Reishit Chochma - The Beginning of Wisdom for the Obama Administration?

From remarks given at the Jerusalem Conference, Feb, 17, and excerpted in The Jerusalem Post, Feb 23.

In January 2010, President Barack Obama granted an interview to Time Magazine to mark his first year in office. In discussing the Middle East peace process Obama admitted, “…the Middle East peace process has not moved forward. And I think it's fair to say for all of our efforts at early engagement, it is not where I want it to be. I'll be honest with you. This is just really hard.”

Here in Israel there were people who responded, “Boker Tov, Eliyahu [Good morning Elijah!].” In the United States, the similar response is more direct and not as articulate, and it goes, “Well duh.”

Yes, making peace in the Middle East is really hard, but President Obama’s frustration may actually reflect a historical and almost predictable truism about American Middle East policy in the first year of a president’s term.

The following is an excerpt from Si Kenen’s book Israel’s Defense Line, Her Friends and Foes in Washington. Kenen, my mentor, was the founder of AIPAC. He wrote almost 30 years ago in 1981:

“During the first year of a new presidential term, the petro-diplomatic complex invariably pressures the incoming administration to downgrade Israel and to court Arab friendship. That has been true in every first year except 1965, when Lyndon Johnson was beyond Arab reach. After the election, dust settles on the [parties’ pro-Israel political] platforms and Israel’s foes use inoffensive euphemisms to urge Washington to be ‘more impartial, more evenhanded.’”

Historians can verify Kenen’s formula. Look at Eisenhower’s pressure on Israel to withdraw from the Sinai in 1957, when he threatened to block contributions from American Jewish organizations to Israel. The Administration tried to divide the Jews of America with Secretary of State Dulles inviting a group of major Jewish philanthropists, including leading non-Zionists, to use their influence to persuade Israel to accept the U.S. position.

Jimmy Carter’s term is another classic proof, with him pushing in his first year for a “comprehensive settlement” with all the parties to the conflict, including the Soviet Union. None other than Egypt’s Anwar Sadat saw the folly of such a policy, and he and Israel’s Menachem Begin succeeded in securing the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, despite Jimmy Carter and his initial objections. Carter went on to accuse Menachem Begin of lying on the issue of freezing settlement construction, claiming that it was to be an indefinite freeze. Sadat himself, as well as notes from the meetings at Camp David, and members of Carter’s own diplomatic team all backed Begin’s claim that the freeze was to be for a duration of no more than three months.

Carter was supported by a small group of radical Jews who pushed for recognition of Yasir Arafat’s PLO. The organization was called Breira, and it never amounted to anything very serious, but it served as a precursor of another fringe organization formed 30 years later – called J Street, a group that describes itself as Obama’s “blocking back.” Like Breira it supports Administration pressure on Israel, condemned Israel defending itself, and calls for negotiations with Israel’s most implacable foes. The only difference is J Street’s sophisticated PR and its large budget.

Eisenhower admitted years later that he was mistaken for pressuring Israel. In 1965 he told his friend and Jewish leader Max Fisher, “... looking back at Suez, I regret what I did. I never should have pressed Israel to evacuate the Sinai.”

What was the reason for Ike’s regret? First, maybe because he recognized that with the United States making the maximalist demands on Israel, the Arab states had no reason to make any concessions in the peace process. Why should they? It was a repeat of the British policies of taking the Arab side in the 1920s when disputes erupted between the local Arab and Jewish communities: Murderous Arab mobs attacked Jews in Hebron, Jaffa and Jerusalem, yelling “Addowlah ma’anah! The government is with us! Itback el yehud! Slaughter the Jews!”

Today, why would Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas be willing to demand anything less on the settlement issue than what President Obama demanded just months ago – a full freeze in the West Bank and Jerusalem?

I believe Eisenhower also realized that the withdrawal would lead to war, something we in Israel learned the hard way after the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Neither withdrawal was secured by negotiations with iron-clad guarantees or a change in the uncompromising hatred of Israel – in the 1950s and 60s it was Gamal Abdul Nasser’s hatred that led to the 1967 war; in the last few years it was the hate of Hamas, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, that led to Operation Molten Lead.

Indeed, President Obama’s recent recognition that there is no quick fix for the Middle East conflict may be what we call in Jewish tradition, “Reishit Chochma” the beginning of wisdom. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated it February 14 at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha. “This is hard work,” she said. “I know people are disappointed that we have not yet achieved a breakthrough. The President, Senator Mitchell, and I are also disappointed. But we must remember that neither the United States nor any country can force a solution.”

