Segal’s Tunis Mission
The use of political manipulation to undermine Likud was hardly new. Peres’ Laborites had engaged in it and so had the Americans. For the past several years, the internal opposition had also made use of political suasion tools. But the most overt use of political manipulation, thus far, was undertaken by the peace camp.
Most (but not all) peace activists, as noted earlier, were new to Jewish communal concerns. They traced their political legacy to the anti-Vietnam war movement. Jerome Segal, who emerged as a peace activist leader, had virtually no involvement in Israel or Jewish affairs until he became absorbed in the Palestinian Arab cause while doing unrelated work as a junior State Department staffer.
Segal traveled to Tunis, in June, to meet with Arafat in what was billed as the “first American Jewish delegation representing Jewish organizations ever to meet the Chairman of the PLO.” This mission to the PLO leadership was aimed at convincing them to display greater public moderation. Segal also saw his task as bringing the PLO’s message of peace and moderation to a larger audience. Segal was accompanied by Hilda Silverman of the New Jewish Agenda and Mary Appelman of the America-Israel Council for Israel-Palestinian Peace. In terms of political suasion, the meeting served to manipulate dimensions and widen the circle of “Jewish leadership.” In subsequent years, Segal has served as an informal adviser to the PLO and has helped them develop a “blue-print” for a Palestinian State. He heads the Washington D.C.-based Jewish Peace Lobby.
In her description of their meeting with Arafat, Silverman offered some insight into the principles and philosophy of the peace camp:
I spoke mostly . . . on Jewish fears. I’ve heard that in past meetings he hasn’t wanted to listen to that. But he couldn’t have been more responsive. . . . When I spoke to him of the visit of Sadat to Jerusalem and told him that was the high point of the lives of many Jews in Israel as well as the United States, I had expected him to dismiss it, but he was nodding and smiling.
. . . Arafat especially talked about how difficult it is to get the PLO perspective and information about the PLO to the U.S. media. . . . Concern about the charter (the PLO Charter) was one of the issues that did come up in one of the conversations; the response was “we cannot now, we cannot do it.” It’s a real psychological problem for both sides. There’s no question in our minds that that was one of the things that would happen at the time there are serious negotiations . . .
. . . [Regarding terrorism] . . . I think it’s desperately important for people to understand that we were talking to people who are subject to violence every single day of their lives, and they are representing people who are subject to violence. . . . I think it’s very important for the media particularly to see and share with the American public the violence that is being done to the Palestinians. . . .
Segal lobbied against closing PLO offices in the United States: “There’s a very deep symbolic issue here. It goes beyond the question of dialogue. . . . There’s a history of denial of their existence.” In a further illustration of political suasion, the peace camp insinuated that Arafat had embraced non-zero-sum goals but that there was a psychological explanation as to why the PLO could not modify its violent rhetoric: Arafat’s first responsibility was to meet the needs of his own constituency, not the semantic concerns of Israeli or American Jews.
Peace Offensive
What separated the peace camp from other Jewish critics of Israel was their unconditional embrace of the PLO, and their readiness to ignore violent PLO rhetoric. Some days after the Segal-Arafat meeting, the PLO reaffirmed its rejection of Israel and reiterated its call for “armed struggle until the establishment of an independent Palestinian State.” There were some very real dangers associated with even tactical moderation. For instance, Hanna Seniora, editor of the Jerusalem newspaper Al-Fajr (and Eban’s interlocutor earlier in the year), was threatened for contemplating a run for the Jerusalem City Council by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). But despite difficulties in conveying a coherent message of moderation, Arafat apparently made a strategic decision to accentuate the PLO’s image of moderateness. Contacts with “progressive” Jewish and Israeli “peace elements” became routine. On June 11, a delegation of left-wing Israelis met with members of the PLO Executive Committee in Budapest. Later in the month, Abdel Wahab Darousha, an Arab Knesset Member, announced that Arafat was willing to meet Knesset members who supported the national rights of Jews and Palestinians. At the same time peace camp activists, associated with the New Jewish Agenda, intensified their lobbying on behalf of PLO inclusion in the peace process.
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The taboo against negotiating with the PLO was fading largely because, among the intelligentsia and progressives in Israel (and to a lesser extent within the American Jewish community), there was a shift in how the conflict was labeled. Once the conflict shifted perceptually to non-zero-sum terms, as it did for some, the old regime became irrelevant. That is why Ezer Weizman commented that the PLO would have to be included in the peace process. Complicating the perceptual ambiance were rumors spawned by an Israeli Government suffering from a form of multiple personality syndrome. At the trial of Uri Avneri and Ari Eliav, a Shin Bet (General Security Service) agent testified that the government had sanctioned their illegal meetings with the PLO. The Shamir component of the Government deprecated the report.
In the U.S., meanwhile, the symbolism of continuing to allow two PLO offices to remain open – when only one was mandated by the United Nations – weighed heavily on the perceptual environment. In July, Murphy said that for complicated international legal and constitutional reasons he had strong reservations about closing the offices. The Administration continued to signal the Palestinian Arabs that, although the PLO could not be a party to the peace process without meeting American demands, the U.S. would continue to pursue the Palestinian component. Shultz explained: “You have to find Palestinians that are able to represent the Palestinian people on the West Bank and are acceptable to Israel.”
In August, a Shamir aide reported confidentially to Shultz (without the knowledge of the Israeli embassy in Washington) that the Prime Minister met with King Hussein outside of London and that if left to their own devices they might be able to work something out. “Was there a chance here,” Shultz wrote disparagingly, “that Shamir had caught a mild case of peace fever?” Peres was, of course, also sending emissaries to Shultz to lobby for an international conference. Charles Hill, Shultz’s Executive Assistant, sought to sell the international conference idea to Shamir on the grounds that it would lead to face-to-face negotiations with the Arab states. Shamir decried the United States’ open alignment with Labor. He cautioned the United States not to interfere in domestic Israeli politics. But the American Ambassador in Tel Aviv, Thomas Pickering, asserted the U.S. was intent on working with both Shamir and Peres. As for U.S. criticism of Shamir:
It is true that some in Israel who have been sensitive to our position have criticized us merely for articulating it, but nowhere in my diplomatic history did the doctrine of non-interference in the internal domestic affairs ever impinge upon a state’s right, indeed obligation, to its own people to make its views known. . . . Where I think people have made a mistake in Israel is in asking the United States not to express its views.
Shultz took the case for an international conference directly to the pro-Israel community. He told a Hadassah convention: “I don’t have to tell you what time it is on the demographic clock in Israel. . . . We observe that this peace process is beset by partisanship . . . we know that no one (not us) – not Israel, not the Arabs – improves the chances of peace by doing nothing at all, by just sitting around.
Progressives Meet Arafat
On September 8, Arafat attended a meeting in Geneva “on the Palestine question” organized at the behest of U.N. NGOs. He declared that the PLO was prepared to participate in an international conference based on all relevant United Nations resolutions including Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Inherent in Arafat’s message was that Palestinian participation would not be bound by American conditions. He also met and posed with Knesset members Charlie Biton, Tawfik Zayyad, Matti Peled and Muhammad Miari of the Progressive List for Peace party. Later Arafat summoned Biton to his hotel suite to declare: “Tell Shamir and others that I am ready to meet them anywhere and talk on all subjects.” Arafat’s dalliances with Israeli progressives left Peres skeptical. Said Peres: “I did not hear Yasir Arafat’s announcement. I only heard what Charlie Biton said Yasir Arafat announced. . . . Arafat loves to play word games occasionally, especially when he sees some Israeli leftists. . . .
Anticipating harsh Congressional legislative action, the State Department preemptively closed the Washington PLO offices. The PLO Observer Mission in New York remained open. The Administration was walking a fine line between domestic political imperatives and its commitment to addressing Palestinian aspirations. The State Department said the United States continued to support the “legitimate rights” of the Palestinian people. The State Department explained the closure by citing contacts between the PLO and the Abu Nidal group, Abul Abass’ leadership role within the PLO, as well as terror acts committed by the PFLP: “This action is being taken to demonstrate U.S. concern over terrorism committed and supported by organizations and individuals affiliated with the PLO.” The Presidents Conference enthusiastically welcomed the announcement, although, echoing the consensus position within Israel, the Presidents Conference said that the New York PLO should also be closed.
