TITLE: 'There's a Feeling Abroad That We've Lost Control'

AUTHOR: Anne Pace

PUB: Ha'aretz

DATE: January 12, 2001

He has been coming to Israel since 1963, and never has his heart been heavier than it is today. Scholar, writer and long-time social justice activist Leonard Fein, the founder and former editor of Moment magazine, talks about the changing perceptions of Israel within the American Jewish community, warns of the dangers of postponing peace, and tells why he believes American Jews need to be involved in the issue of how Israel treats its Arab citizens. What would you say is the prevailing sentiment among American Jews regarding Ehud Barak's leadership, given the events of the last few months? "The current narrative that is most prevalent among American Jews today is very simple: Barak made the most generous offer ever made, more generous than anyone ever expected. Arafat perversely said no, sent children to the front lines to be killed and everything is therefore stuck. That is not the narrative any longer prevalent in the more involved, more 'elite' circles, the better informed circles, [where] the response to your question would be: 'What is Barak's policy?' ... there is, I would say, very considerable confusion about the perception of where the process is just now or how it ought to proceed. " ... There's a growing recognition that the peace process is stuck. The readiness to contend with the possibility that the peace process is over is a different kind of question. I think there's a great reluctance to face up to that possibility. "Shortly after Oslo, it became conventional to say that the process is irreversible. ... I remember writing at the time, 'Don't say it's irreversible. People's capacity for folly is infinite. Read Barbara Tuchman and you will be reminded of that.' I believe now it has been reversed, but I think that that's still a highly idiosyncratic belief, not widely shared and, if shared, not widely spoken of, because it is terrifying to contemplate what that means." Not long ago, a full-page ad, signed by many prominent American Jewish leaders, appeared in The New York Times and many other publications. The ad called on Israel not to surrender the Temple Mount. Do you think this is an issue for all Jews, and not only Israelis, to decide? "The ad contained curious language that said, among other things, 'The essence of the Jewish people is embedded in this place.' Personally, I thought that to be a form of idol worship. The idea that the essence of the Jewish people is embedded in the stones, however revered the stones may be, is perverse and I dare say, simply wrong. The essence of the Jewish people is contained in the Torah and in the values of the Jewish people and in the historical experience of the Jewish people. "Do the Jewish people have the right to participate in the decision-making on the Temple Mount? ... I'm among those who've said that American Jews and Jews throughout the Diaspora are entitled to have their say, but I don't think that the Israeli system is required, in any sense, to take their say into account. I would prefer to define the issue of the Temple Mount as an issue of security and to de-sentimentalize it. "I don't think it has helped the Jewish people or the security of the State of Israel these last years to teach everyone to recite the mantra of the eternal, undivided capital of Israel and only Israel. I don't think slogans or mantras are helpful to the negotiating process. "I lament the reduction of this debate to sentimental slogans. It may be that the Jews would be wise to assert their sovereignty. ... but there are trade-offs on all of these matters. You're negotiating with an entity that has its narrative and its claims. The American Jewish community, like the Israeli Jewish community, is inclined to dismiss without consideration the narrative and the claims of the other side, which are so often expressed in such extreme ways that it's easy to dismiss them." How would you say that the current situation has affected the dynamic of relations between American Jews and Israel? "If you divide the history of the American Jewish relationship with the State of Israel into periods, it's obvious that 1948-1967 was a period of modest pride and modest interest and a friendly attitude, but not of intense emotional involvement. Then comes 1967-1982 and you have tremendous pride, tremendous involvement, tremendous growth and intimacy. And then comes the summer of 1982, [the invasion of Lebanon - ed.] which is clearly a turning point. From the summer of '82, there appears to [be] a distancing. As if some people were saying that to be involved with Israel is to expose yourself to heartbreak and to complexity ... "And now come these recent months, where there seems to be some data pointing in the opposite direction. You have the response to Birthright - tens of thousands of applications. ... Then there's the current wave of Solidarity missions. Yesterday, the King David was empty and today it's overcrowded - because the missions arrived yesterday. And they're not all people with gray hair. These are people in their 30s and 40s and 50s. "I think right now is a particularly unsettled time to answer the question about where the trend is going. ... but I think it's fair to say ... that if Israel is growingly perceived as dependent on force to impose its will, as an Israel whose occupation of the West Bank and sponsorship of settlement expansion continues ... and becomes an Israel increasingly criticized by the international community ... There comes a point when it becomes awkward to defend Israel, the moment that Israel is killing children - you can say they shouldn't be sending their children, but at some level, I think people know that in addition to the fact that they shouldn't be sending their children, Israel shouldn't be killing them." How do you think American Jews feel about the role President Clinton has taken in the peace process? "Certainly, there is tremendous appreciation of his concern, of his effort. A friend of mine back in the States said not too long ago that 'Clinton is the first American president who doesn't count Jews.' Which is to say that he surrounds himself with people he likes, admires and respects, whether they're Jewish or not. I think it may be in part because of his particular relationship with Rabin. He really cared about this issue. "I think he really loved Yitzhak Rabin and felt an obligation to Rabin's legacy, to Rabin's