A MEMO FOR RABIN: WILL HIS LEGACY BE AN ISRAEL AT RISK AND AN AMERICAN PRO-ISRAEL COMMUNITY TOO FRACTURED TO HELP?

(Washington, D.C.): Sometime soon — perhaps as
early as the end of this week — Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin is expected at the White House. The purpose
of his visit will be to consummate a 400-plus page
agreement that will, inevitably, carve a twenty-third
Arab state out of the tiny amount of Middle East real
estate currently controlled by Israel.

Hunkered Down

To those familiar with the history of the place,
there is a certain irony to Mr. Rabin’s choice of venue
for this occasion. After all, in the two years since his
last White House signing ceremony, the prime minister
has adopted a sort of “Rose Garden” strategy
for dealing with American friends of Israel concerned
about the agreements he is forging with Israel’s
long-time enemies.

Rather than respond to thoughtful, substantive
criticism on its merits, the Rabin government has sought
to discredit the critics. At the same time that public
support for his policies is diminishing, Rabin seems to
be seeking the counsel exclusively of a small group of
advisors, all of whom agree with him — a familiar and
unhealthy pattern. And tried-and-true American friends of
Israel are routinely demeaned as mere “enemies of
peace” and consigned to the growing list of persons
considered non grata by the embassy of Ambassador
Itamar Rabinovitch. Frequently, their motives are further
impugned by the suggestion that they are simply agents of
the Israeli political opposition.

Perhaps worst of all, however, has been the
practice of actively opposing congressional deliberations
about the Rabin initiatives and their problematic
implications for U.S. interests, taxpayers and military
personnel. With the Clinton Administration’s strong
support, intense pressure from the Israeli government and
the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has
helped to dissuade key committees on Capitol Hill from
allowing careful, timely public scrutiny of even such
basic questions as: Should ongoing PLO non-compliance —
for example, with its obligation under the Declaration of
Principles to end terrorism against Israel — be rewarded
with hundreds of millions of U.S. tax-dollars? Should
American personnel be placed on the Golan Heights, within
miles of the headquarters and training camps of many of
the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations?
Should Syria be removed from the list of nations
sponsoring terrorism and drug-trafficking even though
it continues to do both, simply because it signs a
peace treaty with Israel?

Last week, the Senate Foreign Operations
Appropriations Subcommittee adopted a controversial
amendment designed to extend for eighteen months
executive branch authority to give Yasser Arafat hundreds
of millions of dollars. This extension of the Middle East
Peace Facilitation Act (MEPFA) was taken up without prior
notice, even though Foreign Operations Subcommittee
members and staff had been told that a such an extension
would be for just 45 days and despite the fact that
members present at the mark-up were not allowed to see
the MEPFA extension amendment before voting on it.

American advocates of Mr. Rabin’s policies have
seemingly gone so far as to utilize a technique from one
of the most infamous of Rose Garden strategies —
“dirty tricks.” For example, an organization
calling itself the Israel Policy Forum on 12 September
circulated an open letter to the Congress signed by over
1000 rabbis. It called the MEPFA “a key element in
the fight against terror.” There are reports,
however, that some rabbis were induced to sign this
letter under false pretenses. For example, the
appearance as a signatory of the name of Rabbi Israel
Fishweicher, executive director of the Chicago Rabbinical
Council, prompted the president of that Council, Rabbi
Moshe Noble, to write:

“…Our organization does not support the
Middle East Peace Facilitation Act….I have been
authorized by Rabbi Fishweicher to state that he
himself is not in support of the proposed
legislation….We believe that…peace can be
attained and acts of terror controlled only by prior
compliance by the PLO with the commitments to which
they had obligated themselves. We, therefore,
urge [Members of Congress] to give…full
consideration to the Middle East Peace Compliance
Act, the Forbes-D’Amato legislation.”

The latter legislation — sponsored by, among others,
Reps. Michael Forbes, Jim Saxton and Tom DeLay in the
House and Sens. Alfonse D’Amato, Richard Shelby and Larry
Craig in the Senate — reflects lessons learned
previously in providing foreign aid to Russia: Giving
U.S. aid in the face of the recipients’ non-compliance
with solemn international obligations amounts to a reward
for such behavior. And funds channeled through corrupt
and unaccountable governmental entities overseas is a
formula, at best, for squandering the funds; at worst, it
can help underwrite malevolent misconduct.

Interestingly, the officers of AIPAC — increasingly
divided over Rabin policies that the organization has
heretofore been obliged to support — are meeting today
to review the Forbes-D’Amato bill. Coupled with hearings
on Wednesday that were hastily scheduled last week by the
House International Relations Committee, the way may
finally be cleared for an unvarnished, frank discussion
of the true status and ominous repercussions of
the present Middle East “peace process.”

The Bottom Line

While the Center for Security Policy is not among
those who want to see Prime Minister Rabin succeed in
policies that seem certain to put Israel at risk and to
jeopardize vital U.S. interests in the region, it
nonetheless offers him this bit of friendly advice: Start
addressing on their merits the legitimate criticisms put
forward by the Center and like-minded friends of Israel.
A good beginning would be finally to respond formally to
the detailed Center- sponsored analysis produced nearly a
year ago by eleven distinguished experts — including
five former four-star officers, three of whom served as
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — which found that
the costs and risks of the deployment of U.S. personnel
on the Golan Heights would outweigh any benefits.

In the absence of such a substantive response, the
practice of attacking the critics as enemies of peace,
tools of Israeli opposition parties or worse merely fuels
growing suspicions that the Rabin government has no good
arguments to offer in defense of its own policies.
Free debate is in order and long-overdue. If Rabin
continues to insulate himself and to oppose such debate,
he will further fracture the pro-Israel community in this
country — leaving it ill-prepared to deal with the
dangers sure to accompany a false peace.