Amirav
The Israeli Left was not alone in courting the PLO. Likud Knesset Members Moshe Amirav and Ehud Olmert caused the “national camp” a great deal of discomfiture when their own meetings with Dr. Sari Nusseibeh and Feisal Husseini, Jerusalem Arab leaders with well-established PLO ties, were revealed. Amirav remarked: “It is possible that now, in light of the leaks of the talks, my partners to the talks will be forced to make a denial.” Dan Meridor of the Likud strongly criticized the meetings, claiming that they gave legitimacy to the PLO. He might have added that the revelations left many in the American Jewish leadership wondering.
According to Amirav’s report intended for Shamir, and not released at the time, the parties agreed to propose secret Likud-PLO talks:
. . . Based on the establishment of a region of Palestinian self-administration in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The Palestinian self-administration will cover this area – which encompasses some 5,000 sq. km. – and its capital will be in East Jerusalem. . . . Such an interim arrangement would guarantee Israel’s security and enable it to maintain its settlements in Judea and Samaria at a fixed and unchanged level. . . . It is proposed, under the plan for this interim arrangement, to advance within a year to the establishment of the Palestinian self-administration, which would wield powers approaching those of a state.
Conditions for entering negotiations:
. . . Mutual recognition. . . . Recognition of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people – not as refugees, but as a people – to its own state. . . . Recognition of Israel’s existence within the 1948 borders and of its right to exist within said borders in peace and security (i.e. 242 or amendment of the Palestinian Covenant.
Internal Opposition
Under the leadership of Ted Mann, the American Jewish Congress emerged in the forefront of the internal opposition. In a break with tradition, the AJCongress sided publicly with Labor in supporting Israeli participation in an international peace conference. This stance both reflected and reinforced the prevailing non-zero-sum analysis among many in the Jewish establishment. Mann declared that American Jews had a right to participate in the debate over what was best for Israel. Na’amat USA (formerly Pioneer Women) moved quickly to side with the AJCongress. The Conference of Presidents reacted to the AJCongress announcement with a roundabout statement. Abram’s letter read, in part:
Restraint in giving public advice to Israel on matters of security has been the tradition of the Conference of Presidents from its very beginning . . . [but at the same time] membership in the Conference does not restrict constituent organizations from taking their own individual position subject to their sense of the common good.
Shamir’s reaction to the AJCongress pronouncement was considerably more direct. In a letter to Abram, he wrote that only Israelis could decide their future: “The regrettable recent attempt to breach this understanding sets a dangerous precedent. There is a shock of disbelief in Israel.” Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the ADL, a centrist voice, also took the AJCongress to task:
. . . While it is good to be involved there are limits, the most significant limit being that decisions relating to security must rest with Israel, not American Jews, because the consequences of those decisions could mean life or death for the people of Israel . . . now that restraint is being challenged from without and from within. . . . Today, it is the foreign minister of Israel and a major American Jewish organization who invite our involvement. . . . What has changed? . . . Should American Jews enter the Israeli internal fray, our effectiveness on the American scene will surely be diminished. . . . The very meaning of community action will be placed in question.
Shultz in Israel
Parallel to these events, Arab resistance to Israeli control of the West Bank took on a more systematically violent turn. In fact, Shultz’s October visit to Israel (his first in two years) was marred by violence. Palestinian leaders from the Territories refused to meet with Shultz because of last-minute PLO opposition. The Secretary had come to Israel to see if Shamir could somehow be cajoled into accepting an international conference by a semantic sleight of hand: the meeting would be termed a “summit.” A myriad of “understandings” and “assurances” addressing Israeli concerns about an international conference would be part of the package. Under intense pressure, Shamir agreed to an international conference provided it led straightaway to direct negotiations with the Arabs. Shultz writes:
As I was leaving for the prime minister’s residence, Murphy said, “If Shamir’s answer is no, this will be a brief, pleasant evening. If his answer is yes, we’ll be up all night, negotiating an MOU [memorandum of understanding] with them.”
But that was not the way it turned out. I had a private dinner with Shamir. We talked about problems in the region, my negotiations with the Soviets, the problems of Soviet Jewry, the Israeli economy. After dinner, two or three people on each side joined us, and we turned to the issue at hand. Our session was brief and direct. “Well, Mr. Secretary,” Shamir concluded softly, “you know our dreams, and you know our nightmares. We trust you. Go ahead.”
That was it. No more had to be said. He had rolled the dice with us. . . .
The next evening, at King Hussein’s Palace Green residence in London, I put the proposal to him as one from the president of the United States. . . .
The next day, Tuesday, October 20, I met again with King Hussein. He had made up his mind: his answer was no.
The king gave me two reasons. His nerves went raw at the very mention of Shamir. “I can’t be alone with that man. . . .” He did not believe that Shamir would ever permit negotiations to go beyond the issue of “transitional” arrangements for those living in the West Bank and Gaza. . . .
Internal Opposition Presses Disassociation
Taking situational advantage of various developments on the ground, several groups joined the AJCongress in mobilizing support against continued Israeli control over Judea and Samaria. The internal opposition had made its choice: intensified criticism of Israeli policies would be used to force a policy change. Anticipating a visit to the U.S. by Shamir later in the month, Schindler exhorted American Jews to take part in the controversy over the peace process. Speaking at the 59th Annual UAHC Convention, the leader of Reform Judaism called on Israel to “reject the status quo” in the West Bank and Gaza and “to relentlessly pursue all avenues to peace that will maintain the Jewish and democratic character of the State.” He mitigated this criticism by demonstrating an understanding of Israeli concerns that an international conference would quickly turn into a kangaroo court. Essentially embracing Labor’s political line, Schindler argued that: “The prolongation of the status quo . . . in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza exposes Israel to infinitely greater risk than does any international umbrella for direct negotiations.” The American Jewish Committee took much the same stance at their National Executive Council meeting held in Atlanta. After listening to an address by Jimmy Carter, the AJCommittee released a position paper terming the status quo in the Territories “dangerous.” Meanwhile, the Administration vigorously adhered to its policy of disassociation. Israel’s efforts to secure and control Judea, Samaria and Gaza district were routinely undermined. So, when the Israelis considered deporting Mubarak Awad, head of the inappropriately named Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-Violence, the U.S. strenuously objected.
In November, a Federal District Court in Washington dismissed civil liberties arguments and upheld a State Department order closing the PLO Information Office. Meanwhile, the U.N. successfully thwarted Congressional moves to close the PLO Observer Mission. The State Department said that, while the U.S. had the legal authority to close this office, “As a practical matter it is too late to challenge the institution of permanent observer missions, or the extension of that institution to non-governmental organizations like the PLO.”
Parenthetically, the freedom for Soviet Jewry movement was the lone area of Jewish communal life in which a virtual consensus prevailed. In December, Jewish organizations were heavily engaged in staging a massive demonstration, Freedom Sunday, which brought over 200,000 people to Washington for a rally timed to precede the Reagan-Gorbachev summit.
Land Mark Event – Intifada
The perceptual turning point came five-and-a-half years after the start of the Lebanon campaign with the outbreak of the Intifada.
The Intifada irrevocably influenced American Jewish perceptions of the Palestinian cause. Its antecedents are, therefore, worth reviewing. In late November 1987 six IDF soldiers were killed and 7 wounded in a daring surprise attack by an Arab irregular who entered their Galilee army outpost on a hang-glider. This operation raised morale among the Arabs in the Territories and was followed several days later by the fatal stabbing of an Israeli civilian in Gaza. The actual beginnings of the Intifada can be traced to rioting on December 8.
Thereafter, the paroxysm of violence in the Territories became worse. The ferocity of the tumult in Gaza led to a stormy debate in the Knesset with Peres calling for the dismantling of Jewish settlements located in the Gaza District. As the mayhem spread, Defense Minister Rabin blamed Syria and Libya for fomenting the violence. Plainly, the frenzy was of a magnitude and nature not experienced since the Arab uprising of the 1920s and 1930s. The violence experienced in the Jerusalem area was unprecedented. On the West Bank and Gaza, mobs of Arab young people burned tires, threw rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails.
Media coverage of the violence mushroomed. The vast international press corps already stationed in Israel was augmented by auxiliary reporters, TV crews and photographers. Images of Palestinian rage were televised to viewers worldwide. Israeli security forces, under Rabin’s leadership, were at a loss to contain the unrest. In response to charges that the presence of TV cameras actually stimulated violence, Shamir considered closing the Territories to the news media. Ultimately, no substantive restrictions were placed on media coverage.
