by Isi Leibler
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Over the past few months, Israel
has been increasingly castigated and blamed by President Obama and his
spokesmen concerning their botched initiative to bring about a
settlement with the PA. The downward spiral in relations escalated in
recent weeks with the President’s ritual endorsements of Israel’s right
to self-defense being linked with criticisms of its behavior.
The U.S. is unquestionably
Israel’s principal ally. The American public and a bipartisan Congress
remain overwhelmingly pro-Israel and, until this week, the US has
maintained the military partnership and exercised its veto powers to
defend Israel from biased resolutions at the UN Security Council.
Israel is therefore reluctant to
confront the offensive statements emanating from the White House and
repeatedly undergoes motions of minimizing differences.
Nevertheless, one would have
expected a robust American Jewish leadership to publicly express its
concern. Yet, other than the hawkish Zionist Organization of America,
the Jewish establishment appears to have burrowed behind a curtain of
deafening silence.
Ironically, committed American
Jews are today more united in support of Israel than at any time since
the Yom Kippur War. Even groups like Peace Now publicly expressed their
support and partook in solidarity meetings. This, despite the fact that
the left-wing media continued providing excessive exposure to
anti-Israeli Jewish individuals and groups comprising a marginal
fraction of the engaged Jewish community.
American Jews today relate with
shame to the events in 1944, when in order to appease then President
Franklin Roosevelt, their leaders, headed by Rabbi Stephen Wise, failed
to protest the failure to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. But over the
past four decades Jewish leaders have earned a proud reputation of
speaking up without fear or favor in relation to Jewish rights,
aggressively combating the demonization and delegitimization of Israel.
Yet, in retrospect, American
Jewish activism in our era has been uncontroversial - somewhat like
motherhood and apple pie. The successful protest movements to alleviate
the plight of Soviet Jewry or campaigns against anti-Semitism did not
ruffle any feathers.
There were occasional tensions
relating to Israel but, aside from the Carter era and until the Reagan
administration, Democrat presidents proved more favorable towards Israel
than the Republicans. That was a source of gratification for most Jews
for whom support of the Democrat Party had virtually become part of
their DNA.
Today the situation has changed
dramatically. Whilst, overall, Americans have become considerably more
pro-Israel, there has been an erosion of support amongst far left
elements in the Democratic Party strongly committed to Obama. The
debates over resolutions relating to Israel at the last Democratic
Convention highlighted the emergence of intensifying hostility.
Over the past few months, the
attitude of the president and his administration towards Israel has
dramatically deteriorated. Not only was Israel unfairly blamed for the
breakdown in the US peace negotiations with the PA. More recently,
Secretary of State John Kerry shocked Israelis by attempting to displace
Egypt with pro-Hamas Qatar and Turkey as mediators – a step which if
not thwarted, could have been disastrous for Israel.
President Obama has not treated
Israel as befits an ally. The State Department condemned Israel for
civilian casualties describing its actions as “disgraceful” and
“appalling”. In contrast, the president referred to thousands of rockets
from Hamas as “extraordinarily irresponsible” and even called on Israel
to lift the blockade - without regard to security requirements. In
effect he related to Israel and Hamas in terms of moral equivalency.
Regrettably, Obama’s
condemnations set the tone for the rest the world to demonize Israel and
encouraged Hamas to believe that continuing the war and sacrificing
civilians would ultimately result in global intervention to force Israel
to concede to its demands. This week the administration upped the ante
to an all-time high by imposing cumbersome new bureaucratic restrictions
on the provision of arms supplies. To do so now whilst Israel is
engaged in a war that it sought desperately to avoid, reflects the
depths to which U.S.-Israel relations have sunk.
Yet no criticism of White House
policy was publicly expressed by AIPAC, the Presidents Conference, the
American Jewish Committee or the Anti-Defamation League.
American Jewish leaders are
certainly not indifferent to events in Israel. Presidents Conference
leader Malcolm Hoenlein has a proven record of devoted and passionate
commitment to the Zionist cause and during the war orchestrated many
effective solidarity demonstrations on behalf of Israel.
There is also no doubt that
dedicated supporters of Israel like AIPAC, have been striving quietly to
promote the case for Israel to the White House.
What is difficult to accept is
the reluctance to publicly repudiate the offensive statements concerning
Israel emanating from President Obama and White House spokesmen.
In the past some Jewish leaders
have argued that by speaking up, they would be denied access to the
White House. Today that argument is inapplicable because meaningful
access to Jewish leaders is probably more limited than it has been in
the past half-century. Indeed left-wing anti-Israeli groups appear to
have a better entree to the Administration than mainstream leaders.
It seems that the Jewish
leadership has decided that confronting President Obama would only
further polarize the situation, encouraging him to be even more critical
towards Israel. There were also fears that criticizing the White House
could result in some Democratic legislators abandoning Israel in favor
of their president.
There are also concerns that
after the November congressional elections, Obama will feel free to do
whatever he wishes until his term expires. Thus, they decided to avoid
criticizing the President and concentrate on silent diplomacy and
strengthening the relationship with Congress.
Admittedly, deciding where to
draw the line between silent diplomacy and public action is complex and
frequently creates dilemmas for Jewish leaders. Even in relation to
Soviet Jewry, initially there were major arguments about the potential
terrible consequences protests could inflict on Soviet Jews. In most
cases, a twin track approach was adopted. But, in recent years, American
Jews have prided themselves on speaking out and have even derided other
Diaspora Jewish communities for remaining silent.
Despite its concerns, the
American Jewish leadership is failing to fulfil its mandate if it
remains silent when the White House makes unfair hostile statements
against an ally which is locked in a bitter war with genocidal
terrorists.
In the wake of the recent
inexplicable silence by the Jewish leadership regarding the New York
Metropolitan Opera’s performance of the anti-Semitic “The Death of
Klinghoffer”, questions are being raised as to whether maybe Jewish
leaders are unconsciously drifting back to the “trembling Israelites”
approach of the 1940s.
There is an urgent need for
soul-searching by the American Jewish leadership. Failure to respond to
such provocative outbursts from the White House sends a message of
weakness and suggests that the Jewish community no longer retains the
will to confront hostility which could lead to a significant erosion of
American Jewry’s political influence.
American Jewish leaders are
undoubtedly motivated by good intentions but they should remind
themselves that expressing dissent and protest against the policies of a
President is their democratic right and can be conveyed with respect
and dignity. Their ongoing public silence is likely to be condemned by
future historians.
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom
Isi Leibler’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com
Source: http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5195
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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