Israel-Diaspora Ties Set for Turbulence No Matter Who Wins Next Week's Vote
Forward.com
May 14, 1999

By ELISSA GOOTMAN

JERUSALEM - When Israeli voters go to the polls to choose the country's next prime minister on Monday, one of the things they'll be determining is the future course of relations between Israelis and American Jews.

The relationship, which has been strained in recent years over the negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs and the rights of Reform and Conservative rabbis in Israel, could be in for some serious turbulence if, as polls predict, One Israel leader Ehud Barak takes over as prime minister. If Prime Minister Netanyahu stays, others are predicting that the conflict over Reform and Conservative conversions will come to a head.

From across the Atlantic, a host of Jewish organizations are waiting to see what happens - from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which just elected a close friend of Mr. Netanyahu, Ronald Lauder, as its chairman, to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is having Mr. Netanyahu speak at its policy conference next week but denied an invitation to Mr. Barak. If Mr. Barak wins, both of these organizations may find themselves losing ground, while organizations more aligned with him, such as the Israel Policy Forum and Americans for Peace Now, may get a boost. More broadly, analysts here say the election is also raising issues about the ideological underpinnings of Israel as a Jewish state, with some even wondering out loud whether Mr. Barak would see himself as the prime minister of the Diaspora Jews or only of Israeli citizens.

"Israel is defining itself now [and deciding] what kind of a state it will be, whether it becomes a secular state of its citizens or a state protecting the rights of its citizens but where Diaspora communities can have a say," Mr. Netanyahu's adviser for Diaspora affairs, Bobby Brown, said. Mr. Netanyahu stresses that he's "not just the prime minister of Israel, he's the prime minister of the Jewish people," Mr. Brown said. "He constantly took Jewish issues on the same level as other issues. He elevated them." The jury is still out on Mr. Barak, Mr. Brown said. "He seems to not have been heavily involved in that issue....His whole career has been in the military, and the military is obviously one of the small areas where Diaspora Jewry does not have a say," he said.

Mr. Barak himself is less the issue than his "entourage," the director of the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, Daniel Doron, said. "Bibi has a more positive philosophy towards the Diaspora. He still thinks that Am Yisrael [The People of Israel] is important and that, pluralism or not, the religious bond is still the one that ties us together. Most of the people on the post-Zionist new left...are hostile to the idea of a Jewish definition of the state."

The director of communications at the prime minister's office, David Bar-Illan, cautioned that a distinction between Messrs. Netanyahu and Barak based on their regard for the importance of Jewish peoplehood is "a very artificial and very dangerous barrier to put up." For every Jew to feel at home in Israel is "integral to the Declaration of Independence of Israel," Mr. Bar-Illan said. It is not fair to brand Mr. Barak as disinterested, Mr. Bar-Illan said, adding that, "In general, the stress on the bond between Israelis and Jews abroad has been greater in the Likud governments than in the Labor governments."

Labor Knesset member Yossi Beilin, who is number five on the One Israel Knesset list, said that Likud rhetoric proclaiming that party's greater concern with Diaspora affairs "has nothing to do with reality." While One Israel's Knesset list includes both Mr. Beilin, who has just published a book on Israel-Diaspora relations, and the former chairman of the Jewish Agency, Avram Burg, "There are so few people in the Likud party who are in reality [involved] in relations between Israel and the American Jewish community," Mr. Beilin said. Mr. Beilin said that he is in favor of establishing a ministerial post for Diaspora affairs, and that under Mr. Netanyahu, the role of Diaspora affairs adviser has become akin to "a kind of a speechwriter for the prime minister to prepare himself for UJA delegations, rather than somebody who will really deal with the changes" in ties between Israel and world Jewry.

Mr. Beilin said that One Israel is "committed to oppose" the Israeli conversion law, which would codify the Orthodox monopoly on the rite. "On the current agenda, this issue [of religious pluralism] has been the most important issue for the two communities for the last four or five years," he said. The two parties' differences on the conversion law and Likud's dependence upon religious parties for support are "very, very significant," Mr. Beilin said.

The director of the Israel Religious Action Center, the activist arm of the Israeli Reform movement, Rabbi Uri Regev, said that a Labor-led government "is going to be more sensitive to issues of religious pluralism than a right-wing government in which the religious parties are going to play a major role." While a Labor-led government will be "conducive to a better relationship with the Diaspora," Rabbi Regev said, "A Likud-led coalition with religious parties is going to be inviting more crises, including [the reintroduction of] the conversion bill immediately after the elections." However, he cautioned that "we shouldn't go overboard" in embracing Mr. Barak for his stance on the status of the Reform movement. "The fact that Barak is saying...most of the right things does not mean that this is what's going to happen," Rabbi Regev said.