The Administration as it starts Year Two has apparently finally learned that the linkage of Iran to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations was a recipe for disaster. Half a year ago, a senior White House official reportedly declared, “Any treatment of the Iranian nuclear problem will be contingent upon progress in the negotiations and an Israeli withdrawal from West Bank territory."

What a victory for Ahmadinejad was inherent in that alleged statement.

Since then we’ve come some way toward that “Reishit Chachma,” the knowledge that there is no quick fix, and Israel’s neighbors should pay attention to the messages now coming out of Washington. Sen. John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a close ally of the Obama Administration, also spoke at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum last week where he banished the utopian Pollyannish vision of the Administration’s first year:

“Peace alone will not solve all the region’s problems,” Kerry said. “Ask yourselves: If peace were delivered tomorrow, would it meet the job needs of the entire region? How many more children would it send to school? Who really believes that Iran would suddenly abandon its nuclear ambitions? So we know that Israel/Palestine is central, but we must develop a much more practical partnership that extends well beyond regional conflicts.”

With this more realistic attitude toward the region, there is reason for some optimism as the U.S. and Israeli leadership begin their second year in office.

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The Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem: An End to the Arabs’ Wars of Limited Liability?

There Are Consequences for Choosing Aggression

Published by The Jerusalem Post, August 7, 2009

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s resolute response to a State Department official’s objection to a Jewish building development in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem may actually close a 90-year-old chapter of the Arab-Israeli conflict and bring about a measure of justice. "We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said.

For way too long Arab states, terrorist groups and the Palestinian Arabs believed that they could wage “wars of limited liability” first against the Jews of Palestine and then against the State of Israel. They embraced a fantasy that they could unleash attacks with impunity in an attempt to wipe out Israel, convinced that if they were defeated they could return to a status quo ante, or even achieve diplomatically what they couldn’t win on the battlefield. Territories captured by Israel would be returned and not annexed, terrorist leaders would be honored and not condemned, and Jews/Israel would be blamed and never indemnified. Tragically, that fantasy became reality.

In 1920, the Balfour Declaration, written three years earlier, was a very pertinent and relevant document in Palestine. The Turks were gone from Palestine after 400 years, and the British were attempting to establish their authority. Jews who had fled the Turkish regime began to return, and they were joined by other Jews – “Zionists” from Russia and eastern Europe -- eager to build the promised “national home for the Jewish people.”

Arab clans and local groups began to coalesce and compete to fill the vacuum left by the Turks. They found sympathetic British authorities who opposed the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine and sought to rescind the Balfour Declaration. Together, they opposed the Jewish immigration into Palestine and the Jewish purchase of large tracts of land. The British authorities placed limitations on the formation of Jewish self-defense groups, some of whom included veterans of the British army’s Jewish Legion and Zion Mule Corps.

The Jewish settlement of Tel Chai in the Galilee was overrun by local Arab marauders in early 1920, and within months, riots and pogroms against Jews erupted across Palestine. According to witnesses, the ax and sword-wielding mobs, emboldened by their perception of supportive British authorities, yelled, “Addowlah ma’anah! The government is with us! Itback el yehud! Slaughter the Jews!” as they attacked Jewish communities. They were led by the nephew of Jerusalem’s mayor, a young rabble-rouser named Haj Amin el Husseini. Rather than throw Husseini in prison or hang him, the British chose an appeasement policy and appointed him as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Mufti would later incite more bloody pogroms against Jewish communities in 1929 and launch the Arab Revolt (1936-1939) against the British, Jews and fellow Arabs. The anti-Semitic terrorist leader used his position to garner a following and a status that he would wield for the next 25 years, culminating in his collaboration with Adolf Hitler in World War II.

[Santayana’s admonition, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” was tragically proved true. Britain’s policy of appeasement in Palestine was copied years later when Chamberlain met Hitler at Munich in 1939. And the honors and adulation bestowed upon Haj Amin al-Husseini were later granted to his cousin Abdul Kader al-Husseini, a leader of the attacks against Jews in the 1940s. Similar tributes were paid to another terrorist cousin, Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, AKA Yasir Arafat.]

When the British attempted to arrest the Mufti in 1937 he fled Palestine, and the British made do with confiscating his property. The Husseini clan owned several well-known buildings in Jerusalem, among them the Palace Hotel on Mamilla Street (later Israel’s Ministry of Trade, and now being rebuilt as a hotel), the Orient House (the site of Palestinian Authority attempts to establish its rule in east Jerusalem), and the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah on a plot of land known as Karam al Mufti, named for Husseini.

The Shepherd Hotel was located on a key roadway; just yards away is the site of the infamous Hadassah Hospital convoy massacre in April 1948, prior to Israel’s independence. Seventy-nine Jews, mostly doctors and nurses, were killed on that road when their convoy to the Mt. Scopus hospital was attacked by hundreds of Arab terrorists. A meek British military response allowed the attack to continue for many hours throughout the day.

