Despair over US-Israeli Connection

June 16, 2010

By W. Scott Thompson*

BACK in the Cold War days, I asked the famous American strategist Paul Nitze what the value of the Israeli connection was. He had the reputation, long after it had become politically incorrect, of being a bit anti-Semitic; most of his generation was, in America in the upper levels, if they were “Wasps” (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants), until they got scared or reasoned out of it. His response threw me. “The Jews, they can fight,” he said.

Yes, it was possible we really were going to go mano-a-mano with the Soviets, and everything would count if it got down to that. I don’t think my generation ever thought for a minute that such would happen. But if you really thought the Cold War would become hot — nuclear weapons, local allies winning at theatre level, the great battle on the North German plain — you’d value Israel even if you didn’t like Jews.

Suddenly, there’s a veritable storm in America about the strategic value of Israel. But it’s more than just the disappearance of the Cold War. Only a few old Cold Warriors thought about that anyway in the last two decades. It was the “Lobby” that made the difference. For a generation, we came to see that to utter a word that could be construed as anti-Israeli on anything was politically ruinous, even if you were just echoing the Israeli Left.

I just read a piece by two Israelis on how the Venice Declaration of 1980 calling for a two-state solution should have been noted then rather than laughed at by Menachim Begin in Jerusalem. I should know; I helped draft a similar American position for a presidential candidate in late 1979, and it ruined poor Governor John Connolly and made me a target of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Well, the long-time doyen of the Washington press corps, Helen Thomas, made a silly statement last week , that the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine… remember these people are occupied and it’s their land… they can go home, Poland, Germany and America…”. She’s almost 90, and should have known better.

But it shows something important. Obviously, for the 60 years or so she’s been in the press, she’s had to keep her peace while being intimidated out of more reasonable positions on Middle East issues. Now that she’s a little dotty, it came out all wrong. But it came out at all only because the “Lobby” has lost a lot of its steam. She no longer felt intimidated.

A one-time colleague, Anthony Cordesman, a most respected defence analyst, has now weighed in. After the required emphasis on how “we’ll never desert Israel”, he then deserts Israel — at least the Netanyahu version.

As does almost everybody else, including a substantial number of Israelis, who wonder about the wisdom of trying to push the American leader around when he’s all they have’ve got, beyond Jewish money in America with which to heavily subsidise American congressional elections.

And it’s a lot more significant that Israelis are even asking if the “Israeli proposition” can survive. But the answer to the question of whether the government in Jerusalem (illegally there, as it happens) can pull back and honour the American connection as we’ve always honoured that with Israel — I think it’s just too late. The cat is out of the bag.

General David Petraeus, President Barack Obama and so many others apart from congressmen waiting for their AIPAC allowance ask the question over and over: “It’s obvious what we do for them, but what do they do for us?”

The old chestnut about their being a thriving democracy in a region hostile to our values doesn’t stand up too well now that Israel is seen (all over Europe, for example) as a pariah, illegitimate state, with a wall like Berlin’s and an ethnic policy looking like apartheid South Africa’s. France boycotted an Israeli film, substituting one about a young American girl killed by Israeli bulldozers.

In California, a five-term congressman from California, Tom Campbell, ran a strong if under-financed race against Carly Fiorina, the ex-CEO of Hewlett Packard, for the Republican nomination for the ripe Senate seat now held by super-lib Barbara Boxer.

The incredible thing is that he has stood up to AIPAC and even voted against rises in US aid to Israel. He would have been splattered at the state level a few years ago. Campbell was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage as well, and still almost pulled off a victory.

If Nitze were still alive, my guess is he’d recommend scrapping the Israeli connection down to its bare bones, down to a simple but formal alliance commitment to defend it if its survival is threatened.

But he’d probably ask the question: if this were 10 years from now and Greater Israel (with its occupied lands) didn’t have a majority of Jews anymore, what is it now that we would be defending and what are they doing for us?

If Israelis can’t answer that question helpfully, they really should indeed despair of the American connection that they have taken so long for granted. The Europeans have de-legitimised Israel; we of America have not — but they need some help to save themselves.

*The writer is emeritus professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University–www.nst.com.my

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