The Drastically Changing Mideast and the Israeli Constant

First published in the Jerusalem Post and excerpted from a paper prepared for the Capitol Hill seminar of the Jerusalem Conference for International Policy, March 8, 2011. New York Congressman Gary Ackerman and I shared the same podium about 12 years ago when we spoke for the American- Indian lobby (Indian, as in Calcutta). Gary was honored because of his close relationship with the country and its American sons and daughters. I was speaking as a representative of one of the world’s smallest democracies. That episode describes several factors in Congress’ role in foreign policy. While it is traditionally the bailiwick of the executive branch, Congress and its members often support, encourage, and sometimes seek to shape American policy. Prior to serving as deputy ambassador in Washington, I worked at AIPAC for 25 years, including 15 years as director of its office in Jerusalem. In that period I witnessed major changes in how Congress involved itself in Middle East policy and how, with congressional encouragement, Israeli-US relations deepened. Consider the changes in American policy that these items reflect:

• When Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in 1981, the US government imposed an embargo of F-16 jets to Israel. In 2007, when a Syrian reactor was destroyed – allegedly by IAF planes – not a word of disapproval was voiced in the US.


• In 1982, a huge American sale of AWACS aircraft and F-15 add-ons to Saudi Arabia led to a bruising political battle on Capitol Hill. The House voted overwhelmingly to oppose the sale; in the Senate, the sale passed 52-48. Currently, a $60 billion sale of new aircraft to Saudi Arabia is being considered, but there are few words of objection. In the interim, the US and Israeli defense establishments set up an intimate relationship of consultations, cooperation, intelligence sharing and joint exercises.


• In the 1970s, NSC advisers objected to members of Congress calling Israel an American ally or a strategic asset. Today, only a handful of Israel’s most strident detractors would echo those sentiments.


• With Israel considered a strategic ally, the US helps develop and fund some of its cutting-edge military technology, such as the Arrow missile and the Iron Dome system to shoot down rockets and missiles in the arsenals of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. US foreign aid permits “offshore procurement” of equipment.


• US legislation has allowed the development of joint research projects in agriculture, hi-tech, science and industrial R&D. Just last year, joint projects in the binational agricultural R&D programs twinned Israeli research institutions with scientists at the University of Maryland, Cornell, Penn State, Hawaii, Auburn, Arizona, UC Davis, Northern Texas, Washington, Oregon, Kentucky, Michigan, Purdue, Nevada, Washington State, UC Berkeley, Michigan State, U Mass, Southern Florida and UC Riverside.


• With Congress preparing such groundwork over the years, the governor of Massachusetts was recently in Israel with a team of officials and industrialists to examine joint projects. Over 100 companies in Massachusetts have Israeli connections. These employ 6,000 workers and generate $2.4 billion.

MANY YEARS ago I heard AIPAC’s founder Si Kenen warn that in Washington the “even-numbered years belonged to the Israelis; the oddnumbered years to the Arabs.” By that he suggested that domestic political and electoral considerations were factors in determining US policy.

But that’s not true today, in part because of Congress’ constant involvement in foreign policy:

• Last month, many observers credited congressional concerns with helping the administration decide to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel.


• In 2009, Congress effectively pressed for strong sanctions against the Iranian government. These measures led to serious disruptions of Iranian banking and shipping. Some countries, but not enough, seeing America’s determination on this issue, joined in.


• And Congress will play a cardinal role in approval of foreign aid, and the nature of that aid, to Middle East countries undergoing historic transitions – countries like Lebanon and Egypt.

Aaron David Miller, one of the US’s veteran Middle East negotiators, asked in Foreign Policy online last month, “Will [the administration] race to coddle and court the new Arab democrats, doing so at Israel’s expense?... In short, will spring for the Arabs turn into winter for the Israelis?” Miller concludes that it will not, and I suggest that spring may well lead to a calm summer.

While the Middle East is indeed undergoing drastic change, several constants will not change. The US and Israel remain strategic partners facing unprecedented challenges. The warfare conducted against the West and its allies is a war often conducted in secret. It is a war of drones and cyber warfare; of unusual measures against nonconventional combatants, such as President Barack Obama’s recent decision to maintain the Guantanamo detention center. In these areas the US and Israel presumably work closely together. The nature of such cooperation must remain secret, despite WikiLeaks best – or worst – efforts.

But perhaps most importantly, both countries realize that to maintain their democratic identities and commitment to justice they must adapt these measures to fit their laws and not their laws to fit these measures.

The shared constant depends on publics in the US and Israel who uphold these ideals. It is no wonder then that support for Israel among the American public, and by extension among its elected representatives, remains at near-record highs.

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Jim Jones' Scary Joke

National Security Advisor James Jones' speech before the Washington Institute last week was parsed and analyzed by all good policy wonks with talmud-like scrutiny.

- Click here for update on this story -

There were problematic parts such as his linkage of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front with confronting Iran. One very positive statement could not be misinterpreted: "Peace must be made by the parties and cannot be imposed from the outside."

Advocates of strong-arming Israel such as Stephen Walt, Zbig Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and J Street-walkers may have been disappointed but they will no doubt find solace in Jones' offer "to do whatever is necessary to help the parties bridge their differences" and will interpret that as a threat to pressure Israel. But they follow in the 40 year-old footsteps of Israel's strongest detractors such as Sen. William Fulbright, George Ball, Paul Findley, etc. who also called to "save Israel in spite of itself." They all failed in their attempt to change U.S. policy.

In recent days, American veterans of the "peace process" such as Aaron David Miller and Richard Haass have put the Israel-Palestinian process into proper perspective and warned against the rush for the Arab-Israeli panacea.

Haass: [I]t is easy to exaggerate how central the Israel-Palestinian issue is and how much the U.S. pays for the current state of affairs. There are times one could be forgiven for thinking that solving the Palestinian problem would take care of every global challenge from climate change to the flu. But would it? The short answer is no.

Miller: The notion that there's a single or simple fix to protecting those interests, let alone that Arab-Israeli peace would, like some magic potion, bullet, or elixir, make it all better, is just flat wrong. In a broken, angry region with so many problems it stretches the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow guarantee Middle East stability.

What should bother American Jews about Jones' speech, however, is not what's in the official White House transcript, nor on the standard video found online from the Washington Institute event, but what's on the tape before he began his official remarks. It's standard practice to open a Washington speech with a joke, often self-effacing. It warms up the audience.

But Jones' joke, posted by Breitbart TV, was a little different. Yes, it got its laughs and guffaws, but afterwards, some in the audience admitted they were uneasy. The joke was certainly not self-effacing, but a "true, recent story," Jones related, that took place in southern Afghanistan with an encounter between a Taliban fighter and a Jewish merchant. In his anger, the Taliban fighter screamed at the Jew "about Israel, about the Jewish people... you people don't get it." And the Jew responded to the "insults against me, my family, my country." See the clip to get to the punchline.

OK, some may not like a gentile promoting the stereotype of a cunning Jewish merchant. But, something else, it seems, should worry my American Jewish friends about the National Security Advisor's depiction of the Jew -- who could be a Jewish merchant in New York, Lima, or Paris -- being attacked "about Israel," and the same Jew feeling the need to respond to insults about "my country."

Doesn't that assume or imply -- perhaps subconsciously -- a belief in the dual loyalty of Jews?

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