In an incisive and provocative article entitled "Fallout from Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo and Six Weeks of NATO Bombing in Serbia", Richard Curtiss, Executive Editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1999 issue, writes under the sub-heading, "Kosovo Pits Israeli Government Against Its U.S. Supporters" on pages 10-11:
Leaders of one of the world's smallest countries, Israel, have always demonstrated lightning-fast reactions to world events, thus helping to fashion the media agenda to their liking. Kosovo is no exception.
Israel's most important supporters, the leaders of U.S. Jewish organizations, have been almost equally quick. "We don't have to meet and discuss things," the American Jewish leaders explain. "We already know what we have to do."
This time, however, there has been a problem. Some Israeli Likud leaders, notably Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, took a position diametrically opposed to that adopted by the American Jewish leaders. To Sharon, the fact that the NATO countries were bombing Serbia to halt its expulsion of Kosovar Muslims, and were considering sending in ground troops if necessary to escort the Kosovars back to their bombed and burned-out homes, rang warning bells.
If the bombing restores refugees to their homeland, Sharon told his closest advisors, NATO aircraft might some day bomb Israel to force it to readmit the Palestinians driven from their homeland. "If Israel supports the type of action that's going on in Kosovo, it risks becoming the next victim," Sharon said, according to Israel's largest newspaper, Yediot Ahronot. "Brutal intervention must not be legitimized as a way to try to impose a solution in regional conflicts."
American Jewish leaders, who from the beginning had identified with Serbia's victims, and some of whose organizations have placed advertisements in mainstream U.S. newspapers both to support the NATO military action and to raise relief funds for the Kosovar refugees, were appalled, first with Sharon's remarks and second with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's reluctance to denounce them.
The differing reactions illustrate the divergence in public discourse between most Israelis who can hardly overlook the fact that their soldier sons and daughters routinely harass, oppress and occasionally shoot Palestinians in the occupied territories, and American Jews, most of whom prefer to view Israelis as beleaguered defenders of civilized values against vengeful "Arab terrorists."
The dichotomy was summarized by Israeli journalist Gideon Samet in Ha'aretz, another leading Israeli daily, who asked: 'Why did an Israeli government not instinctively identify with the victims of the Kosovo atrocities'...Because, despite the differences between the two nations, Israel is like Yugoslavia, swimming against powerful world trends while retaining the precarious status of international pariah...Foreign minister Ariel Sharon did not shoot from the hip. He reacted sincerely in initially comparing the Albanians to Israeli Arabs and speaking of an independent Kosovo being annexed by an Albanian terrorist state. In an unusual confession, he expressed the fear that the West could one day attack Israel...Reluctantly, almost inaudibly, Prime Minister Binyamin Natanyahu criticized Sharon. Even after Washington's stormy protest, we still do not know Netanyahu's real views, nor the government's true stand on Kosovo."
American Jews, some of whom have achieved both financial security and political power but still, more than a half century after the European holocaust, instill in their children a self-image as perpetual victims, were shocked at the callous reaction of Israeli's incumbent Likud leaders. But leaders of major American Jewish organizations also had very practical reasons for their angry concern.
Wrote Doug Bloomfield, whose weekly political column appears in many of the Jewish weeklies that bind America's far-flung Jewish community:
"Sharon and Netanyahu...risk doing costly damage to their already troubled relations with Washington. Even their Clinton-hating supporters in the Republican Congress won't be very happy with Israel's sudden reluctance to support America when it goes to war."
Bloomfield's remarks were prompted by concern that the Israeli divergence from U.S. policy might undermine the Israel lobby's carefully cultivated image of the Jewish state as America's "strategic ally." One of the most useful arguments of Israel's American media apologists is that in the United Nations Israel demonstrates that it is America's most faithful friend by voting more frequently with the United States than any other country. They don't explain that this has occurred solely because generally only the United States joins Israel in voting against Security Council and General Assembly resolutions condemning Israeli actions against Palestinians.
