Call him an optimist, but Barry Jacobs says Israel is in a far better position today than about a decade ago.
He should know. Jacobs, the American Jewish Committee’s director of strategic studies in the Office of Government and International Affairs in Washington, delivered his upbeat assessment in an interview last week. He was in Northern California to speak with the AJCommittee’s Bay Area chapter board of directors and others, including the Consulate General of Japan.
Jacobs, who also serves as associate director of the AJCommittee’s Asia and Pacific Rim Institute, fixes his gaze on Israel’s relationship with what he calls “the unglamorous parts of the world”: Latin America, Asia, Central Asia, Greece and Turkey.
A foreign service officer with the U.S. Information Agency from 1968 to 1994, Jacobs said “the world has dramatically changed, but also gotten better in ways that were almost unimaginable” when he first entered diplomatic service.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was by far the biggest surprise. And from the perspective of the world’s Jewish community, one of the many positive outcomes of the breakup is “it has deprived Arab states of any counterbalance to American power.”
The United States is the premier military and economic power in the world, he said, and while this “has made the rest of the world very uncomfortable,” it obviously favors Israel, which couldn’t ask for a stronger ally.
Also, “Israel itself is stronger,” he said. The Oslo Accords “bought Israel 10 years of economic investment in itself. It is well developed.”
Israel has in fact developed strong economic ties and solid relationships with countries around the world, Jacobs contends. “This may contradict today’s headlines, but if you step back a little bit and look at Israel’s position today as opposed to 15 years ago, despite all the bad news, Israel is in a far better position today.”
Its “most important diplomatic relationship after the U.S.,” he said, is Turkey, a democracy which borders nine countries, including Iraq, Iran and Syria. As the second-largest military force in NATO and one of the “strongest, most powerful” Islamist countries, Turkey, which has about 25,000 Jews, is a key friend to the United States and Israel.
Bilateral trade between the two Mideast countries stands at approximately $1 billion a year, and Israeli tourists flock to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
Turkey’s relationship with Israel has caused a ripple effect in neighboring Greece, whose relationship with Israel has “improved dramatically,” Jacobs added.
Turkey’s government has been strictly secularist in recent years, and the landslide victory earlier this month of a party with Islamic roots has heightened concerns, but Jacobs predicts no wholesale changes.
There will be subtle ones, he suggested, because the leadership won’t be “openly supportive” of Israel.
Another region that has developed strong ties with Israel is Central Asia, where eight separate states have replaced the USSR. Seven of the eight “have full diplomatic relations with Israel,” according to Jacobs.
“They play a crucial role as a buffer in a very important region.” The area, most notably the Caspian Basin, is rich in energy resources — “the last great untapped sea of oil and gas.” And when the spigot is turned on, that energy flow could provide an important alternative to the world’s largest current supplier, OPEC, the Ogranization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
As for Iraq, Israel is remaining “quiet on that front.” But Jacobs said a victorious U.S.-led war in Iraq, which supplies weapons and economic support for the intifada, would benefit Israel “to an enormous extent.”
A win in Iraq might also suppress the threat from Iran, which Jacobs pinpointed as “Israel’s real enemy.” Iran’s domestic turmoil, plus the fact that it is “rapidly approaching having its own nuclear weapon,” he said, pose a danger to the Jewish state.
An American presence in Iraq, he continued, might limit Syria’s ability to do Israel harm, as the main supplier of weapons to Hezbollah.
Though Jacobs has no doubt the United States would quickly overpower Iraq militarily, it remains to be seen if an attack will topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and force a regime change. That’s the unknown, said Jacobs. “What happens after the war I don’t know.”
Looking to the east, he said Israel enjoys solid diplomatic relations with India and China, and improving relationships with “wealthy countries” such as Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and even Vietnam, which he foresees as “the next emerging democracy.”
Trade with those countries is on the rise, he said, providing an important outlet for Israel’s expertise and products.
Israel also has a solid friend in Australia and has “particularly good” relations with Mexico, with which it has a free-trade agreement. It also has embassies throughout Latin America.
Overall, “Israel’s strategic position in the big picture is not bad.”
As for potential trouble spots, in the Pacific Rim Jacobs pointed to the unstable government in Indonesia. But even there he sees a silver lining: The bombing in Bali may have convinced those in power that “they need to be getting off their tuchuses to do something about terrorism.”
And while nothing can be done currently to improve relations with Malaysia, where Jacobs said an “anti-Semite” holds power, the situation could possibly improve when the leader steps down next fall, Jacobs noted.
Finally, there’s the home front. Even Jacobs admits that Israel’s ongoing struggle in its own backyard “is desperate.” But he stopped short of calling it hopeless. “I think the Palestinians are running out of steam,” he said. “You get tired of getting your butt kicked.”