Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, faced challenges from two Israeli spokesmen today to his contention that Israel was strong and secure enough to accept criticism of its policies from diaspora Jewry.
Moshe Arens, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, and Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives, uttered their criticisms after Bronfman delivered the keynote address to the biennial meeting of the WJC’s Governing Board. Some 100 delegates from 25 countries are attending the four-day meeting which ends Thursday.
In his address, Bronfman said that “mutually respectful questioning is vital if there is to be a real partnership” between Israel and diaspora Jewry. He argued that Jewish leaders “risk our credibility” with their governments, with non-Jews and “most serious of all … with our children” if they never seem to disagree with Israeli policy.
“When our children ask us about policies that seem inconsistent with the Jewish ideals they have been taught, can we expect that we must not question, only obey?” Bronfman asked. “I think they expect more from us.”
DULZIN CALLS FOR SELF-RESTRAINT
But Dulzin, while not challenging the right to dissent, stressed that there must be some “self-restraint.” He said it was “chutzpah” for Jews in the diaspora to call for the resignation of Israel’s Prime Minister and other officials, as, he noted, some of the delegates at the meeting have done.
Arens focussed his criticism on Bronfman’s statement that Israelis could no longer argue against dissent on the grounds of security. “Given the peace with Egypt, given the destruction of the PLO’s military capability, given the now apparent superiority of the Israel Defense Forces over any combination of Arab forces in the region, the security of the State issue can no longer be the ultimate premise,” Bronfman said.
Arens said that despite efforts to depict Israel as the new “Goliath,” it is still “little David” and has become a military power only by “strengthening every fibre of our muscle.” He explained that 30 percent of Israel’s Gross National Product is devoted to defense and all Israelis must spend years in the reserve.
WARNS AGAINST LIVING IN A ‘WORLD OF FANTASY’
Bronfman, in his remarks, said that while anti-Semitism is still a threat, 1983 in not 1938. “We can never–nor should we — forget our nightmares,” he said. “But we must look beyond the dim recesses of our anxiety.” The WJC leader warned against living in a “world of fantasy” in which a Middle East peace is expected without sacrifice or concessions.
“It does us no good to fantasize that our enemies will suddenly disappear,” he said. “It does no good to think that three million Jews can live among 120 million Arabs without some political accommodations and somehow prevail.”
ARENS CITES THE REAL DANGER
Arens seemed to be addressing this when he noted that “50 years ago world Jewry did not realize the Holocaust was approaching; 40 years ago most of world Jewry did not know the Holocaust was occurring: and 35 years ago many did not realize that Israel’s War for Independence was the last chance the Jewish people had to assure their survival.”
He said the real danger is that “we see the world around us as we want it to be and not as it really is.” Jews are allowing “wishful thinking combined with the chorus of criticism that accompanies every one of our actions to sway us into agreeing to take upon our shoulders risks that we have no right to assume,” he warned.
The envoy stressed that Israel has “sacrificed for peace” and “will continue to do so. But always remember that it is Israel’s strength that continues to be the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Middle East,” he said.
On Lebanon, Arens stressed that Israel, in the current negotiations, wants to be certain that when it leaves that country it will not be a return to the situation before the “Peace for Galilee” operation in which terrorist shells and artillery rained down on northern Israel.
He also said that Israel was seeking peace with Lebanon and scoffed at the argument that if Lebanon made peace with Israel it would be isolated in the Arab world. According to Arens, Lebanon would be together with Israel and Egypt and the Arab rejectionists would be isolated.
NO KIND WORD FOR REAGAN’S PLAN
None of the participants today had a kind word for President Reagan’s Middle East peace initiative. Dulzin said it resembled the Rogers plan, suggested by William Rogers when he was Secretary of State in the first Nixon Administration. Dulzin recalled that it was a Labor-led government in Israel that rejected the Rogers plan.
He said the Labor opposition today rejects many of the proposals offered in the Reagan initiative.
Julius Berman, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the Administration proposed the President’s initiative last September I because it was under the impression that King Hussein of Jordan would join the negotiations with Israel and Egypt. But apparently Saudi Arabia will not support it in this, Berman suggested.
He said that since the plan was proposed by the President, unlike the Rogers plan, it is “very difficult to acknowledge a possible error.” Therefore, Berman said, someone has to be blamed and Israel is being depicted as “intransigent” and its settlements on the West Bank are called an “obstacle” to peace.
Berman noted that at recent meetings with Secretary of State George Shultz and with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Jewish leaders who represented divergent views on a final settlement for Judaea and Samaria were united in saying that the settlements were not an obstacle to peace. He said they stressed that the Reagan initiative has not been successful because the Arab confrontation states have refused to come to the negotiating table without preconditions.
Arens noted that what Israel wants is the type of peace negotiations established by Premier Menachem Begin and the late President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, “direct, face-to-face negotiations without preconditions.” But he said, Israel cannot accept a peace in which no Jews are allowed to live in Judaea and Samaria just as no Jew is allowed to live in Jordan.
The four-day meeting will discuss the condition of Jews in the Soviet Union and other countries throughout the world. Members of the WJC and other Jewish leaders are scheduled to meet with President Reagan at the White House tomorrow.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
