Breaking a Long Silence

U.S. Jews start cautiously to question Israeli policy

“For a while, American Jews became not a chosen people but a frozen people, unable to talk or dissent. I am glad we are getting thawed out.”

So says Albert Vorspan, vice president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, but his is not a popular view. Most American Jews are apprehensive, if not heartsick, about the anguished debate that has broken out inside their community on the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s government. The war in Lebanon, and Begin’s brusque rejection of President Reagan’s peace plan for the Middle East, have shattered a tradition that was already fraying: namely, that in times of crisis American Jews should repress any qualms they might have about the policies of an Israeli government. More Jewish Americans are questioning those policies, and more publicly, than ever before.

The debate echoes far beyond the extended, and far from monolithic, family of 6 million American Jews. It is bound to have some impact on policymakers in Washington, and possibly on those in Jerusalem. The debate means that Begin, who has always been a more controversial figure to American Jews than his predecessors as Prime Minister, can no longer count on the united and vigorous pressure of U.S. Jews to bend the Administration away from any measures that Begin strongly opposes.

Even leaders of the national Jewish organizations that make up one of Washington’s most effective lobbies are having difficulty coordinating their response to Reagan’s peace plan. The international service organization B’nai B’rith last week praised one feature to which Begin most strongly objects. The Prime Minister had protested that Reagan’s call for Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “in association with Jordan” might open the way to a Soviet-dominated state ruled by the hated Palestine Liberation Organization. B’nai B’rith acclaimed Reagan’s plan specifically “because it asks Jordan to take responsibility for negotiating directly with Israel on the future of the West Bank and Gaza.” Albert Spiegel, an unofficial adviser to Reagan on Jewish affairs, addressed a B’nai B’rith luncheon in Washington at which the pronouncement was discussed. He cannot recall any other statement by a major Jewish organization so strikingly at variance with the declared policy of an Israeli government.

Howard Squadron, president of the American Jewish Congress, sharply criticized Reagan’s proposals but nonetheless said they could become “an important contribution to the advancement of peace in this area,” and Thomas Dine, executive director of the 30,000-member American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the official lobby for American pro-Israeli groups, initially declared that he saw “a lot of value” in them. But after the Arab League at its summit meeting in Fez, Morocco, continued to insist on an independent Palestinian state, the A.I.P.A.C. issued a formal statement charging that Reagan’s plan had fallen victim to “the classic pattern of Arab duplicity and American naiveté.” The A.I.P.A.C. has nevertheless asserted that “there were positive points in the President’s initiative.”

A few U.S. Jewish leaders have been blunt in criticizing the actions of the Begin government. Vorspan asserts flatly that “Israel’s West Bank policy is crazy. It would destroy the Jewish and democratic character of Israel if the West Bank were to be annexed.” Says Max Palevsky, a Los Angeles businessman and fund raiser for Israel’s dovish Peace Now movement: “It is clear now that the Begin government is not interested in peace. It is intent on annexing Arab territory.”

These are still the views of a distinct minority. But the very fact that they are being voiced in public points to a much broader split—or, more accurately, confusion — in American Jewish opinion. Says Arnold Ellison, a regional director of B’nai B’rith in Atlanta: “If you want to sum it up, you will find a division equal to that within Israel itself,” where the policies of any government have always sparked vehement and at times vitriolic debates.

Many American Jewish leaders have long contended that U.S. Jews have no right to criticize any Jerusalem government; unlike Israelis, they do not face the prospect of having to pay with their lives if their policies are adopted and proved wrong. Others insisted that such criticism by American Jews would call into question U.S. support on which an increasingly isolated Israel depends, and might even give aid and comfort to anti-Semites. Sums up Mrs. Toby Ansin, a member of the Bade County (Miami) Council of Arts and Sciences: “The general feeling among American Jews has been that Israel has enough enemies already, so keep your criticism to yourself.”

It was the Lebanon invasion far more than any other factor that exploded that consensus. The nightly TV pictures of the civilian casualties prompted an intense debate that has since spread into synagogues, offices and living rooms across the U.S. Even families have been divided. David Perlman, an official of the Internal Revenue Service in Chicago, defends the Lebanon incursion as “regrettable but necessary.” His wife Carole, a statistician for the Chicago board of education, demurs, “I was repulsed by the carnage. I support Israel, but it is important to differentiate between the country and the government.”

Deeper still is the division in the minds of individual Jews. Says Steven Sher, producer of a daily Jewish radio program in the Chicago area and cantor of his synagogue in the suburb of Glenview: “We are all now confused in our feelings about Israel. There are of course those strong concepts of homeland, of Zionism, of our religion bound up in Israel, which are very powerful. But there is reaction to what seem to be insupportable actions Israel has taken. I find myself deeply torn.” Adds Stephen Antonoff, a leader of the men’s organization in The Temple, the largest Jewish congregation in Atlanta: “These reservations would never have been spoken of to non-Jews in the past.”

Most such reservations, especially those expressed in public by the leaders of Jewish organizations, are still quite mild. Thus Hyman Bookbinder, head of the Washington office of the American Jewish Committee, cautiously summarizes one current of opinion among many Jews: “They wish Israel had waited [before rejecting Reagan’s peace plan]. They feel Israel should be more reflective, should explore the positives in the proposal. The rejection was too categorical.” He quickly adds that “there is understanding too” of the Israeli Prime Minister’s quick-trigger reaction: “Ronald Reagan has challenged Menachem Begin’s dearest idea, Israel’s historic claim to the West Bank.”

