For 90 minutes Tuesday, Jewish community leaders from across the country engaged in a passionate debate here on a topic they rarely discuss publicly: Israel’s settlement policies in the administered territories.
No formal action was taken following the discussion at the annual plenum of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council. And many of the exchanges focused not on the wisdom of the settlement policies themselves but on the propriety of American Jews expressing their views on this topic in a public forum.
While the fact that the discussion was held at all was initially viewed here as a partial victory for opponents of the settlement policies, they could not have been pleased by the overwhelming sentiment in the plenum hall.
Judging from the views expressed by nearly 50 speakers who took the microphones, the longstanding American Jewish practice of not taking issue with Israeli policies remains dominant among representatives of the more than 100 local community relations councils and 13 national organizations that comprise NJCRAC.
By a margin of roughly 2-1, advocates of silence on the issue outnumbered critics of the settlements.
The debate came as settlement opponents were looking to follow up on their victory at the NJCRAC plenum in 1990, when the delegates narrowly passed a resolution urging the organization’s leadership to take into account the impact of the settlements when drawing up NJCRAC policy statements.
UNANIMITY ON LOAN GUARANTEES
But the atmosphere at this year’s debate was closer to the uncritical tone of last year’s conference, held during the height of the Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi Scud missiles were raining down on Tel Aviv.
David Luchins, a delegate from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, offered one explanation as to why there was also little willingness to take stands against Israel during this year’s session.
“Bush was the equivalent of Scuds,” he said, referring to the U.S. president’s confrontational tactics regarding Israel and its request for U.S. loan guarantees.
Two hours after the settlement debate, the plenum unanimously approved a resolution urging the United States and Israel to reach agreement on the guarantees, which would enable Israel to borrow billions of dollars from commercial banks at favorable rates, to finance the absorption of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
One delegate who spent much of this week rallying support for a no-criticism policy on the settlements said the key argument in her arsenal was that criticism could only hurt the fight for loan guarantees.
But Theodore Mann, who began the debate with a presentation urging the delegates to call for a freeze on settlements, made the opposite argument.
“Isn’t it obvious by now that the opposite is true? That it is the frenetic settlement boom that is jeopardizing the loan guarantees? That the provocative settlement drive” mounted by Israel “may well bring an end to the peace process?” he asked.
Mann, who is a past chair of NJCRAC and past president of the American Jewish Congress, argued that Jews could not remain silent.
“By expressing our concerns, honestly and openly, we will strengthen the pro-moratorium forces in Israel and give life to peace negotiations and loan guarantees,” he argued.
“By remaining silent, we strengthen pro-settlement forces in Israel by making it possible for Israeli leaders to claim that American Jewry supports them.”
LIVES ARE ‘NOT ON THE LINE’
His eloquent appeal for criticism was matched by an equally moving call for silence.
“How can we pretend there is consensus on what Israel should do, or that we can forge one?” asked Michael Kotzin, director of Chicago’s Jewish Community Relations Council.
“There has been a longstanding recognition that it is not appropriate to criticize Israeli policy, particularly on security issues,” he said.
“Our lives, and those of our families, are not on the line,” he said, pointing out that he had felt free to protest Israeli policies when he lived in Israel and put his life on the line serving army duty in the Gaza Strip.
“I agree our lives are not on the line,” countered Rabbi Albert Vorspan, senior vice president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
“But if we believe something else is on the line, namely the future of Soviet Jewish aliyah, do we have to be silent about that? If we believe U.S.-Israel relations are on the line, do we have to be silent about that? If we believe there’s an opportunity for peace, do we have to be silent about that?
“Silence is not neutrality,” he argued. “Silence is acquiescence.”
Only three speakers explicitly defended the settlements instead of opposing criticism of them.
On the other side, a few speakers stressed not what was wrong with settlements but what was right about speaking out.
“We can’t afford to take our moral sensibility and turn it over to the Israeli government or any government,” argued one speaker.
JERUSALEM WILL GET TRANSCRIPT
But another delegate dismissed the notion that the issue was one of stifling expression.
“We have a lot of people in this room whose opinions have been heard and have not been taken,” said the chair of one community relations council.
“They should grow up and recognize that on June 23, the Israeli people will decide,” she said, referring to the date of Israel’s Knesset elections.
The inconclusive nature of the debate, said one delegate, mirrored that of the community she represented.
“We spent hours deliberating this topic,” she said. “In the end, we were unable to achieve consensus. We remain united on the importance of loan guarantees and not linking it to any other issues.”
Arden Shenker of Portland, the outgoing NJCRAC chair, said a transcript of the debate would be delivered to the Israeli government within 48 hours.
Shenker said he expected that top Israeli officials would study it closely.
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