FIGURE NO. 5
The violence which may well have begun spontaneously soon became orchestrated. Divisions arose among the Arab inhabitants of the Territories – and the PLO leadership in Tunis – about where to take the Intifada. The interminable violence further tarnished Israel’s already battered image. Even more importantly, it reinforced earlier objections, raised by elements of the pro-Israel community in the United States, to Israel’s continued retention of the Territories. The State Department weighed in with complaints about Israel’s handling of the unrest.
Jewish Leadership Responds
Understandably, the violence (and saturation coverage of it in the media) caught the Presidents Conference unprepared. The leadership had been intensively focused on the Soviet Jewry issue and basking in the success of the Washington rally. Some three weeks after the start of the unrest Jewish leaders were divided on its significance and lessons. Responding to press inquiries, Abram said the unrest had “been planned, instigated and incited by Palestinian terrorists led by the PLO and Moslem fundamentalist groups.” Taking a different vantage point, Schindler said the violence “should shock Israel’s government” into ending the status quo. From outside the Presidents Conference, Americans For A Safe Israel lambasted Schindler for criticizing Israel. However, any semblance of solidarity with Israel crumbled in the face of the televised rioting.
Following a now familiar pattern, the United States joined in a U.N. Security Council vote deploring Israel’s handling of the violence. Jewish leaders complained that the State Department’s response to the violence was “unbalanced.” But in fact, both the U.S. vote and their own conflicted attitudes underlined the symbiotic relationship between perception and policy. Shultz’s description is illustrative:
The Intifada created a whole new situation, one that in its own way altered the fundamental concept of the peace process.
. . . The scene in Israel and the occupied territories was ghastly: “Israeli Police Storm Temple Mount: Witnesses Say Tear Gas Fired Inside Two Islamic Holy Places,” headlined the Washington Post. . . .
Four days after the Temple Mount clash, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared that the intifada would be dealt with by “force, power and blows,” portraying this as a way to reduce the use of live ammunition and the killing of demonstrators. But he also said – repeatedly – that “there is no military solution to this problem.” Images of Israeli brutality appeared almost nightly on American television, and elsewhere throughout the world. Concern was intense in the American Jewish community. Violinist Isaac Stern came to see me, spoke of his shock, and said that on his upcoming trip to Israel, he would refuse to meet with any Israeli leaders.
“The Palestinians in the occupied territories had come center stage with a vengeance,” writes Shultz, “and Israel’s brutal crackdown was doing great damage to its own interests and its international reputation.” The Administration’s answer was to use political suasion to accelerate the “peace process” and press on with disassociation. To that end, the United States supported a Security Council vote against plans by Israel to deport Intifada “ring-leaders.” More substantively, Shultz proposed to parlay the latitude presented by the Intifada, into self-government for the Palestinian Arabs by February 1989. This approach was in harmony with long-standing American strategy to facilitate the entry and participation of the Palestinians (perhaps the PLO) into the peace process. Shultz controlled the political agenda by framing discussion around “territory for peace” and whether Arafat would utter the “magic words.”
All parties engaged in political suasion benefited from an atmosphere of crisis, imperfect information and insinuation. Arafat announced his willingness to accept “all UN resolutions” pertaining to the Arab-Israel conflict. Meanwhile, Peres muddied the waters by commenting that the Israeli Government had been “indirectly approached” by the PLO “to check whether we are prepared to open negotiations.” That left both Shamir and the PLO in the position of denying any such overture. An Israeli official, associated with the Shamir camp, rejected Arafat’s comments as duplicitous, arguing that many UN resolutions were inimical to Israeli survival. This was typical of Israel’s impaired diplomatic position. The Government was at odds with itself over the underlying cause of the violence and how to promote peace in the context of the unrest. Peres and Shamir used envoys and proxies to lobby their positions with Washington and the American Jewish community. As Foreign Minister, Peres advocated an international peace conference as the first step toward direct negotiations. As Prime Minister, Shamir was adamant in opposing anything but direct talks. Peres embraced Shultz’s peace initiative, which he said would lead to the convening of an international conference within 2-3 months and limited self-rule for the Palestinians in the immediate future. Shamir, however, insisted that any Palestinian autonomy scheme be implemented according to Camp David Accord stipulations. Labor’s stance was bolstered by the mobilizing support of Peace Now, which organized mass demonstrations demanding a “political solution” to the Palestinian problem. Outside the Israeli Consulate in New York, peace activists associated with the New Jewish Agenda held a vigil and fast to protest Israel’s handling of the violence.
Arab leaders scurried to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the West Bank and Gaza violence. Their foreign ministers, meeting in Tunis, pressed for convening an international conference with PLO participation. At the U.N., the PLO demanded an Israeli withdrawal from the Territories and interim deployment of U.N. forces, while Palestinians “determine their own future.” This line was also pursued when Al-Fajr editor Hana Sinyora and Gaza lawyer Fayiz Abu Rahme met with Shultz in Washington.
Soul-Searching
Abram and Hoenlein thought they had worked out a consensus position not to go public with statements criticizing Israel’s inept handling of the Intifada. But the internal opposition was distraught by graphic television coverage of the violence and what it connoted about liberal Jewish values. The American Jewish Year Book notes that Jewish organizations were “concerned over possible growing animosity in America, not just toward Israel but toward the American Jewish community as well.” These feelings unleashed a torrent of criticism. Schindler went public with a demand that the IDF end “indiscriminate beatings,” which were “an offense to the Jewish spirit.” He cabled Chaim Herzog, President of Israel, to passionately denounce Israel’s handling of the Intifada. (The New York Times published the cable as an Op-Ed essay.) The AJCongress’s Henry Siegman deplored “beatings” of Arab rioters. From Tel Aviv, AJCongress head Ted Mann said: “The current policy of force and beatings is regarded by us as inhumane and simply unacceptable.” The “national camp” did manage to mobilize some American Jewish support for Israel – holding demonstrations and protesting what they viewed as unfair media coverage of the violence – but these efforts drew scant media attention. The (Orthodox) National Council of Young Israel criticized Schindler and the AJCongress. But the Jewish right was poorly organized, under-funded and faced an unsympathetic prestige press and a Jewish media dominated by Israel’s critics.
Behind the scenes, the Conference of Presidents continued to unsuccessfully grapple with what had become, for American Jews, a public relations nightmare. Some five weeks into the Intifada the umbrella group publicly endorsed Israel’s handling of the uprising. A carefully crafted statement said: “Use of force is sometimes indispensable to restore order.” As the American Jewish Year Book explains: “What enabled it to do so was a message from Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir stating that force was not being used indiscriminately, but only against violent demonstrators and those resisting arrest.” Abram then went public to confirm that: “Israel does not have a policy of indiscriminate beatings.”
But the public perception was that Israel did have such a policy. This motivated Jewish persons prominent in the entertainment community, who had never previously spoken out on Israel-Arab affairs, to do so now. Actor and celebrity Woody Allen wrote a New York Times Op-Ed essay, saying that as a Jew he was “appalled beyond measure by the treatment of the rioting Palestinians by the Jews.” He called for “every method of pressure – moral, financial and political – to bring this wrong-headed approach to a halt.
Public Opinion
Nor were the concerns of the internal opposition assuaged. The American Jewish Committee, which held observer status in the Presidents Conference, told the Israeli press that American Jews were “offended” by Israel’s actions on the West Bank. Not all Americans were offended, it turned out. In a poll (not limited to Jews) conducted by the centrist ADL, 12% of respondents said the IDF was “not harsh enough” in handling the riots; 29% said Israel’s actions were appropriate and 23% had no opinion. The AJCommittee’s stance was embraced by 36% of Americans. The ADL said that, compared to an August 1981 poll, there had been no erosion of support in American public opinion for Israel due to the Intifada. Other findings included: 43% of those interviewed said the PLO is “most responsible” for the unrest in the West Bank and Gaza and 78% said an international peace conference should be convened. One of the poll’s most illuminating findings, coming after twenty-one years of media coverage, was that 33% of the poll’s respondents did not know how Israel came to “occupy” the West Bank and Gaza: 16% thought it was because of Israeli invasion and a bare majority, fifty-one percent, said that it was “because the Arabs lost a war they had started.” But as the violence and negative media coverage continued, the Presidents Conference again sought to formulate a consensus position. In early February it issued a statement of general support that had the backing of the entire body including the internal opposition.
