fund was formed as an alternative venue for philanthropic pro-Israel sentiment. American Jews were becoming more and more aware that their many United Jewish Appeal (UJA) donation dollars were also going to help build Jewish settlements in the Territories occupied by Israel. As settlement building in the Occupied Territories has long been viewed by the dovish Zionist and pro-Israel camps as illegal, immoral, a waste of Israel’s resources, and a threat to the long-term democratic character of the Jewish state, such activity has long been denounced as an act of Jewish suicide. These donors wanted their money going elsewhere in Israel to help build the country more in line with the politics of their Zionism . . . on behalf of battered women, Arab-Jewish co-existence projects, prisoner empowerment, abused children and Eastern Jews.237


The steady loss of support from the philanthropic infrastructure (of the UJA and the various federations) had wide-ranging repercussions for the Government of Israel. For one, many of the weekly newspapers serving the Jewish community are subsidized by their local federations. Invariably, these papers become more editorially audacious in their criticism of Begin.238 There were fewer and fewer voices available to defend Likud policies and virtually none to advocate them.239 Criticism of Israel’s retention of the West Bank among American Jews was commonplace and, paradoxically, newsworthy. A group of Jewish law students from Harvard, Yale and New York University had no trouble obtaining coverage in The New York Times for a protest letter they had sent Begin.240

It was Henry Kissinger who in 1975 had formally pledged the United States not to negotiate with the PLO unless it adhered to certain conditions. But as a private citizen in April 1983, Kissinger met with PLO official Ahmed Dajani in Morocco. The former Secretary of State acknowledged that he had discussed the trip with Shultz. He emphasized, however, that in private talks with the PLO he merely re-stated the public position of the U.S. The State Department maintained that Kissinger was not serving as a “back channel” to the PLO.241 Meanwhile, the United States assured Jordan it was attempting to pressure Israel into freezing Jewish settlement activity in Judea and Samaria.242

In April, Dr. Issam Sartawi, Arafat’s liaison to the Jewish peace camp, was assassinated in Portugal. Reports conflicted as to who was actually responsible.243 Arafat appointed an Israel-born Jew who was also a French citizen, Ilan Halevi, to temporarily replace Sartawi as the PLO representative to the Socialist International.244

Kissinger’s session with the PLO did not induce the group to accept U.S. conditions for its inclusion in the peace process. Shultz now professed to increasing impatience with the sluggish pace of the PLO’s drift toward moderation. An October 1974 declaration by Arab leaders meeting in Rabat Morocco had designated the PLO to replace Jordan as “the sole and legitimate representative” of the Palestinians. Shultz opined that the Rabat Mandate gave the PLO too much power and should be revoked.245 The U.S. was obliquely suggesting that the Jordanian option could still be salvaged. Later, on a Middle East visit, Shultz suggested that the PLO was fast becoming irrelevant. Reagan took up the same line, saying that “the negotiations don’t have to hinge on the PLO. . . . There has to be a solution to the problem of the Palestinians. No one ever elected the PLO among the Palestinians.”246 It remains unclear whether this was an effort to cajole the PLO into accepting U.S. conditions for a dialogue or reflected genuine frustration with Arafat’s intransigence. Others in the domestic political arena, however, were unwilling to write off the PLO. Presidential candidate John Glenn, for example, declared that: “No permanent solution to the conflict will be possible without the participation of the PLO.”247

The PLO’s political standing among United States policy makers was, temporarily, at a nadir. For its part, the Presidents Conference, whose decisions are rooted in consensus, mostly avoided the Palestinian issue. Instead, Berman called on Reagan to reinstate the U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding.248 After Arab terrorists bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the Jewish leadership asked Reagan to re-think America’s estrangement from Israel.249

With the Presidents Conference largely neutralized by the internal opposition, the critics were ascendant. At Brandeis University, for example, several professors mobilized the campus against Israel’s West Bank policies.250 On any number of campuses with a Jewish student population, groups like the Progressive Zionist Caucus, Progressive Jewish Students Union, New Jewish Agenda, Socialist Zionist Union, Habonim-Dror, and Hashomer-Hatzair, spearheaded peace camp activities. Brettschneider calls them “counter-hegemonic,” and explains that their goal was to redefine pro-Israel politics.251 Meron Benvenisti, of the West Bank Data Project, contributed another warning that ongoing Jewish settlement of the West Bank was creating problems diplomacy would not be able to solve.252

The White House, looking for support in the 1984 elections, actively began mending fences with the Jewish community. Chief of Staff James Baker asked a number of Jewish Republicans to reconstitute the National Jewish Coalition, a Republican outreach effort to the Jewish community. Shultz returned from the Middle East with preliminary agreement on a withdrawal of Israel troops from Lebanon. The Administration’s most strident Israel critic, Defense Secretary Weinberger, told an American Jewish Committee audience that he too was a strong supporter of Israel. Criticism of Israel’s West Bank security policies need not be equated with anti-Israel sentiment, Weinberger strongly implied. This was a position the AJCommittee, which only months earlier had expounded an anti-settlement stance of its own, would hardly challenge.253 Weinberger also praised Israel as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism.

