WZO Delegates Warned That Movement May Become Obsolete if Not Updated

The annual meeting of the Zionist General Council opened this week amid warnings that the Zionist movement risks becoming obsolete unless it restructures itself and redefines its goals.

Yehiel Leket, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization, called for the Zionist entity to be restructured around a renewed emphasis on immigration to Israel, particularly from affluent countries such as the United States. Zionists should aim for the immigration of a quarter-million such Jews in the next 10 years, he said.

With its centennial just three years away, the Zionist movement is at a critical juncture, said Leket.

“There will be either a turning point in the renewal of Zionism or (its) requiem,” he said.

“Zionism’s current messages are not clear and the priorities are not sharply defined,” he said. “The way of operation has not been updated to meet the (current) needs of Jewish life.”

Many Jews in the Diaspora do not understand what Zionism means today, Leket said. “With a strong state (of Israel) and a viable Diaspora, they say, ‘who needs the World Zionist Organization?'”

With its mandate in question, the deliberations of the Zionist Council — the legislative body of the World Zionist Organization — grew most heated about issues seemingly of more organizational than ideological import.

As an organization, the WZO derives its significance from its composition of representatives of Diaspora Zionist organizations, chosen in a quasi-democratic process, and Israel’s Zionist political parties, represented in proportion to their representation in the Knesset.

Much of its power derives from its 50-50 partnership with Diaspora fund-raisers in the Jewish Agency for Israel, whose $500 million budget represents the bulk of the money raised for Israel by the United Jewish Appeal and the Keren Hayesod, the UJA’s international sibling.

ON COLLISION COURSE

These two aspects were on a collision course this week, as delegates were warned that they could either approve a package of proposed changes in the WZO structure — or risk jeopardizing their partnership with the fund-raisers.

“The crisis in the Zionist movement and the gaps between the Zionists and the fund-raising bodies necessitate a fundamental reform,” said Leket.

Delegates had been expected to vote this week on the controversial package of reforms, proposed by the “Committee of Six,” three members of the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors and three from the WZO. But by midweek it was evident the vote would be held during next-week’s meeting of the Jewish Agency Assembly, half of whose 398 members belong to the WZO. The rest are from the fund-raising organs.

One of the most controversial committee proposals is to enlarge the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors from 74 to 120 members. The plan calls for the WZO to appoint its additional 23 representatives from outside its traditional political party framework, to include academics, cultural figures and local elected officials.

Many of the Zionists have resisted this proposal. They see it as an attempt to erode their power and as a frontal assault on the movement’s fundamental democratic principles, which call for the election of its WZO members.

This will undermine the election process and “open the door to non-democratic processes,” said one Israeli Zionist. He said the proposal was a cave-in to fund-raiser demands by a weakened Jewish Agency Chairman Simcha Dinitz.

Dinitz stepped aside from his post earlier this year after being indicted on charges of fraud related to alleged misuse of agency credit cards.

He said he feared that since the newcomers will not come from the Zionist party system, “they will have no obligation to the Zionist framework. In fact, in many ways, they may have (a certain) loyalty to the fund-raisers.”

Others, such as Leket, a member of the Committee of Six, say the expansion reflects the need to broaden the structure of the partnership, which they believe is now too narrow.

He conceded the expansion is a concession to the American fund-raisers who believed they were not dealing with sufficiently diverse Israelis, but he said the change was an acceptable price.

‘IRREPARABLE AND IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE’

“Not accepting the recommendations will cause irreparable and irreversible damage to the very existence of the Zionist movement,” he told the delegates. “You have been warned.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was asked to step in on behalf of the Zionists in another of the dramas being played out in the tense Israel-Diaspora partnership.

At issue is the “exclusivity” by which the Jewish Agency receives all of the money raised by the UJA and Keren Hayesod and earmarked for Israel. (UJA money is also allocated to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has its own projects in Israel.)

The contract between the Jewish Agency and the United Israel Appeal, the conduit between the UJA and the Jewish Agency, expires soon and is being renegotiated.

In these negotiations, the threat of eliminating exclusivity is the strongest card in the American fund-raisers’ deck.

Jewish Agency-WZO Treasurer Hanan Ben-Yehuda responded to this threat this month by playing his own trump card, threatening to sever the agency’s ties with UIA and to raise funds independently if UIA does not pledge exclusivity.

Leket quickly doused the firestorm that erupted, saying the Jewish Agency had no intention of severing its tics. This week Leket said current negotiations with UIA call for a five-year exclusive contract with the option on both sides to review and revise the terms after three years.

And pulling out the other card by which Israeli Zionists can trump their Diaspora partners, Leket met with Rabin on Tuesday, later reporting to the delegates that he had received assurances Rabin was committed to the Jewish Agency’s status as the exclusive recipient of UIA funds.

Rabin said that as a basis of the Zionist-Diaspora partnership, “it would be inconceivable to give up the exclusivity,” Leket reported.