Meanwhile, the PLO sought to capitalize on the sympathy being generated by the media for the Palestinian cause. Taking a page from the Haganah, the PLO sought to replicate the Exodus saga by sailing a boatload of activists, including some 100 Arabs who had been deported by Israel over the years, into Haifa harbor. Well-known personalities from Jesse Jackson to Bruno Kreisky were also expected to be on board. Shultz, incidentally, deprecated the scheme. At any rate, the “boat of return” plan was ultimately sabotaged when three senior Fatah officials involved in implementing it were killed by a car bomb in Cyprus. Nevertheless, there was no dearth of publicity for the Intifada. For instance, CBS Television devoted its popular 48 Hours program to the plight of the Palestinians.
Shultz persevered in his efforts (and received Peres’ encouragement) to organize Arab-Israel talks within the framework of an international conference. Murphy, meanwhile, floated the idea of a phased IDF pull-out, starting in the spring, from Judea, Samaria and Gaza as a step toward ending the rioting. At about the same time, a decision on whether to shut the PLO’s UN Observer offices was again postponed by the Reagan Administration.
Disassociation Pressed
Criticism of Israeli policies within the organized Jewish community continued unabated. Leaders of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC) debated the issue of “who and what” was to blame for Israel’s declining image. Ultimately, NJCARC’s annual meeting in Los Angeles endorsed the Reagan Administration’s peace initiatives. Communal insiders leaked a story saying that UJA donors might be reluctant to make contributions because of unhappiness with Israeli policies. In fact, UJA’s “Super Sunday” metropolitan New York fundraising campaign raised a record amount of money. But the cycle of criticism and self-criticism persisted. A Presidents Conference delegation in Israel found Labor and Likud leaders bitterly divided. Vorspan saw this as justifying the internal opposition: “If there is a schizophrenia on the highest level in Israel, what expectations can we have from the Presidents Conference?” But the official Presidents Conference line, enunciated by Abram, was that American Jewish criticism should be kept private.
While the internal opposition still found it necessary to justify antagonism toward Israeli policies, the peace camp felt no such compunctions. Tikkun magazine’s Lerner wrote an impassioned seven-page editorial supporting the creation of a Palestinian-Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He said that “American Jewish silence” on the Palestinian issue was actually a betrayal of Israel. “We did not survive the gas chambers and crematoria,” Lerner wrote, “so that we could become the oppressors of Gaza.”
The most vigorous voice within the Presidents Conference calling for an end to public criticism of Israel came from the centrist ADL. Burton S. Levinson and Abraham Foxman asked:
What has really changed that justifies this easy dropping of our commitment to unity? Has the enemy disappeared? Let us have faith that should real peacemakers emerge in the image of Sadat that the people of Israel will seize the opportunity, finding peace with security. For now, there are no such peacemakers.
Our free-for-all inhibits the search for peace. It generates pressures on Israel to make concessions prior to negotiations. It encourages the Arabs to believe that the American-Israeli relationship can be weakened after all, leading them inevitably to the conclusion that they do not have to consider peace because a U.S.-Israel break opens up future possibilities for yet another Arab war against Israel.
AFSI, which favors Jewish sovereignty over the Administered Territories, orchestrated an advertisement in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv signed by scores of American Jewish leaders. The Hebrew language ad declared:
We support Israel and the Israel Defense Forces wholeheartedly in their efforts to restore calm in the Land of Israel.
We urge the people of Israel to reject the demands of those American Jews who, having found easy access to the media, use it to vilify Israel. Their harsh words do not represent the true sentiments of the American Jewish community.
We urge you to resist pressure from whatever source. . . . We are with you in heart and soul. Be strong and have courage!
Nevertheless, the critics dominated the polemical field. The symbiotic relationship between Israeli and American Jewish critics grew increasingly stronger. In late February, writers Yehuda Amichai, Amos Elon, A.B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz called on American Jews to “speak up” against Israeli policies. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Rabin said the troubles on the West Bank were connected to Likud’s “strategic mistake” of going to war against the PLO in Lebanon.
Reagan
Ronald Reagan’s sentiments may have been with Israel. In practical terms, however, strategic policy was deferred to Shultz and State Department specialists. Personally, Reagan did not hold Israel entirely to blame for the violence: “We have had intimations that there have been certain people suspected of being terrorists, outsiders coming in, not only with weapons but stirring up and encouraging the trouble in those areas.” But it was Shultz’s more focused explanation of the violence – as resulting from 20 years of occupation – that guided American policy. As for a dialogue with the PLO, Reagan explained: “One of the blocking points (was) how do you sit down and try to get into a talk about peace when someone says they have no right to exist? And, I’m sure that the Secretary of State is apprised of this fact, and we’ll see what we can do there.” Indeed, Shultz pledged to pursue reports that Arafat had moderated his stance on accepting UN resolutions 242 and 338.
The internal opposition achieved another in a string of successes when several well known rabbis, from Judaism’s three main branches – Binyamin Walfish, of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, Wolf Kelman of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly and Joseph Glazer of the Reform Central Conference of Rabbis – publicly called on Israel to trade land-for-peace.
While Abram opposed criticism of Israeli policies he was sympathetic to Shultz’s quest for a solution. The status quo, he said, could not continue. Embracing the essence of Labor’s position, Abram said that Palestinian aspirations for a homeland should be realized in Jordan.
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The line between reportage and advocacy was repeatedly crossed. Simultaneously, a mutually interdependent relationship between media coverage, policy development and American Jewish attitudes promoted political suasion. Jim Lederman, a veteran journalist, explains the phenomenon:
The loop had developed a self-sustaining centripetal dynamic of its own, sucking anyone who ventured near, like Arab-Americans and American Jews, into its vortex. The U.S.-based stories were not merely human interest or reaction pieces. Eventually, they became vehicles for constituency mobilization behind American intervention. . . . A fascinating dynamic developed. Israeli spokesmen, bereft of any ideas on how to alter the flow of the loop, came to believe that they could not change things and virtually gave up trying to intervene to alter the course of the news flow . . .
. . . There was a growing feeling within the State Department that not only did someone have to step in to halt the killings and beatings, but the United States had to move to save Israel from itself. This feeling was, in part, the result of the heavy coverage given to the moral anguish American Jewish leaders were evincing as a result of the beatings policy and the continuing pictures of bloodied and beaten Palestinians. The intense press coverage given the American Arab and Jewish communities helped to create the kind of domestic constituency and consensus necessary for direct diplomatic intervention. A Jerusalem Post story on January 25 about a wall in Ramallah covered with bloodstains from Palestinians who had been beaten, galvanized journalists, liberal American Jews, and administration officials alike behind an interventionist policy. No less important, however, were the open splits within the Israeli cabinet over which policy to pursue in dealing with the Palestinians. These splits, it was hoped in the administration, would provide an opening for direct American action.
The internal opposition was most affected by the coverage and this spurred on disassociation. The AJCommittee’s Hyman Bookbinder, for example, said U.S. Jews were distressed by Israel’s policies in the Territories, but continued to support Israel on other issues. The establishment was also not interested in pursuing an ill-timed confrontation over the PLO’s U.N. Mission. Indeed, the Administration received Jewish support for its efforts to keep the PLO’s U.N. Mission in New York open. When domestic political drives accelerated maneuvering to close the mission (efforts in the House spearheaded by Kemp), Jewish organizations disavowed any involvement. “They are not doing this at the request of our American Jewish community,” Phil Baum of the AJCongress explained. “Our hope was to induce the State Department to use the powers it had to close the Washington office. We wanted to send a symbolic message that the PLO is a terrorist organization and it was not welcome in the United States.” Abram said he thought both PLO offices were terrorist missions but that the Observer Mission could not be easily closed because it was established in accordance with international agreements.
Labor Lobby
Labor heavily lobbied the Jewish leadership in support of disassociation. And the Jewish leadership, in turn, lobbied heavily against Likud. Nimrod Novik, a Peres aide, told a visiting delegation from the Presidents Conference: “I dread the day that we face an American public fed up with what it sees on TV, an American Congress fed up with what it sees on TV, a new American Administration picking up the pieces if this peace initiative does not succeed. . . . People have to bite the bullet and see what they can do for peace.” What were the American people seeing and hearing at around this time? Lederman offers the following:
Peter Jennings introduced a piece by saying, “A Palestinian doctor claimed the Israelis broke into a hospital, fired tear gas, and dragged out two boys and beat them.” The next night, in an introduction to a piece on Israeli plans to cut press access, Dan Rather stated, “In the West Bank, Israeli troops fired tear gas into a hospital, then grabbed a teenager and threw him down a flight of stairs, sat on him, and beat him with a club.” Both introductions were factually correct. However, they also were distortions of the truth. As AP had reported on March 1, Palestinian youngsters had been using hospitals and schools for six weeks as havens, hideouts, and staging grounds for rock and firebomb attacks. . . . These two particular introductions were not one-time lapses.”
