Cover
story When
does a special relationship become a blank check to
Israel?
By MARGOT PATTERSON
The escalating violence in the
Middle East has focused new attention on the U.S. role in the region and
particularly the United States alliance with Israel. The guarantor of
Israels security, the United States gives $3 billion a year in aid to
Israel, more than to any other nation. Israel is the largest cumulative
recipient of U.S. aid since World War II, receiving about $91 billion.
For years, the special relationship between the United
States and Israel enabled Israel to build up its arms and to become the
strongest military power in the Middle East.
That special relationship, however, is also at the root of new
questions and criticism from foreign governments as well as religious groups
and political voices within the United States.
In a letter sent April 1 to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell,
members of English-Speaking Christian Communities in the Holy Land said that
while they unequivocally condemn and reject terrorism and violence as a
means of advancing the political cause of the Palestinians and fully recognize
the right of Israeli people to live in peace and security in their own
state, the experience they bring of living in Israel and the occupied
territories also makes them understand why, in their desperation, some
young Palestinians see no other options available to them and nothing for them
to live for.
The group faulted the lack of political will in the United States
to implement its own defined policies in the Mideast. Now is the time for
the U.S. government to operate within the rubric of the United Nations and to
finalize a settlement to this conflict in accordance with Resolutions 242, 338
and 1397. This is a period in history that requires clear policy definition,
firm political will and consistency in action by the U.S. government.
Close alliance
In a similar letter to President Bush, released April 4, the
Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors
of Men also expressed their dismay that the United States was doing little to
pressure both sides to end the violence.
The close alliance between Israel and the United States goes back
decades. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy authorized the first sale of
major strategic arms to Israel, but it was under President Nixon that military
sales and subsidies to Israel ballooned from several hundred million dollars
annually to $2.2 billion a year. During the Cold War, Israel was perceived as
an important strategic partner in the United States face-off against the
Soviet Union.
President Clinton continued a strong pro-Israel policy even after
the collapse of the Soviet Union. The argument was made that only a militarily
strong Israel would feel secure enough to withdraw from territory to make
peace. In a speech given in 1993 Martin Indyk, a senior official on the
National Security Council who subsequently became U.S. Ambassador to Israel,
outlined Americas dual-containment policy in which Iran and Iraq were to
be kept weak in order to protect Israels eastern front. Indyk said the
U.S. approach to peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will
involve working with Israel, not against it. No similar
reassurances were given to the Palestinians.
Previous U.S. presidents had also believed the influence gained by
providing Israel with U.S. aid and arms could prod Israel into making peace
with its Arab neighbors and with the Palestinians. How well-founded that belief
was has been questioned. According to Israeli historian Avi Shlaim in his book
The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, Israeli general and politician
Moshe Dayan once quipped that Our American friends offer us money, arms
and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the
advice. The Bush administrations recent request that Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat be allowed to attend the Arab League summit in Beirut and
Israels subsequent refusal underlines just how little influence America
has bought for all the money it has spent.
Now, with the peace process in tatters, Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat held captive by the Israelis and confined to his quarters, and Israeli
tanks rampaging through the West Bank, the U.S.-Israeli relationship begs for
closer scrutiny. Certainly it demands clarification. By giving the go-ahead to
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to do whatever he likes in the occupied
territories while voting in the United Nations to condemn Israeli actions, the
Bush administration seems to be pursuing a policy that is not only one-sided in
its approach to the Mideast conflict but, in the words of former national
security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, it is incoherent.
The increasing gravity of the conflict and the feebleness of the
Bush administrations response to it are sparking increasing criticism
both at home and abroad.
We have to have something better to say than just support
the Tenet Plan and the Mitchell Plan, said William Quandt, a professor of
government at the University of Virginia who served on the National Security
Council during the Nixon and Carter administrations and was involved in the
negotiations that led to the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace
Treaty. If [the Tenet and the Mitchell plans] would have worked, they
would have worked already. The Palestinians wont stop until Arafat can
say to his militants this is what we get for stopping, and if you dont
stop Im going to stop you. Right now all were saying to him is stop
the violence. Cease-fire talks in and of themselves wont work. This will
only quiet down if theres an agreement on some kind of political
process.