Mr. Bar-Illan said that while the Reform and Conservative movements may constitute the majority of American Jews, they are "not necessarily the majority" among the subset that is concerned with Israel-Diaspora relations.

"There are also many Orthodox people in the Diaspora who obviously do not side with this...desire to have a showdown" over religious pluralism, he said. "How active some of those Reform fanatics are on behalf of Israel is also a question. Some of them are more interested in changing the government in Israel than in actual progress in relations between Israel and America."

A former special assistant for Jewish affairs to President Clinton, Jay Footlik, suggested that those senators and members of Congress who have been the most outspoken in their support of Mr. Netanyahu may have to change their tune. "There are those in the Senate and the Congress who...try to out-Israel the Israelis. They don't have a particularly sophisticated understanding of politics in Israel. What they think they have an understanding of is Jewish power in Washington and fund-raising," he said. Mr. Footlik said that a Barak victory would probably "improve the climate" of relations between Israel and American Jews, who find themselves in an "awkward" position when the stances of the two countries are at odds.

A change in the Israeli government is also bound to shift the balance of power within the constellation of American Jewish organizations. Some predict that the Presidents Conference, which is led by Mr. Lauder, and Aipac, which has a checkered history with Messrs. Barak and Beilin, may lose ground to groups who would like to see the Oslo process move more quickly.

Representatives of the Labor party said they hope that American Jewish organizations who have been supportive of Mr. Netanyahu will be able to switch gears if he is voted out of office. "I hope Aipac will adapt itself to a new government. I think that their power is important, and we will use their power, but they will not remain a sort of super-embassy as in many ways they are today," Mr. Beilin said. However, he said, "We know that changes in government do not revolutionize the American Jewish political system."

The former consul general of the Israeli consulate in New York, Colette Avital, who is number 28 on the One Israel Knesset list, said that if a Labor representative replaces the current consul, Shmuel Sisso, she "really and truly would not like to see a repeat" of the situation she faced during the administrations of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, in which she found herself at odds with American Jewish leaders. A lot has changed since then, she said, adding that she has since received apologies from "people who at the time were so adamant about the peace process and gave me a hard time."

Mr. Lauder has said that despite his ties to Mr. Netanyahu, he will work closely with whomever Israelis elect as their prime minister. The founder and political director of Americans for Peace Now, Mark Rosenblum, said that a Barak victory would present a "challenge" for the Presidents Conference. "It's clear that the two key...lay and professional staff are sympathetic to the current Israeli government and not sympathetic to the policy implications of the potential new one," Mr. Rosenblum said. As Mr. Lauder "has made little attempt...to disguise the fact that he has been sympathetic to the prime minister,...it's going to take a good deal of statesmanship and discipline. But he is the new head of the Conference. His mandate will be a pretty direct one," Mr. Rosenblum said.

If Mr. Barak wins the election, "it's certainly going to strengthen the visibility and probably the influence of the dovish organizations in the American Jewish community," Mr. Rosenblum said, predicting that the sort of "effective and vocal countermovement" that some American Jewish groups formed under the Rabin administration would not be able to function this time.

The Presidents Conference "has functioned with Labor, Likud and unity governments," its executive vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein, said. "We work with the democratically elected government of Israel, whatever that government is. The labels are not important." Issues that the Presidents Conference deals with now, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, United Nations Resolution 181 and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, "have nothing to do with partisan politics in Israel or the United States," Mr. Hoenlein said.

As for Mr. Barak, Mr. Hoenlein said, "I do think he has a real sense of Jewish peoplehood." And as for the American Jewish organizations that have spoken out against Mr. Netanyahu's policies on the Oslo process, Mr. Hoenlein suggested that "their role could be diminished" if Mr. Barak is elected. "They get their visibility by differing with the government, and very few people are interested when you agree with the government," he said.

Representatives of Aipac and the Zionist Organization of America insisted that a shift in Israeli government would not dampen their influence. "Regardless of which government is in power in Israel, Aipac will continue to do what it always does, which is to attempt to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship in areas of consensus in the American Jewish community," a spokesman for Aipac, Kenneth Bricker, said. When asked whether Aipac's influence will wane under Mr. Barak, Mr. Bricker said, "We're the messenger, but we're not the message. As long as there are strong feelings for Israel in this country, the relationship between Israel and the United States should be a strong and healthy one."

The national president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, said his organization "made [its] reputation" under the Rabin and Peres governments. "The issues that the ZOA deals with, which include monitoring U.S. appointments...that affect Jews in Israel and monitoring Arafat's anti-peace behavior, have nothing to do with which Israeli government is in power," he said.