NEW YORK — The Jewish community’s relief is nearly palpable now that Israelis and Palestinians have replaced the street with the negotiating table as the place to resolve their disputes.
But there is a widespread sense that last week’s Washington summit only bought some time and that the current talks at the Erez crossing are painfully fragile.
There is a wariness that any breakdown could ignite simmering tensions over differences on the peace process among American Jews and between the Israeli and U.S. governments, putting Jews in the middle.
The American Jewish establishment rallied behind the government of Benjamin Netanyahu after Palestinian police fired on Israeli soldiers last month.
The “trauma” of witnessing the violence of Israel’s peace partner served to unify the Jewish community, said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
But forged as it was in the face of crisis, that unity has its limits.
For the roughly 80 percent of American Jews who polls have shown support the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, those limits could be tested if the renewed talks fail.
“A majority of the American Jewish community wants to see the peace process continue and a good-faith effort by the Netanyahu government” to that end, said Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, executive director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation.
The community’s traditional aggressive advocacy for the Israeli government also could be challenged if President Clinton is reelected and the two governments clash over hot-button issues such as Israeli redeployment in Hebron and the expansion of Jewish settlements.
Some say that Clinton, unfettered by his current political constraints, would take a harder line with Israel, with Jews forced to mediate.
Yet Netanyahu, meeting 35 Jewish leaders last week, made “no appeal for counterpressure” on the U.S. administration, said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Rather, Netanyahu “reiterated his commitment” to move ahead with the peace process, Hoenlein said.
A lot “depends on what Netanyahu does,” said Gail Pressberg, director of the Washington office of Americans for Peace Now. If the talks on Hebron “become another way to drag things out, it won’t work.”
Martin Raffel, associate executive vice chairman of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, suggests that “core principles” and “verities” would prevent the United States from putting undue pressure on Israel and prevent Israel from caving in to it.
Dr. Joseph Frager, president of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project/American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, a yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Old City, is far less sanguine.
The entire Israeli-Palestinian accords were “bad from the start and went from bad to worse,” said Frager. “I always thought it was illogical at best and self-destructive and suicidal at worst.”
Frager called the events of the past few weeks a realization of a prediction “that arms being given to former terrorists would be used against us.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, Peace Now’s Pressberg said that while the community agrees that “Arafat must do everything within his power to control violence,” it is far from being uniformly behind Netanyahu.
Most people’s “sense is `enough is enough,'” she said.
But Raffel said if there is any U.S. Jewish dissent from Israeli policy, “the question will be whether [the dissenters] are prepared to publicly manifest it, and how. Will it be inside the tent or out?”
In recent days, the ADL’s Foxman said he found “distressing” statements that he felt drew “moral equivalency” between Israeli and Palestinian actions.
“Let’s say opening the door to the tunnel was a horrendous mistake, or motivated by animus,” he said. “It can’t be equated with the Palestinian police turning guns on Israelis.”
Foxman’s outrage prompted him to take out a full-page ad on behalf of the ADL in the New York Times Oct. 2 condemning Palestinian violence.
One statement issued by the American Jewish Congress drew a lot of attention for criticizing “both sides.”
Phil Baum, AJCongress’ executive director, said he was surprised to be “confronted” by criticism of the Israeli government.
“Our intention was to reflect the anxieties of many American Jews over the explosion of violence,” he said.