U.s.-israeli Ties Weather Crisis Set off by Capture of Sheikh

Fears that U.S.-Israeli relations might be damaged by Israel’s capture of a Shiite extremist leader and the ensuing hostage crisis have not been borne out, say Jewish community officials and observers.

Even with some public opinion polls indicating a sudden erosion in popular support for Israel, they say, pro-Israel feelings have survived a week of harsh scrutiny and worrisome remarks on the part of President Bush and Senate Minority leader Robert Dole.

“The damage has been minimal, and things have turned around,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“Editorials and talk shows have been very supportive, and the same goes for Congress,” he said.

Hoenlein and others played down the significance of a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken Aug. 2 and 3, soon after Shiite Moslem terrorists claimed to have killed U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in retaliation for Israel’s abduction of Shiite leader Sheikh Abdul Karim Obeid.

Only 29 percent of the 711 adults polled said Israel is a “reliable ally” of the United States–compared to 51 percent who answered positively to the same question in April. This time, 53 percent said Israel is not a reliable ally, and 19 percent had no opinion.

Some 51 percent of the respondents also said they disapproved of Israel’s decision to seize Obeid, who was described by poll-takers as a “Moslem clergyman,” rather than the leader of a Shiite terrorist faction.

Only 30 percent approved of the action, and 19 percent had no opinion.

PREJUDICIAL SURVEV WORDING

By contrast, a Roper poll taken in April on behalf of the American Jewish Committee found 44 percent of Americans believe Israel is a reliable ally, a figure that has shown only a slight decline over the last five years.

According to a veteran pollster of Jewish affairs, the timing and wording of the ABC poll “prejudiced the responses.”

The questions prompted “a far more negative reaction to Israel than reality,” said Steven Cohen, professor of sociology at Queens College.

Still, Jewish leaders acknowledge that the ABC poll — and another by Time magazine and Cable News Network saying 53 percent of Americans believe Israel “went too far” in “kidnapping Sheikh Obeid” — may have accurately reflected the feelings of early last week.

Threats against Higgins’ life prompted Dole to say that “a little more restraint on the part of the Israelis one of these days would be refreshing.”

And in the early days of the hostage crisis, Bush called on all parties holding hostages in the Middle East to release them.

The statement was interpreted as equating Israel’s abduction of Obeid with the Shiites’ kidnapping of Westerners.

Concern about those remarks led the American Jewish Congress to take out full-page advertisements in newspapers last Thursday urging Americans not to “strike out at our closest ally, beleaguered Isael, for seeking to do that which we wish we would do ourselves.”

Five days after the ad appeared in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald and other papers, “the climate has changed,” said Henry Siegman, executive director of AJCongress.

NEGATIVE FEELINGS HAVE TURNED AROUND

Dole has since softened his comments, and Bush has been treating subsequent events in the hostage drama as a possible breakthrough in freeing Westerners held captive.

On Sunday night, delegates to the NA’ AMAT USA national convention in Chicago were assured by a former Israeli ambassador to Washington that Dole and Bush had backed off from their criticism of Israel.

Reporting on his meeting with U.S. officials earlier in the day, Simcha Dinitz, now chairman of the World Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency Executive, said that he was “happy to note that the U.S. realizes that some of the statements uttered at the beginning of the crisis were uncalled for.”

Jewish officials around the country say they are relying on their admittedly unscientific “gut feelings” when they say negative feelings toward Israel’s capture of Obeid have turned around.

In Dole’s home state of Kansas, “I don’t see any crisis in support of Israel,” said Judy Hellman, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Bureau of Greater Kansas City.

In fact, said Hellman, the bureau was able to send Dole a critical editorial from the local Kansas City Star in its letter condemning his “unfortunate” remarks.

EDITORIALS MAINLY FAVORABLE

Michael Greenberg, senior community consultant at the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, concurred that newspaper editorials have been overwhelmingly favorable of Israel’s capture of Obeid.

“We’ve been surprised and pleased by the response of the media in general across the country,” said Greenberg.

Despite these assurances, however, some Jewish organizations refuse to be sanguine about potential damage to U.S.-Israeli ties.

In an uncharacteristically strong letter to Bush sent Aug. 2, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America said “the response to date from the top leadership of our country has sent the wrong signal to terrorists.”

The Orthodox Union urged the president to issue a statement unequivocally condemning the terrorists who killed Higgins and reaffirming Israel’s right “to take such action as is necessary to protect its citizens and to secure the release of hostages.”

The group sent a similar letter to Dole.

And Siegman of AJCongress warned that there is “a certain unexpressed and as yet unsurfaced resentment on the (Capitol) Hill, as well as in the White House, over the slowness of the peace process.

“The Dole outburst has much more to do with that than it has to do with a correct assessment of the hostage situation,” he said.