Israeli and American Jewish leaders appear to have decided that Secretary of State James Baker’s tough speech on the Middle East two weeks ago was not so bad after all.
Seymour Reich, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, last week described the secretary of state’s May 22 address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as “basically a good speech.”
And Moshe Arad, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, said the speech “signals there is no significant change in American policy toward Israel. There is no change in our relationship.”
Arad and Reich spoke at separate sessions of the American Jewish Press Association’s annual convention, which ended here on Friday.
Their appraisal of Baker’s address to AIPAC’s annual policy conference contrasted sharply with the reactions of top Israeli officials in the days immediately following the speech.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir used the word “useless” to describe the address, and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens said Baker’s remarks had undermined Israel’s international campaign to promote a new peace initiative.
But Arad urged a roomful of Jewish journalists last Thursday night not to “focus on the 30-second sound bites” used by the mainstream media to characterize the Baker policy statement.
He noted that the speech contained a number of positive elements, including an affirmation of the U.S.-Israeli strategic relationship, a reiteration of the U.S. government’s opposition to an independent Palestinian state and initial praise for the new Israeli peace plan.
THE ‘GREATER ISRAEL’ PLEA
Nevertheless, Arad said, there are “important elements in Mr. Baker’s speech that we differ with.”
Chief among these appears to be the secretary’s plea that Israelis give up their dream of a “Greater Israel” — a term that generally refers to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“The fact is that no Israeli government since 1967, be it Labor or Likud, has moved unilaterally to annex these territories,” Arad said.
He said it was “historically inaccurate and thus unfair” to suggest that Israel had taken control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip with some “grandiose, imperialist” design of expanding the boundaries of modern Israel.
Arad also made a point of saying that when differences arise between Israel and the United States, “they are best treated in discreet diplomacy, rather than in public debate.”
It is, in fact, the public articulation of U.S. policy in the Middle East, rather than the policy itself, that seems to have caught Israeli and American Jewish leaders off guard.
Reich observed in his remarks to the press group that in the weeks prior to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s visit to Washington, the Bush movement “was engaging in a pincer movement” to pressure Israel.
First, the administration demanded that Shamir bring “new ideas” to Washington. Then, during Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s visit that immediately preceding Shamir’s, Bush made a point of saying that the United States opposed Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip — a word that “caused discomfort to some of us,” Reich said.
Shamir’s plan was warmly welcomed by the administration — and the American Jewish leadership — as something that was not just “Camp David warmed over.”
Then, a few weeks later, came the Baker speech, which Reich described as “balanced,” but also “cold” and sometimes “out of context.”
ONLY TACTICAL DIFFERENCES
In the end, however, both Israeli and American Jewish leaders point out that Washington and Jerusalem are in virtual agreement on the peace process:
Both favor an end to the violence in the territories and elections there to bring about an interim period of Palestinian self-rule. Neither wants to see the creation of an independent state run by the Palestine Liberation Organization.
There are some differences, but these are mainly tactical: The United States favors some sort of international supervision of the Palestinian elections, while Israel is prepared only to guarantee, in Arad’s words, that they will be “free, uninhibited, unhindered.”
The Bush administration also believes that a dialogue with the PLO may help advance the peace process, while Israeli leaders see such contacts as destructive.
The only potential substantive difference is the question of the final status of the territories — an issue Israel maintains should not be discussed until a later date.
Reich noted that the last Israeli government spoke with two voices on this matter: one offering “land for peace” and the other vowing to return “not one inch.”
The current Israeli government has prided itself on speaking with one voice. But on this subject, there has been no consensus.
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