It’s indicative of the current crisis in Jewry that Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein’s visit to the Bay Area last week will be remembered as much for his inability to listen to those who differed with him as for his critique of the Middle East “road map” for peace as “biased against Israel” (May 16 Bulletin). Klein, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organization’s Morton Zuckerman seem deaf to the plea of Jews from San Francisco to Jerusalem asking for new efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Klein errs in asserting that the road map is appeasing terrorism. The violence in Afula, Hebron and Jerusalem this past week is proof that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and probably Yasser Arafat as well want to deprive President Bush of his goal to remake the Middle East.
The terrorists knew that a new wave of suicide bombs would force an interruption of the embryonic peace effort, and they’ve scored a terrific victory in getting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to postpone the Tuesday meeting scheduled at the White House.
The ZOA leader first dismisses the real shift in Palestinian politics signaled by the appointment of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and then claims that the Palestinians are “not interested in making a better life for themselves.” It is stunning that a Jewish leader intimately familiar with the corruption in the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat and cognizant of ongoing Israeli restrictions over the Palestinian economy can claim that the only factor driving the people of the West Bank and Gaza is a desire to “destroy Israel.”
Klein seems to think that more Israeli settlements in the West Bank would further the national goals of the Jewish people and justifies them by saying that Arabs are building in the West Bank at 10 times the rate of the Jews. Given Israel’s track record of denying Israeli Arabs housing construction permits inside the Green Line, it seems unfair to label Palestinian objections to settlements as “ethnic discrimination.”
It is also disheartening to see the leader of our community’s most effective human rights organization, the ADL’s Foxman, withholding support for the road map. He has criticized the timing of its release on the eve of the Iraq war as well as the provisions in the document for international help in its implementation. Foxman knows that in politics perception is everything. So why can’t our leaders see that if we can’t help Israel make compromises for peace, we will continue to live in a world that will often blame the Jews for Mideast unrest? The ADL leader knows that there are diaspora Jewish communities in serious danger because of the internationalization of Islamic fundamentalism. Are their needs for defense and security less than those of the West Bank settlers?
Given the ADL’s stated mission, it would be more productive if Foxman could give a Jewish voice to the reservations about the road map expressed by organizations like Human Rights Watch. The current plan fails to establish a mechanism to monitor violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws, a widely recognized problem with the Oslo peace process. A human rights provision would tackle issues such as Israeli restrictions on freedom of movement and Palestinian incitement to violence. Guaranteeing the individual rights and security of Palestinian and Israeli civilians is as fundamental to peace as territorial compromise.
And then there is the obstructionism of Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. Speaking on WBUR-Boston on May 12, Hoenlein set up a false distinction between Bush’s speech last June, outlining the contours of a peace plan and the specifics of the road map. Hoenlein, with the weight of organized Jewry behind him, refused to clearly acknowledge that a solution of the conflict requires the establishment of a Palestinian state. Hoenlein called on Abbas to confront Hamas as though the Palestinian leader had the military or political tools to do so before Israel eases up on some the restrictions on Palestinian civil society or agrees to move any settlers out of the territories.
“Sharon rejects peace process,” was the simplistic headline in Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle. One has to read further to find out that the objection is to the idea of simultaneous concessions from both sides on the conflict.
If our leaders in America and Israel continue to insist that there is nothing we can do to build Palestinian confidence in the usefulness of negotiations now, Abbas will be unable to build a consensus for compromise in his fractured community.
By saying no to mutuality in responsibility to end the conflict, Klein, Foxman and Hoenlein are putting our future in the hands of Palestinian extremists. It’s time for Jewish leadership to speak up clearly for any sincere effort to end the violence and the occupation. Any other course leads the Jewish people into a political wilderness, dividing us from each other, and eroding our standing in the community of democratic nations.