Behind the Headlines: American Vote in U.N. Highlighted Differences Between U.S. Jews, Israel

As soon as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the Hebron massacre, American Jewish groups rushed to condemn the United Nations for referring to Jerusalem as occupied territory.

And many deplored the failure of the United States to veto the resolution, even though it abstained — in a highly unusual and demonstrative manner — from the paragraph containing that reference and later voiced its strong objection to the language.

But the quick condemnations were only part of the story.

Before the vote, neither of the two most powerful Jewish voices in Washington — that of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations — pressed the administration for a veto.

Other groups did ask for a veto, including the U.S. Senate, which unanimously passed a resolution to that effect.

But this time the American Jewish leadership heeded the request of an important concerned party — Israel. The Israeli government wanted the U.N. resolution to pass.

Israeli officials were grateful for the political gains achieved by the Senate measure, similar congressional letters and some pressure from American Jewish groups.

But they were also somewhat concerned that these measures might actually succeed in torpedoing the Security Council resolution.

The resolution’s wording had been hammered out between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the United States with constant consultation with Israel. And for Israel, it was one of the smallest prices the PLO was demanding for returning to the negotiating table.

Talks between Israel and the PLO were abruptly cut off after a Jewish settler gunned down at least 29 Arabs in a Hebron mosque on Feb. 25.

“We want this resolution behind us so we can focus on the peace talks,” said an Israeli official prior to the vote, expressing the official view.

The pressure on the White House “is all internal Jewish politics,” said the official. “We were not encouraging them, we were not asking them to do so. Rabin didn’t ask Clinton to veto the resolution.”

More than anything else, the need for Israeli officials to tell American Jewish groups not to lobby for a veto — and the desire of some groups, and many congressional supporters of Israel to fight for a veto anyway — highlights the fact that American Jews are no longer just echoes of the Jerusalem side of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Instead, they constitute a third point in what has become a triangular relationship.

DIFFERING PRIORITIES

And the differences that arose over the U.N. resolution reflected the differences between American Jewish and Israeli priorities.

For one thing, American Jews attach much greater significance to the power of words than do the Israelis.

For Israelis, the reaction to a U.N. condemnation has long been: “So what?” That was particularly true this time, when the offending language had been approved by the Security Council 15 months earlier, and this time was only in the preamble.

For American Jewish groups for whom the weapon of choice is the press release, however, words are much more important.

Also relevant was that while Israel had its eyes on how the PLO would respond, American Jewish groups had their eyes on the White House.

They were concerned that the Clinton administration not backtrack from previous promises about Jerusalem and the territories.

“Any diminution of the position articulated before by the president obviously will be seen with concern,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents, explaining the concern his group expressed to the administration prior to the U.N. vote.

Clinton had during his 1992 campaign attacked then-President Bush for approving objectionable language in Security Council resolutions. During last fall’s General Assembly sessions, the United States voted against resolutions on the grounds that they included Jerusalem among the “occupied territories.”

The flurry of Jewish activism in Washington last week may have also reflected the fissures between some in the organized American Jewish community and the Labor government in Israel. Some in the community here are concerned that Rabin’s government is conceding too much to the Arabs in the peace talks.

And it foreshadowed conflicts that could arise in the event that Israel deviates from the position, restated by Rabin in Washington last week, that Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal, undivided capital.

“When it comes to Jerusalem, there is a general consensus that world Jewry has the right to take positions,” said Hoenlein.

LANGUAGE WAS THE SMALLEST PROBLEM

But as far as the Israelis were concerned, language referring to Jerusalem was the least of the problems in the lengthy consultations over the Security Council resolution.

Israel’s first priority had been ensuring that the call for an international force to protect Palestinians was in keeping with the terms of the Israeli-PLO accord — which called for an international presence — and not the sort of armed peacekeeping troops favored by the Palestinians.

The other Israeli priority was to ensure that passage of the resolution would indeed bring the PLO back to the negotiating table.

But the PLO repeatedly refused to commit to resuming the talks, delaying the vote on the resolution for more than a week.

That gave time for American Jewish concern over the Jerusalem issue to percolate.

A move to call for a veto was voted down in AIPAC’s executive committee, after the group was made aware of Israeli opposition to a veto.

The Conference of Presidents issued a statement saying it was “absolutely opposed” to the language referring to Jerusalem. But its absolute opposition did not extend to asking for a veto.

But the Zionist Organization of America and, at the 11th hour last Friday, the Anti-Defamation League, came out for a veto.

For the Israeli government and its American supporters, the congressional resolution was a good thing — as long as the White House did not heed it.

Among some of those who supported the call for a veto, however, one could detect strong reservations as to the Israeli government’s judgment on how to best advance the peace process.

So, after the vote, how do the Israelis view American Jewish involvement on the issue?

“I think they were concerned that American Jews were unable to grasp the difficulty of the choice, and that at least some American Jews were inclined to put symbolic action above the peace process,” said one person familiar with Israeli thinking.

“But in the end they were pleased in the way the leadership of the Jewish community acted, which was by and large in accord with the way the government wanted.”