memory." Last summer, when the talks at Camp David were breaking down, you wrote, 'For the time being, disappointment rather than despair is the appropriate reaction to what's transpired.' What is the appropriate reaction now? "Despair. I've been to Israel about 60 times. I never came to Israel with a heavier heart than I did on this trip. ... and I've never felt more vindicated, to my great regret. In conversations with people since I've been here, the mood is one of profound distress, at least. And the optimists among my friends - and I have very few friends who have a high opinion of Ariel Sharon - say maybe Sharon wants to be remembered as a peacemaker. Maybe he will find some way. Maybe his party will lie down and play dead and not prevent him from finding some way. "I think there are people here who are saying time is on Arafat's side, not on Israel's side. Time is on Arafat's side because Israel cannot withstand an enduring confrontation of low-level violence ... Every time peace is postponed, the price of peace to Israel goes up. If anyone had been able to negotiate a serious peace 20 years ago, the right of return was not seriously on the agenda then. Two years ago, the doves were saying give them Abu Dis and that will solve the problem. Who ever thought we'd be talking about the Temple Mount itself, about all the East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods? And certainly nobody thought two years ago that the right of return was going to prove to be the obstacle to peace. "I hate to play 'I told you so' games, but it's a good 20 years since I wrote: 'Sooner or later, there will be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. The sooner that state comes into being, the greater the degree of control Israel will be able to exercise over the circumstances of its birth. If Israel gets pulled reluctantly kicking and screaming into a peace agreement imposed by external forces, there is no guarantee that it will be able to insist on its minimal security requirements. And surely not on its maximal security requirements.' That's why I think there's a move from distress to despair. I think there's a feeling abroad that we've lost control." Do you think American Jews are apprehensive about the incoming Bush administration? "We're apprehensive before every new administration. We're particularly apprehensive before an administration to which we gave so little support, which is a Texas administration from which we are culturally, profoundly alienated, which is a deeply conservative administration. ... And they're coming into power at a time when Israel is not a particularly attractive country, when it does not have the best image. Everybody in Israel thinks it's a question of hasbara. [government PR - ed.] In terms of hasbara, Israel is doing brilliantly well. Most Americans think Arafat has screwed up and that it's not the Israelis' fault, that it's Arafat's fault. If folks like me think that there's enough blame for everybody to share, that's not because of the media." You have been working with the New Israel Fund on an outreach program to raise awareness in the American Jewish community about the Israeli Arab issue. "For 21 years, NIF has had as one of its areas of interest the condition of Israeli Arabs ... the events of October were a kick in the pants that said whatever it is you were doing, it's not enough. We've got to do more, and there are several ways in which NIF is trying to do more. One is the most obvious and immediate way - increasing the dollars that are made available to that issue area ... "And how do you persuade the Israeli government, which for 52 years has been aware of this problem, to take [it] more seriously? The four billion shekels that were allocated in the wake of the October unrest turned out to be a fiction - 2 billion had already been allocated and the remaining 2 billion probably won't ever appear. Left to its own devices, the Israeli government for the next 52 years will do what it's done for the last 52 years, which is to ignore the problem. "So the question is, how do you prevent it from being left to its own devices? And there, the NIF believes, I think correctly, that this issue needs to be placed on the agenda of the American Jewish community. And the American Jewish community needs in its relations with Israel to be asking the government, day in and day out - 'What are you doing about this problem?' ".. the rights and the obligations of citizens, implementation of the promises of the Declaration of Independence ... These are matters of very central concern to the NIF, to its donors, its staff and its board, and these issues are going to be pursued very, very vigorously. ... the NIF asked me to take on some significant responsibility for the American side of the Israeli Arab question, which I define simply as - how do you put the issue on the American Jewish agenda? So the visit has come to be shaped by that question, by my desire to meet some of the central actors and some of the not-so-central actors. The day before yesterday I met with Azmi Bishara to get a sense of one perspective on these matters. I'm meeting the mayor of Nazareth the day after tomorrow. I met some younger Palestinian-Israelis, people associated with Adalah [The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel] and I've talked to a number of Jewish Israelis here who know a lot about this subject ..." How receptive do you think American Jews will be to discussing this issue? "You frame the issue without getting into the heavier questions of national identity and so forth, [which] would be a diversion from the immediate pressing needs - to make sure that roads are brought up to grade, that schools are brought up to grade, that health facilities are added, that unrecognized villages are recognized - the whole panoply of stuff that's accumulated over the years. That's a bag of issues that has to do with fairness and with resource allocation. "Everybody knows it's an issue. Sharon knows just as well that's it's an issue as Azmi Bishara does. But in the scheme of things, it gets pushed aside and the only thing that works so far is the fact that people need the votes of the Arab sector. I think the government may find that it is simply too costly to continue to ignore the issue because it's going to be embarrassing to ignore it. I will do everything that I can to promise that the government will be embarrassed if it continues to neglect the issue. ©www3.haaretz.co.il   END top