The media was not the only source of confusion. Ma’ariv quoted Peres as telling high school students in Eilat that: “We have to listen very closely to what Hussein is saying. He wants the PLO but without Arafat. So let’s agree with him on this version. The PLO yes, Arafat no.” His remarks were broadcast by Israel Army Radio. Nevertheless, Peres denied making the statement and told the Presidents Conference delegation that he opposed the establishment of a Soviet-backed PLO-led state as a danger to Israel. Vorspan, Schindler’s deputy and a severe critic of Israeli policies in his own right, remarked that in this confusing atmosphere it would be a grave mistake to “impose conformity through a Presidents Conference or through any other vehicle,” on the Jewish leadership. Meantime, Abram and a contingent from the Presidents Conference called on Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij who told them that the PLO covenant which called for Israel’s destruction was “dead.” Freij told them that the Intifada offered a twofold message: “We don’t want the military occupation, and we do want to make peace with Israel. The vast majority of our people are sincere in their desire to make peace once and for all.” Abram’s comments afterward verified the perceptual orientation that had become unofficial policy at the Presidents Conference: “I have made it perfectly clear that the status quo is not indefinitely acceptable to American Jews. What I’m also trying to say is that first of all I understand that the occupation is the cause of the disturbances. An occupation is a condition that exists until peace.” He then urged Israel to seek peace. Paradoxically, he later joined Prime Minister Shamir at a farewell dinner for the Presidents Conference delegation in cautioning that public criticism of Israel was harmful.
Intensifying their political suasion activities, elements of the Jewish leadership worked behind the scenes with key pro-Israel senators to orchestrate an open letter to Shamir criticizing his opposition to the land-for-peace formula. The letter was initiated by Sen. Carl Levin (D. Mich.), Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), Warren Rudman (R-NH), William Cohen (R-M), Alan Cranston (D-Calif) and Daniel Moynihan (D-NY). Hyman Bookbinder, the Washington lobbyist for the AJCommittee, said of the letter: “I accept this as a legitimate process that is going on.”
In truth, sympathy for the Shamir line was widespread within the American Jewish community. Two pro-Israel Senators, Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Chic Hect (R-Nevada), opposed their colleagues’ letter. The Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America called criticism of Shamir an “outrageous interference in Israel’s internal politics.” At about the same time, ZOA warned that it would “embolden the enemies of Israel.” In the face of countervailing pressure, Abram’s limpid comment was to deny that Shamir was an obstacle to peace.
Pressing Disassociation
Efforts by Israelis to influence American Jewish public opinion as well as Shamir’s reception by Reagan Administration officials led to several demonstrations set to coincide with his visit to the United States. An estimated 50,000 Peace Now demonstrators rallied in Jerusalem to demand that Shamir pursue a “land-for-peace” exchange. A pro-Shamir rally in Tel Aviv also drew tens of thousands of demonstrators. At a 5 a.m. stopover at New York’s JFK Airport, on his way to Washington, Shamir was greeted by about 100 enthusiastic “peace-for-peace” supporters.
The Administration went out of its way to portray the Shamir visit as a failure. After Shamir again rejected the international conference proposal put forth by the United States, Shultz said: “We haven’t found our way to bridge all of the differences.” Shamir tried and failed to convince Shultz to press an international campaign to replace Palestinian Arab refugee camps in Israel and the Territories with permanent housing units.
Both Shamir and Reagan lobbied the Jewish leadership. The President told a UJA audience that “We will not leave Israel to stand alone, nor will we acquiesce in any effort to gang up on Israel.” But the next day at a White House ceremony, with Shamir standing nearby, the President made the disassociation policy explicit; support for Israel did not extend to its West Bank policy. The Administration would continue to press for an international conference: “The United States will not slice this initiative apart and will not abandon it. Those who will say ‘no’ to the United States plan, and the prime minister has not used this word, need not answer to the United States. They’ll need to answer to their people on why they turned down a realistic and sensible plan to achieve negotiations.” Administration officials specifically wanted Shamir to influence his supporters within the American Jewish community to support the Administration’s approach.
Shamir told the same UJA audience addressed by the President, that Intifada rioting was aimed at the destruction of Israel. Explaining why he opposed abandoning Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Shamir was repeatedly interrupted with applause and cheers. Back in New York, he was greeted by demonstrations of support arranged by the national camp. On March 21 several thousand people staged a pro-Shamir rally outside his Park Avenue hotel. Addressing an open meeting sponsored by the Conference of Presidents, Shamir asked U.S. Jews to stop criticizing Israel: “Even if there are some differences of views, I don’t think that it is permitted to Jewish personalities to exert pressure on their governments and ask them to pressure Israel.” In Los Angeles, “despite a boycott by some community leaders who disagreed with his views, 1,600 people turned out to hear the prime minister speak, and others had to be turned away.”
This was not the message the internal opposition wanted Shamir to take back to Israel. When he spoke at venues under their control he was received coolly. Virtually all the questions Shamir received at one Federation meeting were critical of his policies. The head of the AJCongress charged that some Shamir allies espoused positions similar to those of Meir Kahane. Henry Siegman also claimed that American Jews supported Labor’s stance. “Israel must offer to negotiate with the Palestinians, not because this makes good public relations but because only by ridding itself of the permanent occupation of nearly 2 million Palestinian Arabs will Israel survive physically and retain its democratic values and Jewish essence,” said Siegman.
U.S.-PLO Contacts
Revelations that U.S.-PLO secret contacts were ongoing served to further undermine the rationale for the “no talk” policy. In March, CBS News reported that General Vernon Walters, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., met with PLO leaders in Tunisia. Walters responded with a categorical denial: “I deny it, it is a lie, I have not met a PLO representative in Tunis. I am not authorized to speak with the PLO.” Walters did confirm that he had previous contacts with the PLO in the 1970s. “The report was correct in saying I spoke to them in 1975 (sic). They were killing Americans and I was sent to tell them to stop and they did. But that was 13 years ago,” Walters said. Indeed, Walters’ first meeting with the PLO’s Ali Hassan Salameh occurred when he was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (and Salameh was on the Agency’s payroll). That meeting took place at Kissinger’s request in November 1973. Its purpose was to arrange for an end to attacks by Arafat-led terrorists against American targets. The two met again in 1974 when Walters reportedly suggested that the United States would respond positively if the PLO abandoned violence against Americans and improved its relationship with other Arab states. According to Khaled al-Hassan, the PLO “followed through at Rabat” where the Arab states designated it the authorized representative of the Palestinians but “we didn’t get anything for it.” Hoenlein said that the Presidents Conference accepted “Walters’ assurances that he did not meet with the PLO and we wait for further clarifications.”
In one form or another the PLO now dominated the peace process agenda. Arafat worked diligently to stay in the media spotlight. He complained that American peace initiatives excluded the PLO. Elsewhere, Arafat expressed satisfaction that some Arab citizens of Israel had joined in the Intifada. “The most important thing is that the uprising has also spread to those who have lived under the occupation since 1948: those whom Israel calls Israeli Arabs.” In the U.S., meanwhile, the PLO spurned Justice Department notification to close its U.N. Mission. Zeidi Terzi, the PLO U.N. representative, argued that the order was a violation of international law. In any event, the Mission stayed open and the legal issues remained unsettled.
Eban v. Shamir
The main “villain” of the political environment in which the U.S.-PLO relationship played itself out was Shamir. His intransigence was the singular cause for the continued violence. American network news programs, especially ABC, pursued a campaign to delegitimize Shamir. And interviews with Israelis were heavily weighted (in terms of both the visual and verbal) in Labor’s favor. Abba Eban’s comments about the violence to Pierre Salinger of ABC were fairly typical: “This is a situation that cannot get better – like a malignant disease.” His forthcoming support for a U.S.-PLO dialogue would be an important milestone.
Eban’s opposition to the “malignancy” of occupation was a source of cognitive dissonance for Shamir critics. With his large following among American Jews, Eban’s mellifluous voice carried extra clout. So, when Eban publicly called for talks with the PLO, said it had moderated its position and supported PLO participation at an international peace conference, a major pillar of the “no talk” infrastructure crumbled. Eban now emerged as a key backer of the outside elite. Peres, Labor and the internal opposition were not yet prepared to call for talks with the PLO. The American Jewish Congress urged only that Israel accept the Administration’s approach on Palestinian representation.