This fear that Israel's current stand on Kosovo might puncture the myth of Israel as America's faithful sidekick on the world stage, along with real indignation at Israel's easy identification with Serbian bad guys, is reflected in editorials in two of America's major Jewish community weeklies.
In its April 15 editorial the Washington Jewish Week wrote: "Differences are understandable. Israel and the United States, after all, must be guided by their individual geopolitical and diplomatic concerns. But it wouldn't hurt to tone down some of the rhetoric attributed to a few highly placed Israeli officials, among them Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon. Suggestions that Israel - because of its relations with the Palestinians - might be next on NATO's international hit list are out of bounds and needlessly rankle U.S. officialdom, including members of Congress who are strong supporters of the Jewish state."
In an April 16 editorial entitled "Israel's Muffled Voice," the Jewish Week of New York wrote: "There is something disturbing about the clumsy, counterproductive way Israel responded to the U.S.-led NATO effort to stop ethnic cleansing by Serb forces in Kosovo...Netanyahu belatedly issued a statement supporting the NATO air campaign and suggested Sharon was speaking for himself, but this week his (Netanyahu's) government continued to give the impression that diplomatic and political considerations, including Sharon's new diplomatic initiative with Russia, were more important than standing up against the practitioners of ethnic cleansing...We urge Netanyahu to move swiftly to reinforce his message of support for the NATO and sharpen his condemnation of Serb ethnic cleansing no matter what diplomatic considerations Israel brings to the region."
Stoking concerns of America's Jewish leaders is their realization that President Bill Clinton's stand on Kosovo, and what it will take to repatriate the refugees, may no longer be governed by the polls, or even varying degrees of conviction among the other 18 NATO allies. History has played tricks on this two-term president who came into office with an extensive domestic agenda and virtually no personal interest in foreign affairs.
Because his self-inflicted personal problems consumed so much of his time and dissipated so much of his political support, he will have to share credit with his Republican rivals for what little of his domestic agenda was enacted. Meanwhile, the Somalia, Iraq and Israel-Palestine policies bequeathed him by the administration of President George Bush all have turned into fiascos on Clinton's watch. Even the rapprochement with Russia has fallen apart.
Clinton's only foreign policy success, the Bosnia settlement, came 200,000 lives too late and only after prodding by his Republican rival, Sen. Bob Dole. Kosovo, therefore, is Clinton's very last chance for any unqualified foreign policy accomplishment for the history books. After Kosovo, there will be no time left in his second and last term for anything else, either foreign or domestic.
Happily for Clinton, his Republican opponents are divided over the issue, with the party's isolationist wing, personified by presidential candidates Pat Buchanan and Dan Quayle, arguing that the U.S. should not be involved at all, and the party's moderate wing, led by former Naval aviator, POW and presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, criticizing Clinton only for not preparing adequately in advance and not committing "whatever it takes to win."
Accordingly, there is little doubt that Clinton will bomb for as long as required. Also, although the confident and outspoken British Prime Minister Tony Blair may have to provide the leadership, it is likely that Clinton will join some other NATO allies in sending in ground troops when they are ready and if they are needed.
What is equally likely is that Clinton, and Americans of both parties, will not forget who stood with them and who did not in this second, unprecedented U.S.-led effort by Europe's Christian powers to rescue a victimized Muslim minority.
Middle Eastern states, who have been as slow to react politically as the Israelis were quick, might profitably take note. It could even be a first step in turning Sharon's nightmare into reality. <end>
Thought for the Day:
"NATO has already broken all its teeth trying to cripple Yugoslavia. Two thirds of the world's fire power - NATO's firepower - cannot cope with Yugoslavia. So what would they do with China, with India, with Russia or Indonesia or whatever other countries?"
(Michail Gorbachev, in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio, reported in Sydney, May 24, 1999)
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