Some powerful emotional forces will be working to keep the criticism muted. Divided though they are about some policies of the Begin government, American Jews wholeheartedly approve others. In a poll conducted last winter and spring for the American Jewish Committee, respondents split down the middle on the question of whether Israel should return the West Bank and Gaza to some form of Arab control: 41% said yes, 41% replied no and 18% were undecided. But 74% judged Israel’s policies in general toward the Arabs to be “about right.” The same overwhelming proportion opposed any negotiation with the P.L.O. Moreover, any dissatisfaction that Jews might feel with the Begin government has not diminished the intensity of their attachment to the state of Israel or their fears about Israel’s security. No less than 94% of the Jews questioned in the A.J.C. poll described themselves as pro-Israel, and 83% agreed to the proposition, “If Israel were destroyed, I would feel as if I had suffered one of the greatest personal tragedies in my life.”

Begin still has his ardent supporters in the American Jewish community. Philip Perlmutter, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of metropolitan Boston, notes that Americans look for honesty, courage and integrity in their own leaders and adds sarcastically, “Begin has all those qualities and is damned.” He defends the Prime Minister’s instant rejection of Reagan’s peace proposals: “In time we will all get around to realizing the severity of the minuses. The Administration is on the road toward doing to Israel what Carter did to Iran.” The plan is also viewed as unrealistic by some Jews who are not necessarily admirers of Begin. New York University Professor Irving Kristol contends that in order to be accepted by any Israeli government, it would have to be modified in a way that the Arabs would indignantly reject. The U.S., says Kristol, “has shouldered a responsibility it cannot live up to.”

Many other Jews with doubts about Begin’s policies are more disturbed by the worldwide denunciation of Israel provoked by the war in Lebanon. Jews who were and still are dismayed by the Israeli invasion frequently charge that biased reporting exaggerated its horrors. Says Randall Czarlinsky, St. Louis director of the American Jewish Committee: “It was after Tyre, after the seemingly terrible killing and casualty figures started flowing in, that the deep doubts began to arise” in the American Jewish community. Subsequent reports, greatly lowering the estimates of civilian casualties, reassured many American Jews that the Israeli forces were not being as cruel as the early TV pictures led much of the world to believe. Concerns about Israeli excesses, however, were renewed by scenes of bombing and shelling that accompanied the siege of West Beirut.

Many Jews argue that Israel is being unfairly judged by a double standard, bitterly denounced for actions that other nations feel they have an unquestioned right to take. Norman Podhoretz, editor of the monthly Commentary, says that he considers President Reagan’s peace plan to be “on the whole a good one” and goes on to say, “I wish Begin had not rejected it out of hand.” Nonetheless, in a fiery article, provocatively titled “J’ Accuse,” in the current issue of his magazine, Podhoretz charges that to many of its critics “only Israel of all the states in the world is required to prove that its very existence—not merely its interest or the security of its borders—is in immediate peril before it can justify the resort to force.”

Among those critics, writes Podhoretz, “a number of American Jews have been adding their own special note to the whining chorus of anti-Israel columnists, State Department Arabists and corporate sycophants of Saudi Arabia.” Podhoretz charges that “criticisms of Israel that are informed by a double standard … deserve to be called anti-Semitic even when they are mouthed by Jews or, for that matter, Israelis.”

Though his tone is far angrier than most, Podhoretz is not the only American Jew to fear a revival of anti-Semitism in the wake of the Lebanon invasion. Says Chicago Radio Producer Sher: “After the 1956 war and the other conflicts up to this time, Israelis were the golden boys, even in the minds of people who at home were anti-Semitic toward American Jews. Now the perception is, ‘Hey, these guys are bullies.’ ” Sher fears that hostility toward Jews historically increases during times of economic trouble like that the U.S. is experiencing now. “It won’t be the blacks who are blamed,” he says. “It’s the Jews who are seen as dangerous, as powerful. Lebanon could contribute to that sort of sentiment.”

For all these reasons—emotional attachment to Israel, resentment of the more extreme denunciations of it, fear of encouraging anti-Semitism—the tradition that American Jews must stifle their disagreements with Israeli leaders, although waning, is still strong. Jewish criticism of Israel, says Chicago Rabbi Robert Marx, “touches on the deepest Jewish fear, the fear that the world still does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel.” Marx experienced the depth of that fear in June, at the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in New York City, after he introduced a resolution criticizing the Israeli bombing of West Beirut. When he returned to his temple, he reports, “I was assailed. I was stunned. They said, ‘You have no right to put this debate in the public eye. This is something that must remain in the household.'”

Nonetheless, the debate has been heard and noted outside the household, and it seems likely to grow. Now that some Jewish leaders have brought themselves to question Israeli policy in public, says former Secretary of Commerce Philip Klutznick, “they may get into the habit of continuing.” Jews in the U.S., as everywhere else, have long and rightly prided themselves on their tradition of spirited discussion on almost any imaginable topic; it never made much sense to stifle debate on the one subject closest to many of their hearts.

— By George J. Church. Reported by Ken Banta/ Chicago and Peter Stoler/New York with other bureaus