Was Eban right? Had the PLO’s mission – Israel’s destruction – changed? In 1939 Churchill said of Stalin’s regime: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” PLO politics is even more difficult to unravel because many voices, independently, define its “national” interest. The PLO is a multifaceted, decentralized, umbrella entity led – to be unkind – by a political chameleon. This makes it next to impossible to separate tactics from strategy and strategy from mission. All that can be done is to take cognizance of the perceptual milieu. “Our struggle with Israel,” Ibrahim Souss, the PLO representative in Paris explained, “is a war of civilizations, and we have to use all the weapons at our disposal.” Arafat frankly told a Kuwaiti newspaper that he speaks one language for Western media consumption and another when he is addressing Arab audiences. In a speech to the 16th PNC meeting in Algiers in 1983, Arafat artfully described a “flexible ‘yes and no’ position (la’am in Arabic, a pun combination on the word la or no and na’am or yes). My own view is that Asser Susser of Tel Aviv University’s Shiloah Institute is correct in saying: “The PLO’s concept of self-determination has never been confined to the West Bank and Gaza, and like the term democratic state ... is a euphemism for the dissolution of Israel. . . . Zionism and Palestinian national rights, as defined by the PLO, are mutually exclusive.” The editor of Falastin A-Thawra, Ahmed Abd A-Rahman, wrote in 1988: “The Intifada is the tool for the complete liberation of Palestinian land.” Nevertheless, by 1988 to espouse the argument that the PLO had not, all but formally, embraced a non-zero-sum mission was anathema.
Shultz-PNC Meeting
On March 26, Shultz circumvented America’s commitment not to publicly negotiate with the PLO by meeting with Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, prominent members of the Palestine National Council (PNC).
For 15 years, U.S. officials have been meeting with members of the PLO, despite assurances to Israel that Washington would neither recognize nor negotiate with the group. Some liaisons were secret, some were quiet. The few that were public were hastily forgotten. Now Washington has entered a new phase of close encounters with the PLO, signaling fresh receptiveness to Palestinian views and pressuring the intransigent Shamir. . . . A former business associate of George Shultz is Palestinian construction magnate Hasian Sabbagh, a PNC member. Washington sources say the two men have also seen each other socially.
Despite the formal connection between the PNC and the PLO, the State Department held firm to its earlier declarations that U.S. policy toward the PLO was unchanged. In fact, Article 7a of the PLO Covenant (adopted in 1964 and revised in 1968) holds the PNC to be “the supreme authority of the Liberation Organization, drafting its policy and planning.” Moreover, Abu-Lughod and Said emphasized that they were acting as Arafat emissaries. Years later Shultz justified the meeting this way: “But these were American citizens; no one could justifiably complain about a U.S. government official meeting with U.S. citizens.” Among those who could not fault Shultz for holding the meeting was the AJCommittee.
Perhaps to further heighten the sense of crisis, some days later the State Department warned Americans against traveling to the West Bank and Gaza. State Department official Richard Schifter, on a visit to the region, accused Israel of “brutalizing” the Palestinians. All this was having its intended effect. By April 6, an Israeli poll showed 60% of the people favoring an international conference. “When I left the region,” writes Shultz, “I made it clear that I was not giving up and that I would be back. ‘He [Shultz] is wearing us down. How can we get him to go home and stay home?’ the press reported an Israeli official as saying. The problem was, I was not wearing them down.”
The momentum was slowing. Previously, Shultz had been able to count on the backing of the internal opposition to lobby Israeli officials. Now some of these groups were wavering. “By this time,” Shultz concluded, “Israeli leaders, especially Shamir, had weighed in with the Americans and turned them sour.” The AJCommittee’s Ted Ellenoff suggested that criticism of Israel should be restricted to the Jewish media. The committed internal opposition did not waver. In fact, it was more emphatic than ever. At the AJCongress, where Robert Lifton had replaced Ted Mann, criticism of Shamir had become, if anything, more strident. Still, AIPAC’s Tom Dine told Shultz: The pro-Israel community has lost its enthusiasm for the initiative. Inactivity is the word.” That is precisely why, from the Administration’s viewpoint, in the final countdown to a U.S.-PLO dialogue, the involvement of the outside elite was critical.
On matters of substance the Administration, Labor and the internal opposition shared a common outlook. Their consensus was to formally exclude the PLO from the peace process, oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, yet foster Palestinian participation in the peace process. There were some differences in nuance. Labor wanted Israel to maintain security control over Judea, Samaria and Gaza (in some form) and opposed the dismantling of Jewish communities in the Territories.
Shultz summarized United States policy on a variety of PLO-related issues in late March. A Palestinian state was “just not in the cards,” he said. However, the law passed by Congress requiring the PLO to close its U.N. Mission was “dumb” and further legitimized the PLO at the U.N. Shultz again defended his meeting with the Palestinian delegation, saying that the PNC and the PLO were not the same. “It does not in any way change our policy, which I follow not simply because it was set in 1975, but I think it’s a very important idea that we are not going to talk to and negotiate with the PLO.” What was holding up progress, Shultz implied, was Shamir’s intransigence.
Anti-Shamir Ads
Starting in 1988, an avalanche of professionally produced political advertisements critical of Shamir’s policies began to appear in the print media. The advertisements contributed to, as well as reinforced, perceptual changes. The ads appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and USA Today. Occasional advertisements supporting Shamir also appeared. They were placed by a handful of wealthy freelancers who made no concerted effort to match the opposition’s aggressive campaign. The anti-Shamir advertisements came from a variety of sources. What they lacked in terms of a unifying message was more than made up by the sheer volume of the ads.
In this political environment, Israel’s ineffectual efforts to re-establish order in the West Bank and Gaza were viewed, ipso facto, as illegitimate. Anti-Shamir forces achieved a propaganda coup by forcing a U.S. manufacturer of tear gas to stop selling to Israel. In April, Israel expelled eight more Intifada activists. In this instance, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution which would have condemned Israel on the grounds that it did not contain “a scintilla of balance.”
Violence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza abated, but only temporarily, following Israel’s killing, on April 16, of the PLO’s top military strategist, Abu Jihad (Kahlil Wazir), in Tunis. He had been the operative most directly responsible for PLO coordination of Intifada policies. American Ambassador to the U.N. Thomas Pickering said the action was “outside the standards of human rights which we and Israel share and advocate together. Concerned about a further escalation, the Administration used third-party Arab states to urge Arafat not to retaliate.
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On April 24, Americans for a Progressive Israel (affiliated with the Mapam wing of the Labor Party) organized an anti-Shamir rally in New York which drew 2,000 protesters. Meanwhile, Abba Eban, who had become the mentor of the outside elite, toured the United States to mobilize Jewish audiences against Shamir’s policies as well as to make the case for PLO inclusion in the peace process. The selection of attorney Menachem Rosensaft as the new leader of Labor’s U.S. affiliate was a harbinger of its increased radicalization. Rosensaft urged Jews to “speak out” against Israeli policies in the West Bank. Rosensaft straddled the line between the internal opposition (his position made him a participant in Presidents Conference deliberations) and outside elite. Within eight months, he became the highest ranking Presidents Conference member to meet with Arafat.
The very ubiquity of the PLO in the political environment allowed it to dominate the peace process agenda. In April 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev urged Arafat to recognize Israel so that the PLO could sit at the bargaining table. In the domestic political arena, Jesse Jackson continued to raise the Palestinian Arab cause in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Generally speaking, pro-Palestinian Arab sentiment had been gaining momentum among Democratic party activists at the district level. In California, for example, anti-Israel forces claimed a “moral victory” because defeat of a proposal to include a pro-Palestinian plank in the Democratic party platform was overcome only after serious consideration.
Meantime, the rhetoric of moderation resonated within the political environment. Saleh Khalef (Abu Iyad), second in command to Yasir Arafat and the group’s chief of internal security, told a French reporter that the PLO was not out to destroy Israel. The PLO Covenant, “which the Israelis promote so much – we do not include them since the 1974 PNC meeting that reshaped out program.” He complained that it was the Israelis who reject peace, not the PLO: “Unfortunately, the Israelis of today speak the same language the Arabs used to speak 30 years ago. . . . We say yes to peace, yes to a political solution, de-facto recognition of the Palestinian homeland.”