Outside (transnational) elite actors, such as WJC President Edgar Bronfman, asserted that Israeli illusions about the Territories could be shed if the Diaspora pursued Jewish values.254 Ironically, with U.S.-Israel relations on a somewhat better footing, Jewish critics could take a more forbearing view of Begin. Schindler, for instance, went so far as to attribute the improvement in relations between the two countries to Begin.255 At the Presidents Conference, Berman concurred that relations had improved and asserted that the Reagan plan was moribund. He also suggested that the future of the peace process rested with Jordan.256

Opposition on the part of the mainstream Jewish community (internal opposition and outside elite included) to Jewish sovereignty on the West Bank did not translate into support for PLO control of the area. At any rate, the PLO’s standing was undermined by a serious mutiny which broke out within Fatah ranks.257 However, the peace camp remained steadfast in its support for a two-state solution. Outside the campus, perhaps the best organized peace camp group was the New Jewish Agenda (NJA). In mid-1983 the NJA applied for official membership in the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington.258 Another growing movement, Peace Now, began to establish chapters in Canada and the United States intent on using American Jews to manipulate political events inside Israel.259

With PLO fortunes in decline, the State Department no longer seemed concerned about sanitizing the movement’s image. Foggy Bottom now backtracked on its earlier depiction of the PLO as being uninvolved in anti-U.S. activities in Latin America.260 Thus, a recalcitrant PLO was being mildly, but publicly, ostracized. Nevertheless, the Palestinian Arabs remained at the core of U.S. peace-making efforts.261 Ad for the Jewish residents of the West Bank and Gaza, Shultz articulated a fairly nuanced position: the U.S. opposed Israeli settlements in the area, but Jews who already lived there should have the “right” to remain.262 Lest anyone misconstrue Shultz’s remarks as a softening of U.S. policy regarding the lands captured in the Six Day War, a State Department spokesman termed east Jerusalem “occupied territory.”263

Begin Resigns

At the end of August 1983, Begin astounded Israelis by announcing his immediate retirement. He did not explain the decision, though observers said he was emotionally distraught over the death, several months earlier, of his wife Aliza and the rising casualty figures for IDF soldiers in Lebanon. Whatever the reasons, Begin retreated to his home and became highly reclusive for the remainder of his life. He died in 1992.264 After the resignation, Near East Report editorialized:
Last January, then President Yitzhak Navon visited Washington and spoke of those areas on which there is consensus within the Israeli body politic. These included refusal to return to the unstable and indefensible borders of the pre-1967 period; opposition to the existence of a third state between Jordan and Israel; opposition to negotiations with any group dedicated to Israel’s destruction; and a commitment to a united Jerusalem under Israeli authority. On these fundamentals, Israel’s people stand as one. No future government – neither Likud nor Labor – will abandon any of them. Those who are banking on that kind of change in Israel will be sorely disappointed.265


* * * * *

For the internal opposition, poll taking served a political suasion purpose by helping to manipulate dimensions. James Q. Wilson observes that, “How we word the question can dramatically affect the answer we get . . . just altering the order in which people are presented with options affects which option they choose and thus what is ‘public opinion.’ . . .”266 Invariably, AJCommittee polling (usually done by Likud critic Professor Steven Cohen of CUNY/Queens), discovered a lack of support among American Jews for Israeli policies. If the PLO recognized Israel and renounced terror, one AJCommittee poll found, most would then “favor” an Israel-PLO dialogue.267 Cohen conducted his survey by using “distinctive Jewish names” gleaned from the telephone book.268

Lebanon dominated the agenda of the Presidents Conference throughout the fall of 1983. But the Jewish leaders were also concerned about the “cold peace” existent between Egypt and Israel. Berman and a delegation from the Presidents Conference met with Mubarak to discuss Egypt’s stance toward Israel and came away reassured.269

Rejecting Support

Given the difficulties facing the pro-Israel community, it is remarkable that the Presidents Conference spurned offers of support from potential allies inside the American political system. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, including Jerry Fallwell’s Moral Majority, were a natural source of political support for Likud policies. Socially as well as politically conservative, they interpreted the rebirth of modern Israel in messianic terms; favored Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria; perceived the Arab-Israel conflict in zero-sum terms and strongly opposed the PLO cause. Moreover, they represented an important Reagan constituency. But the Presidents Conference membership was politically and, for the most party, socially, liberal. The traditional liberal base of pro-Israel support had atrophied, but the Presidents Conference, suspicious of the objectives of the Christian right, found it impossible to broaden their political coalition. In remarks delivered in London, Berman explicitly warned Israel to be leery of the ambitions and motives of the Christian right.270 Fallwell supported Reagan politically but opposed the President’s policies on the Arab-Israel conflict.271

Rhythm of Violence

When the Arab uprising or Intifada began in December 1987, it was promptly forgotten that the West Bank and Gaza had been experiencing steady, albeit episodic, violent unrest ever since 1967. After one such episode occurred during the winter of 1983, the State Department asserted that the troubles accentuated the need to move forward with the Reagan Peace Initiative of 1982.272 It also maintained its criticism of construction of Jewish towns and villages in the West Bank.273

A number of events set the stage for an American pull-out from Lebanon. They are mentioned here because the onus of U.S. entanglement in Lebanon was, in the mind’s eye of the public, traceable to Israel. And this further complicated the position of the Jewish leadership. In April, sixty-three people were killed, including seventeen Americans, when Arab terrorists bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut. In October, a devastating suicide car bombing killed 135 Marines in Beirut. Then, in December, one pilot was killed and one captured when an A-6E Intruder flying from a U.S. carrier was shot down by Syrian forces in Lebanon.274

A quagmire of violence seemed to pervade the region. But Israeli efforts to contain Arab rage on the West Bank continued to draw considerable negative U.S. media coverage.

As noted earlier, Israel’s preoccupation about not dealing with the PLO did not extend to prisoner exchanges. One large exchange at year’s end returned hundreds of PLO activists to the West Bank in a swap for several IDF soldiers. (Five years later, many of the returnees played an instrumental role in sustaining the Intifada.)