It’s been absolutely breathtaking to watch the overnight cynical flip-flop in the Bush administration’s overt attitude to Israel, to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and its stance in regard to the conflict with the Palestinians.
The administration’s attitude is characteristic of that of high-powered American businessmen and former college footballers who are trained to identify a main goal and let the chips of subsidiary goals and values fly where they may in their single-minded drive to attain it.
The dominant policymakers in Washington believe that in order to defeat Afghanistan’s Taliban and punish Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida terrorist organization at a price acceptable to the American electorate, as many Muslim and Arab states as possible must be enlisted in the coalition it is setting up. If the price for their inclusion means appearing to sell out Israel and buttering up that minor terrorist, Arafat, well then, in a cruel world, so be it.
It’s an understandably scary prospect for many Israelis, policymakers and the public alike. The axiom still holds true that of all the forces on the international scene, only the United States can force Israel to adopt policies that Israel’s own leaders believe are contrary to its welfare.
It may indeed be scary, but is that American apparent volte-face for real?
The evidence is not yet in on whether it is merely words or whether those words that are intended to curry favor with the Arab world will actually lead to policy changes inimical to Israel.
Although even mere words, declarations and the rolling out of red carpets can have harmful effects, there is good reason for Israelis to sit tight, and let some events take their inevitable course. In so doing, we can prepare the groundwork in other arenas where we stand a good chance of reversing the situation in our favor.
The campaign against the Taliban and bin Laden will be a protracted one, by Washington’s own projections. All the more so because of the imminence of the grim Afghan winter, which will make any meaningful land operations for the conquest of Kabul and the dislodging of the Taliban well nigh impossible, whether by American Special Forces or the Afghan Northern Alliance.
If the Arab countries, dragged against their will into Bush’s coalition prove true to type — as was the case in the Gulf War a decade ago — it will take only a few months before Americans learn that their Arab partners have contributed nothing to the effort to punish the Arab (not Afghan) terrorists responsible for the worst attack ever on the American homeland.
If, as is to be hoped, the United States will then proceed against Iraq to enforce effective supervision against Saddam Hussein’s programs for the development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, the defection of the Arabs from the coalition will become even more ringing.
We should take the Americans’ advice, sit tight and not interfere with that natural course of events. We should certainly continue to fight Palestinian terror attacks with all our might and cunning. But there is no need to seek to get rid of Arafat, as some have been advising.
We tend to forget that Arafat is going on 73 years of age. So is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But 73, in the demographics of the Arab world, is tantamount to very advanced old age. It is likely that Arafat will not be with us for long and there is no need for us to bring down the wrath of the world on our heads by clumsily trying to speed up the process of his disappearance.
What is urgently needed is the development of an effective anti-Palestinian hasbarah (public relations) campaign in the American Jewish community in preparation for next year’s congressional election campaign. The overwhelming majority of both parties in Congress have proven steadfastly pro-Israel. Our main problem is with the rejuvenated pro-Arab elements in the State Department.
The best way to counter those antagonists effectively is by mobilizing the American Jewish community in support of Israel in light of the real possibility that even a small shift in popular votes could wrest control of the House from the hands of the Republicans. These are considerations that the White House understands even better than the convoluted politics of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
This is a fight that should not be fought by Israel overtly meddling in domestic American politics. But American Jewish citizens can legitimately press their pro-Israel interest in such a campaign. The man who can succeed in mobilizing the American Jewish community in such an effort is not Sharon. But it is certainly not Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who is so identified with the Palestinian cause. An essential prerequisite for the launching of such an effective hasbarah campaign is either removing Peres from the Foreign Ministry, or removing responsibility for hasbarah from his ministry.