Given the perceptual framework undergirded by talk of moderation and television images of Israeli brutality, it is hardly surprising that a national survey conducted by Reagan pollster Richard Wirthlin discovered that more college educated Americans (42 percent) were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than Israel’s (38 percent). The pollster said that, overall, fewer Americans were now willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. Another survey by the Los Angeles Times discovered that most American Jews were opposed to the Likud’s approach to the peace process; they overwhelmingly supported an international conference; 41% felt there was an element of racism in Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians; 29% supported a PLO-led Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; and fully two-thirds favored Israel finding “a way” to accommodate Palestinian aspirations. The survey also revealed that fifty-six percent of American Jews did not contribute financially to Israel and two-thirds had no affiliation with any Jewish organization. Of particular interest were findings regarding media coverage. Three percent of non-Jews said the Intifada story was the one they had been paying the most attention to. But thirty-three percent of Jews regarded “Israeli unrest” as the news story they had been following most closely. Indeed, slightly more Jews than non-Jews (27%-24%) said that Israeli policies over the last several years had become “unacceptable” to them. On the one issue that still loosely united Labor and Likud: talks with the PLO, 61% of American Jews said the United States should not negotiate with the PLO while 52% of Americans in general favored U.S.-PLO talks. Least surprising, by a margin of 57% to 49% American Jews favored Peres over Shamir. Popular opinion was now where the Administration and a significant segment of the Jewish establishment wanted it to be.
Vorspan’s Soul-Searching
The New York Times under Max Frankel’s stewardship was strongly committed to an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. The Times magazine, edited by James L. Greenfield, offered a series of scathing portraits of the Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The paper published frequent critiques of Israeli West Bank policies (in the form of news, analysis and commentary), as noted earlier. However, the publication of Albert Vorspan’s diary in the Magazine section was a momentous expansion of the newspaper’s policy fostering Jewish dissent. Vorspan, the senior vice-president of Reform Judaism’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, chronicled the “soul-searching” he did before publicly breaking with Shamir policies. His decision to publish a diary reporting on events at closed meetings was very much in keeping with the situational advantage-seeking element of political suasion:
Some of us are upset about the position of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Its chairman, Morris Abram, seems to be putting a kosher stamp on everything – shootings, deportations, excessive force. Yet our group and several others represented believe in taking a more critical line. We have ceased to be Jewish champions of social justice and become cheerleaders for failed Israeli policies. . . . Meeting of the full Commission of Social Action of Reform Judaism, Gen. Yehoshafat Harkabi, former head of Israeli military intelligence, tells us that to continue the occupation indefinitely will bring on the “Belfastization” of the West Bank. Territorial compromise is essential to Israel’s security. . . . [Polls show] American Jews overwhelmingly support the United States proposal for a Middle East peace conference, approve of public dissent . . . hold a more favorable opinion of George Shultz than of Yitzhak Shamir. . . . I remember the comment at the Shamir meeting in New York three weeks before: “Now you know how unrepresentative you are,” they had told me. I smile faintly, thinking of that, and feel more hopeful about the future.
Reaction to the publication of Vorspan’s diary varied. Israel’s Consul General in New York, Moshe Yegar, a Shamir appointee, condemned Vorspan. AIPAC’s Tom Dine and Malcolm Hoenlein of the Presidents Conference immediately criticized Vorspan – not for what he said, but for “going public” in the secular media. Such public expression of disunity among American Jews would, they argued, damage the pro-Israel community. In a letter to the editor, Abram took a similar line, complaining:
I deeply resent the unfair and unfounded accusations against me. . . . [Vorspan’s] outrageous charge that I put “a kosher stamp on everything – shootings, deportations, excessive force” – is belied by the series of unequivocal public statements I issued in the name of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The metaphor in itself is offensive. . . . The fact remains that public debate and criticism can have a very different effect in Israel and the United States.
Peres’ own political suasion campaign of divide and conquer was aimed at emboldening the Jewish leadership to criticize Shamir and back Labor. He participated in the AJCommittee’s annual meeting and, quite likely, encouraged its leadership to support labor’s stance. At a Presidents Conference appearance, Peres urged Shamir critics to “speak out” as a “free people.” The American Jewish Year Book reflected on the Peres visit: “Indeed, buoyed by the support of . . . minister and Labor bloc leader Shimon Peres . . . American Jews who considered the Shamir stance overly intransigent became quite vocal during the spring and summer.”
As Peres engaged in the political manipulation of the Jewish establishment, the Administration was doing its best to elevate the Labor leader’s stature. The White House offered accolades for his forward thinking vision. In contrast, the Administration implied that Shamir was “negative” and consistently rejected new ideas for peace.
By this point, the internal opposition did not need much encouragement to lobby Shamir on behalf of the Administration’s policy. AJCongress head Robert Lifton met with Shamir in Jerusalem. He publicized his opposition to Shamir’s policies and proffered the advice that the status quo in the Territories had to be brought to an end. In New York, the Workmen’s Circle, a secularist fraternal organization whose roots were non-Zionist (but generally pro-Israel) democratic socialism, endorsed the Peres approach to the peace process.
Against a backdrop of continuing violence in the Territories, Shultz paid his fourth visit to the Middle East in June to pressure Shamir into going along with an international conference. He wrote later:
In my arrival statement on June 3, I asked: “What is the Arab-Israeli conflict? It is the competition between two national movements for sovereignty on one land. . . . The fate of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism are interdependent.” I intended to stir things up with this equation of Israel and Palestinians in the same utterance with the words “national” and “sovereignty.”
In a cliché that had become de rigueur, Shultz warned that it was “an illusion” to think the “status quo” could be maintained. To heighten the sense of crisis, a component of political suasion, the White House implied that Shultz might have to suspend his peace-making efforts if Israel were not more forthcoming.
The internal opposition intensified its efforts to mobilize support for an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The AJCongress brought retired IDF Generals Aharon Yariv and Ori Orr to the United States on a speaking tour. Addressing mostly Jewish audiences, they made the case that a West Bank and Gaza withdrawal was achievable from a security viewpoint. The generals conceded that the areas would require an IDF “presence” and have to remain “demilitarized.” In an effort which brought together the internal opposition, outside elite and peace camp, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (under the leadership of Schindler and Vorspan) spearheaded a campaign by 12 other groups, which resulted in an open-telegram to Shamir supporting Shultz’s peace initiatives. They also called upon Israel to – as a goodwill gesture – withdraw from some of the administered territories. Groups joining in the campaign included: Labor Zionist Alliance (Menachem Rosensaft’s group), Americans For A Progressive Israel, Holocaust Survivors Association USA (Rosensaft’s other group), International Center for Peace in the Middle East (ICPME) and the Progressive Zionist Caucus. Peace camp elements, broadly defined, were also active independently. The CPUSA sponsored a speaking tour by Nazareth Mayor Tawfiq Zayyad and attorney Felicia Langer. They met with the Association of Black Journalists, New York area labor leaders and members of the New York City Council.
To this onslaught of faultfinding, the reaction of Presidents Conference members who did not disparage Shamir, was circumspect. Those who had not participated in the criticizing were not necessarily proponents of the Likud line. The non-critics argued the narrow case that the haranguing of Israeli policies had gotten out of hand. Abraham Foxman of ADL, for instance, urged that criticism should be kept to a minimum. For his part, Abram wrote an Op-Ed essay published in the Jerusalem Post saying:
Many American Jews argue that since the status quo is politically unacceptable, they are morally impelled to speak publicly even though these issues directly concern Israel’s security. Their strongest argument is that since the Israeli government is sharply divided, there is no logical or ethical reason why American Jewish leaders should not advocate positions that are supported by one cabinet minister instead of another. . . . On the other hand, American Jews do not live in Israel, vote in Israel or die in defense of Israel. We cannot dictate security policies . . . and we should not take a public stand in the debate . . . Israel must now rely almost exclusively on the United States. . . . Public criticism of Israel’s defense policies can only have the effect of misleading American public opinion and loosening the American commitment to Israel’s security . . .
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Pro-Shamir Camp
A variety of factors, not the least of which was a legacy of nearly 30 years of Labor Party rule in Israel, contributed to Labor’s ideological dominance over the pro-Israel community in the United States. As noted elsewhere, a strong organizational base of support for the Jabotinsky ideological line did not exist in the United States. Begin’s 1977 victory did little to change the structural and ideological balance of power among Jewish organizations in the United States. Begin and later Shamir were dependent on the kindness of ideological strangers.
To be sure, there were a number of groups which were sympathetic to Likud’s political philosophy. But none effectively, coherently and systematically advocated support of Likud’s policies. The most prominent openly sympathetic group was the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), a Presidents Conference member. But financial and organizational adversity made ZOA’s voice inside the Presidents Conference faint and ineffective. Likud USA, a sometimes Presidents Conference member (they did not always pay their dues) suffered from multiple organizational frailties. Likud USA’s main role was not, at any rate, political mobilization. It served mostly as a funnel for campaign dollars to the Israeli party. Likud USA also serves as the “address” of the Jabotinsky movement and its Betar-Tagar youth movement.