Despite all of the Arab attacks in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936 the British response was to reward Arab aggression against the Jews and impose draconian restrictions on Jewish immigration. Part of the British mandate of Palestine, what could have been part of the Jewish homeland, was lopped off in 1922 and given to Emir Abdullah to form the state of Jordan. Addowlah ma'anah.

The pattern of Arab attacks and rewards would repeat itself time and again. Limited liability – the Arabs paid little for their attacks. Despite Arab aggression against the Jewish communities in Palestine in 1947 and 1948, Palestinian Arabs still demand today a “right of return” to areas within Israel’s borders since the 1949 Armistice.

In 1956, Egyptian-commanded fedayeen terrorist attacks led Israel to join Britain and France in the Sinai campaign against Egypt. Two days into the war, President Dwight Eisenhower called Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. According to a biographer of Jewish leader Max Fisher, Eisenhower admonished Prime Minister Ben Gurion "... You ought not forget that the strength of Israel and her future are bound up with the United States." This was followed by specific threats: If Israel did not leave Sinai and Gaza there would be U.N. condemnation, U.S. aid would be terminated, the tax-status of charitable contributions would be challenged.”

AIPAC’s founder, Si Kenen, wrote of the period: “There were long and feverish negotiations between the Israelis and Secretary of State Dulles who tried to divide American Jews, most of whom were backing the Israelis. Dulles invited a group of major Jewish philanthropists, including leading non-Zionists, to use their influence to persuade Israel to accept the U.S. position…”

Sound familiar and contemporary? To a recent meeting with American Jewish leadership, President Obama also invited two leftist organizations highly critical of Israeli policies.

In 1957, the U.S. pressure forced Israel to withdraw from Sinai without securing ironclad guarantees against Egyptian aggression and blockades. In October, 1965 Max Fisher visited Eisenhower at his Gettysburg farm. Eisenhower admitted to him "... looking back at Suez, I regret what I did. I never should have pressed Israel to evacuate the Sinai.”

Several casus belli directly led to the 1967 Six Day War. They include Egypt’s naval blockade of Israel, the massing of Egyptian troops in Sinai, Jordanian dispatch of tanks into the West Bank and shelling of Jerusalem, and Syrian bombardment of Israel’s northern communities. The American and British drafters of the 1967 UN Security Resolution 242, while “emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war,” also recognized the madness of returning to the 1949 armistice lines. “We didn't say there should be a withdrawal to the '67 line,” said British Ambassador Lord Caradon. “We did not put the 'the' in, we did not say all the territories, deliberately.. We all knew - that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier... We did not say that the '67 boundaries must be forever; it would be insanity.”

Yet, today, under the Arab concept of wars of limited liability, they and the United Nations demand a complete withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem – “100 percent” -- and a dismantling of the security barrier erected to block Palestinian suicide bombers. In other words, there is no punishment, no price to pay, and no indemnification for acts of aggression. Addowlah ma'anah.

The actions and words of the Obama administration today elicit from Israel’s “peace partners” echoes of that ominous war cry.

“Obama,” noted the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl after interviewing the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, “has repeatedly and publicly stressed the need for a West Bank settlement freeze, with no exceptions. In so doing he has shifted the focus to Israel. He has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud.” Addowlah ma'anah.

Ironically, Abbas himself, recently revealed that once the Arabs of Palestine did not expect the great powers or other Arabs to rescue them, and that indeed they were capable of recognizing the responsibility for their actions. Describing the 1948 flight of his Arab community from Safed, a mixed Arab-Jewish town in the Galilee, Abbas admitted on Al-Palestinia TV last month, “People were motivated to run away... They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations - particularly from the Safed ones. Those of us from Safed especially feared that the Jews harbored old desires to avenge what happened during the 1929 uprising. [pictured: destroyed Jewish homes in 1929.] This was in the memory of our families and parents... They realized the balance of forces was shifting and therefore the whole town was abandoned on the basis of this rationale - saving our lives and our belongings."

The acquisition of the Shepherd Hotel site was carried out according to the letter of the law. The land, first confiscated by the British was administered by the Jordanian government after it illegally annexed the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1950. Under international law, the Israeli government became custodians after the 1967 war. For the last 15 years the building stood abandoned. Soon the piece of real estate will house the descendants of those who Haj Amin al-Husseini tried to kill in Palestine or the grandchildren of those European Jews who escaped Husseini’s ally, Adolf Hitler. Maybe, just maybe, there are consequences for aggression.

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