Bushs so far ineffectual response to the crisis stands in
contrast both to Clintons indefatigable attention to the peace process in
the last year of his presidency and to Bushs fathers muscular
approach to the Israelis. Following the Gulf War, the elder Bush strong-armed a
reluctant Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir into attending the Madrid peace
conference despite the latters commitment to a Greater Israel that would
include the occupied territories. Bush was adamant that Israel could have U.S.
aid or settlements in the West Bank but not both. His successor, Bill Clinton,
was more compliant, allowing settlements to mushroom during the years Israel
and the Palestinians were negotiating the interim agreements of the Oslo peace
accords.
Political price
Many see the current presidents reluctance to become
involved in the Mideast as stemming from the perception that his father paid a
political cost for his get-tough approach to the Israelis. The United States is
home to the largest community of Jewry in the world, and the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israeli lobby, is one of the strongest, most
influential and effective lobbies in the nation. Andrew Killgore, a former
ambassador to Qatar and career diplomat, now with the Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs, said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has an
operating budget of $10 million to $15 million and employs about 150 lobbyists
to assess political candidates for their support for Israel. Politicians
are terrified of AIPAC, said Andrew Killgore.
Politicians at all levels acknowledge there is no political
gain from opposing Israeli forces in this country. In fact, its political
suicide, said Robert Ashmore, a philosophy professor and associate
director of the Center for Ethics Studies at Marquette University and a past
chairman of the board of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign. Just how much
strategic considerations dictate the level of aid given Israel and how much is
determined by the influence of American Israel Public Affairs Committee and
other pro-Israeli forces is difficult to determine. Stephen Zunes, associate
professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, argues that Israel
has served as a convenient conduit for arms transfers the U.S. Congress has
disallowed the government.
Quandt is more skeptical of the strategic value of Israel.
Nobody else in the world provides any aid to Israel. If it were such a
strategic interest, wouldnt other countries be contributing aid?
Quandt asked.
Quandt said the United States should be more assertive about
declaring its own interests in the area and more discriminating in the aid
given to Israel. Quandt criticized economic aid to Israel in particular as
gratuitous and political gravy, given the highly developed Israeli
economy. Im not anti-Israeli. I just believed a blank check is
never a good policy, said Quandt.
Initially, it was supposed that the attacks of Sept. 11 would
prompt a reassessment of U.S. foreign policy and a more even-handed approach to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, the war on terrorism has brought the
United States closer to Israel, which has successfully presented its campaign
against Palestinian suicide bombers as analogous to the U.S. campaign in
Afghanistan, despite the illegality of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza.
Weve been reluctant to apply pressure on the Israelis.
Its the perception that Sharon has been with us on the war on terror.
Sharon has effectively made the case that bombs blowing up in downtown
cafés is the same kind of thing Americans face, said one U.S.
diplomat. That ignores the political realities, of course.
Abuses multiplied
Indeed, the equation of the Palestinian cause with terrorism and
the Israeli government with innocent victims is not as simple as some like to
portray it. In addition to its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in
violation of U.N. resolutions, Israel has been consistently criticized for
human rights abuses over the years, including the systematic use of torture up
until 1999 when the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against it. These abuses have
multiplied since the second intifada, with Sharons policy of force
against the Palestinians proving not only brutal but ineffective and indeed
counterproductive.
It has radicalized the population to the point that
Palestinians who never before thought of suicide bombing as a justifiable
instrument for resisting oppression are coming to the opposite view
today, said Ashmore of the Sharon approach.
There is terrorism from above and there is terrorism from below,
said Ashmore. All the attention in the media today is focused on insurgency
terrorism, but there have been far more victims of state terrorism in history
than there have been insurgency terrorism. The latter often develops in
response to state terrorism, Ashmore said.