Outside the Presidents Conference, pro-Shamir groups tended to be small and fiercely ideological. But ideological cleavages, personality differences and organizational turf battles made a united front unobtainable. Despite its shortcomings, the most prominent “national camp” group active in the American Jewish arena in the period under study was Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI). AFSI was the vanguard of the anti-“land-for-peace” movement. But the group was ill-suited to match the mobilizing prowess of its ideological opponents. AFSI also lacked a clear organizational focus (shifting from academic think-tank to Washington lobby to mobilizing force and back again). It suffered from a financial and leadership base too narrow to effectively challenge the balance of power inside the American Jewish community. In summary, a legacy of historical, structural, personality and ideological factors resulted in an American Jewish-right that was ill-prepared to have anything more than a marginal impact on the events described here.
PLO – Outside Elite Alliance
In June, the PLO escalated its peace offensive. Bassam Abu Sharif, Arafat’s press spokesman, circulated a statement announcing that the PLO accepted U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 despite the fact that “neither resolution says anything about the national rights of the Palestinian people.” The New York Times published a version of the statement, first distributed to reporters in Algiers at the Arab summit, as an Op-Ed essay:
The Palestinians want that kind of lasting peace and security for themselves and the Israelis because no one can build his own future on the ruins of another’s. . . . The PLO raison d’etre is not the undoing of Israel but the salvation of the Palestinian people and their rights, including their right to democratic self-expression and national self-determination. The PLO accepts (UN SC) Resolutions 242 and 338. What prevents it from saying so unconditionally is not what is in the resolutions but what is not in them. . . . We are ready for peace now, and we can deliver it. . . .
The outside elite promptly embraced the Abu Sharif statement even though its implied recognition of Israel was contingent upon the establishment of a PLO-led state. Rita Hauser, chairperson of ICME’s American Section, said it was “the most constructive statement the PLO has ever made. It is an enormous leap forward. What we want now (from the PLO) is a clarification that this is really the consensus of the majority of the organizations in the PLO.” Philip Klutznik called on the Israelis to join ICPME in embracing Abu Sharif’s statement.
With the Abu Sharif communication, ICPME came forth as the major pro-PLO lobby within the American Jewish community. In ICPME’s view, important segments of the PLO had gone through a metamorphosis and no longer sought the destruction of Israel. Instead, the new mission of the PLO was to set up a Palestinian-Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza which would live in peaceful coexistence with the Jewish State. Fifteen ICPME leaders in the United States signed a statement applauding the Abu Sharif statement. Among the signatories were: Kenneth Arrow, Irving Howe, Rita Hauser, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, Philip Klutznick, Professor Seymour Martin Lipset, Nathan P. Glazer, Theodore Mann, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Daniel Thursz, and Menachem Rosensaft.
Peres professed to see “nothing new” in the Abu Sharif essay and claimed it did not “merit a response.” Foxman, of ADL, decried ICPME’s embrace of Abu Sharif as too public and premature. He said that it might have been more appropriate to tell Shamir quietly, “Hey, fella, this is what you and we have been waiting for.” The reaction of the internal opposition was typified by Al Chernin of NJCRAC who said that Abu Sharif’s writings were clearly more than “just a restatement of old positions.” But he pointed out that there was no way to know if Abu Sharif spoke authoritatively for the PLO.
The PLO’s immediate reaction to the statement by Abu Sharif had been negative. While not endorsing the statement, Arafat called for a positive reciprocal gesture from the Administration. His number two, Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf) said, “The important thing now is to . . . block the vain political gesture made by Bassam Abu Sharif and his deviationist statements in all fields.” Farouk Kaddoumi, PLO Foreign Minister, said Abu Sharif was expressing “the private views of the author.” The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a constituent of the PLO, also denounced Abu Sharif. Officially, the State Department termed the remarks “constructive” but not “authoritative.” Vice President Bush, who would be a presidential candidate in November, observed: “We keep hearing the PLO has all but recognized Israel’s right to exist. ‘The PLO has done this and the PLO has done that.’ The PLO must have a direct, definitive, clear statement regarding recognition of the appropriate U.N. Resolutions 242, particularly, and 338 and renunciation of terror.”
Abram Breaks With Shamir
In a break with Presidents Conference protocol that was as historic as it was anticlimactic, Abram publicly endorsed Labor’s interpretation of the land-for-peace formula. He said, “The Israelis must convince the Palestinians that if they recognize Israel and forswear their covenant of violence, territorial compromise becomes a realistic goal.” Meantime, Rabin also reiterated support for the “Land-for-peace” blueprint. The Defense Minister said: “Even though I accept the principle of territories for peace, I will not encourage any giving in to violence in whatever form – civilian violence, terror, or threats of war or wars.” Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., Rabin said that moderate Palestinians were afraid to enter into talks with Israel because they feared being assassinated by the PLO.
It must be recalled that the Zionist right opposed talks with the PLO purely on pragmatic grounds: there was nothing to discuss if Arafat’s goal was to “liberate” Palestine out from under the Jews. But there is reason to believe that Shamir had become curious about a possible shift in PLO intentions. In mid-July, Shamir’s office denied Abu Sharif’s claim that the Jewish State had been secretly negotiating with the PLO on an interim agreement for the West Bank. The two sides had been indirectly negotiating through the good offices of Rumania, according to Abu Sharif. Supposedly, at these talks, Israel offered to allow the PLO to take over many of the functions handled by the Civil Administration. Shamir acknowledged only that he had received a private message from Nicolae Ceausescu through the Rumanian President’s special emissary Konstantin Metea. Moshe Shahal, a Labor Cabinet minister, insisted that Abu Sharif’s claims were accurate and that Shamir did in fact hold indirect talks with the PLO while in Rumania. Shahal said Shamir’s overture to the PLO about taking over civilian duties in the West Bank was based on earlier recommendations made by Moshe Amirav (the ousted Likud official who had held talks with PLO supporters). Whether by design or otherwise, the incident served to sow discord and confusion within the Israeli policy.
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Several personnel matters are worth briefly noting for what they tell us about how the players were positioned in the waning days of the U.S.-PLO dialogue scenario. In late July, Abram was asked to stay on an additional six months as chairman of the Presidents Conference, “as a result of a recent decision to have the term of office correspond to the calendar year.” In Israel, meanwhile, the Labor party failed to select Abba Eban as one of its top twenty candidates for the next Knesset elections. This indignity forced Eban out of government service. Thereafter, he devoted himself to, among other projects, the International Centre for Peace in the Middle East. In New York, Ira Silverman’s appointment as Executive Vice President at the AJCommittee signaled that the organization would continue to follow a centrist direction within internal opposition. “I don’t believe in speaking out against Israel,” Silverman said. “What I do believe in is stating plainly our view about how best to achieve a peace for Israel.” It was precisely this thinking that impelled the outside elite to take the initiative.
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Whatever the truth about the Abu Sharif affair, in the final analysis Shamir held firm to the principle that the nature of the conflict had not altered. The Intifada, he said, “has not changed our basic situation. It has merely served to underscore the existential nature of the conflict. The fact that it has spread across the green line – in arson, stone-throwing, occasional fire-bombs, the effort ‘to destroy the unification of Jerusalem’ – this proves conclusively that the conflict is not over territory, but over Israel’s very existence.” If Shamir’s remarks suggested fortified weariness, Peres’ give the impression of being forward looking and flexible. U.S. plans to meet with prominent PLO aligned Arabs from the Territories, Peres said, did not bother him “because we, too, meet with them” and such meetings do not constitute talking to the PLO. That did not go far enough for Mubarak, who persisted in lobbying for a U.S.-PLO dialogue. He even insinuated that the two sides were close to talking, which compelled the State Department to issue the customary statement that U.S. policy toward the PLO remained unchanged.
Advertising “David v. Goliath”
Media advocacy reporting of the Intifada continued to influence the perceptual environment. Time magazine, for instance, referred to Arafat as “homeless.” This underdog theme was emphasized, in the summer of 1988, by an advertising campaign in the Washington D.C. Metro subway system, sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The campaign featured graphic photographs of terrified-looking Arabs being confronted by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. Their tax-dollars, Metro riders were informed, paid for the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Israel’s human rights policies were likened to those of South Africa.
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