Henry Siegman, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, charged last week that Israel’s Labor government is “making a very serious mistake” by not trying to build a consensus among American Jews for its policies in the peace process.
The Labor Party is not bringing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s “message to U.S. Jews” because Rabin believes he does not need their support, Siegman said.
Rabin, he said, “has excellent relations with the (U.S.) administration and therefore thinks he doesn’t need” American Jews’ intercession.
“His perception is ‘they don’t count,'” Siegman claimed.
Likud, Siegman pointed out, never made that mistake, making sure its people persuaded organized American Jewry of its strategic platform that “territory equalled security.”
But Labor has utterly failed to counter the well-entrenched Likud resistance to the idea of territorial concessions, Siegman believes.
Thus, the Labor government has laid no foundation to prepare the U.S. Jewish community for what is a cornerstone of its peace plans, he said.
Siegman made his remarks to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency while he was at a conference on relations between Israel and North American Jewry held at Ben-Gurion University.
Siegman’s criticism was especially noteworthy given his longtime identification with the Labor Party and its policies.
The American Jewish organizational leader believes Labor’s failure to build consensus among American Jews could lead to an uncomfortable position for the Clinton administration in the peace process, placing it between Israel and its own domestic Jewish constituency.
He argued that Israel has left itself open to recent right-wing attacks on its policies, which in turn have a greater impact on American Jews than they otherwise might have.
BLASTS PODHORETZ’S ‘HYPOCRICY’
One example Siegman cited were recent charges by Norman Podhoretz, editor of the neo-conservative magazine Commentary, that the Rabin government’s policies jeopardize Israel’s security and unwisely depend upon assumptions that there has been a change of heart by the Syrians and the Palestinians.
Siegman has blasted Podhoretz for reversing his long-held claim that it is morally wrong for American Jews to criticize Israel’s security policies, now that he finds himself in opposition to the new dovish government.
Last week, Siegman said that while he attacks Podhoretz’s “hypocrisy, I will be the first to defend his right” to criticize the Israeli government.
In turn, however, Siegman refuted Podhoretz’s charges. He argued that Labor believes retaining the West Bank and Gaza Strip, along with the people who live there, actually diminishes Israel’s security.
Furthermore, he argued that such concerns as an Arab state of mind are “ephemeral” and do not form the basis of Rabin’s peace program.
“It would be reckless for Israel to plan its security on such ephemeral considerations,” he wrote in an article recently submitted to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.
Rather, Rabin and the Labor Party “believe that, on balance, given the choice of holding onto these territories or giving them up in favor of very specific military arrangements that are implemented and monitored by Israel, Israel’s security is far better served by the latter,” he wrote.
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