Terrorism is the act of governing or opposing governing by
the use of fear and extreme force. Nobody can deny that many governments, not
only today but throughout history, have used terrorism in order to control
populations and subdue dissidents. Many of the people that George Bush has
identified as our allies in the war on terrorism are themselves terrorist
states, said Ashmore, who includes Russia, China, Turkey, Uzbekistan and
Israel on that list.
We today have given the Israeli government a green light to
engage in all the repressive acts it has been committing against the
Palestinians, and that includes illegal land confiscation, imprisonment without
trial, destruction of homes and orchards and political assassination. Every
time Israel builds a settlement or adds to a settlement it is violating
international law. The 4th Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying military
power from transporting any of its civilian population into the territory of
the occupied people. Israel does that with U.S. financing. The United States
has been the umbilical cord for Israel for years, not only financially but with
the use of our veto power in the case of the U.N. Security Council. In the case
of Israel, we have been a supporter of state terrorism.
If Americans fully knew the tactics Israel has been using
since the beginning of the state of Israel, Israel tomorrow wouldnt get
another dime, Ashmore said.
The Palestinian Authority has committed its own abuses, including
torture. In a recent week, 11 Arabs who were suspected Israeli collaborators
were murdered in three separate incidents.
With violence spiraling out of control, many on all sides are
calling for greater U.S. and international involvement. The Palestinians have
been pressing for third-party monitors and an international protection force
for years, but the Israelis have resisted. They dont want monitors to
arbitrate disputes for fear of losing, said Michael Tarazi, a legal and
communications adviser to the Palestinian Authority.
International mediation needed
Now, many Israelis are saying international mediation is
desperately needed.
We need somebody from the outside to impose a process
said Gilad Sher, an Israeli lawyer who was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Baraks chief negotiator during the peace negotiations with the
Palestinians. We cannot communicate anymore without the help of a
third-party facilitator.
Sher distinguished between a process and a solution. We will
negotiate our deal ourselves. But we need some help, Sher said, adding
that the parameters of a future settlement between the Israeli government and
the Palestinians were hammered out in negotiations between the two at Camp
David and later at Taba, Egypt.
Israeli historian Avi Shlaim goes further and calls for an
externally imposed solution. Bill Clinton was the ultimate Zionist. If even
Clinton couldnt sweet-talk the Israelis into a peace deal, Shlaim argues,
nobody can, though the two sides did come tantalizingly close in their last
talks at Taba, Egypt.
In a lecture given at Yale University in November, Shlaim, a
professor of international relations at Oxford University, said that an imposed
peace may be coercive but it neednt and shouldnt be brutal.
Arguably, America would be doing Sharon a favor by walking
him into a peace deal against which, given his ideological provenance, he is
bound to protest loudly in public, said Shlaim.
In their letter to Powell, the English-speaking Christian
communities in the Holy Land called for a policy of tough love that links
funding assistance with policy decisions that express its concern for all the
peoples of this land.
Such a course of action would require a considerable exertion of
political will and political capital on the part of the American president. So
far, there is no sign that George Bush wishes to exercise either.
Mideast: A recent chronology |
Feb 6, 2001: Right-wing Likud candidate Ariel
Sharon comes to power in Israelis prime ministerial election.
Oct. 17, 2000: A summit at the Egyptian resort of
Sharm el-Sheikh arrives at a plan to end weeks of Palestinian-Israeli violence.
The plan soon unravels.
July 25, 2000: A peace summit at Camp David ends
without agreement, with negotiators unable to reconcile competing claims to
Jerusalem.
Oct. 23, 1998: Wye River Memorandum signed
outlining further Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank after U.S. pressure to
end 18 months of stagnation
Sept. 13, 1993: Oslo Agreement signed by Arafat and
Israeli in which Israel recognizes the PLO and offers limited autonomy in
return for peace and end to Palestinian claims on Israeli territory.
October 1991: Madrid Peace Conference opens
December 1987: The first Palestinian intifada
against Israeli rule begins in West Bank and Gaza. |
National Catholic Reporter, April 12,
2002
|