To the Editor:

In “America and Israel: An Ominous Change” [January], Norman Podhoretz—intelligent and eloquent as he is—just has it wrong. Far from a Palestinian state being completely antithetical to the interests of the United States, as he argues, such a state would be to the United States’ benefit.

What Mr. Podhoretz overlooks in his article is the radicalization—in the direction of Islamic fundamentalism—that the Arab-Israeli conflict engenders at this time among Muslims. Islam is not a religion in the Western sense, to a great extent separate from public and political life; Islam is a quasi-political state religion. Because, further, opposition to Israel has become strongly tied during recent years to support for Islamic fundamentalism, continued support for Israel that does not lead to a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict will result in more such radicalization of the Arab world, as is occurring right now in Algeria.

Attempting to remove religion from the Arab-Israeli conflict, as Mr. Podhoretz does for the most part in his article—seeing things predominantly in political or nationalist terms rather than religious ones—is like taking hydrogen out of water: the original substance disappears. The Arab-Israeli conflict is firstly and overwhelmingly a religious one.

This is not to say there are no political or nationalist conflicts in the Middle East; there are, as Mr. Podhoretz points out. But the Arab-Israeli conflict is not primarily one of these, and this is why it has proved so long-lasting and intractable.

Support for a Palestinian state is in the United States’ interest because the only way the Arab-Israeli conflict will be resolved, from the Arabs’ perspective, is by this (and not by a Palestinian state of Jordan). And the longer the Arab-Israeli conflict remains unresolved, the more radical—in an Islamic sense—the Arab world potentially becomes.

Islamic fundamentalism is a non-Western and anti-modern force on the world scene. Islamic fundamentalism combined with nuclear weapons is a prospect worthy of the most profound consideration. There is no question that it is not in Israel’s immediate interest to leave Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. But this does not mean that such a withdrawal is not in the interest of the United States and of the world.

Israel, to be sure, is in an extremely precarious position. How this position came to be, and its relative rights and wrongs, is not the question here. It is, rather, what is to the benefit of the United States? Continuing to assist Israel in its expansionist policies—for these are, rightly or wrongly, truly what they are—is harmful. If Israel wants to go this road alone, then so be it, but this should not be with the help or by the sustenance of the United States government. If there is one thing the Gulf War showed, further, it is that the United States will defend an ally which is threatened with annihilation.

Finally, Mr. Podhoretz’s listing at the end of his article of the reasons for the considerable sympathy Israel has in this country is inaccurate: “It is a sympathy based on a sense of cultural and political kinship, shared values, and common interests. . . .” The absolutely fundamental reason for sympathy for Israel in this country . . . is that six million Jews were murdered during World War II. This was perhaps the greatest crime ever committed. But it does not give Israel forever the right to reign over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, where the majority of inhabitants reject its rule. A Palestinian state in these areas, though with great potential dangers for Israel, is—in the final analysis—even Israel’s own best hope.

Alan O. Ebenstein
Santa Barbara, California

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To the Editor:

It is true that George Bush’s position toward Israel is shaping up into one that is considerably less conciliatory than that of many of his predecessors. But is it possible that this has something to do with the “irrationality” of Israel’s “in-your-face” settlement policy rather than the “irrationality” of the American President? The settlements do nothing to enhance Israel’s security; they distract attention from Israel’s very real security concerns and make them seem trivial and disingenuous. And they are clearly meant to antagonize, for they suggest that Israel seeks to impose a unilateral solution rather than seeking an accommodation with its neighbors.

The linkage that Yitzhak Shamir has created between the settlements and the Russian immigration has put American Jews (and the administration) in an impossible situation. Those of us who eagerly desire to support Israel’s efforts to integrate its new citizens find that by doing so we must also support West Bank settlements. Shamir is not only squandering his country’s scarce resources at this crucial time, he is treating all those who are in a position to help with supreme contempt. This is not only morally indefensible, it is absolutely irrational.

It is always amusing to see Mr. Podhoretz, a frighteningly effective propagandist for Jewish hawkishness, rail about the evils of the ubiquitous Arab propaganda machine. To define the Arab-Israeli conflict exclusively as a Jewish-Palestinian affair, as the Arabs tend to do, is certainly inaccurate. But to define the conflict exclusively as one of the Arab world against Israel, as Mr. Podhoretz does, is no less so. The fact of the matter is that the Arab-Israeli conflict is both. It began as a civil war between two communities contesting the same land. When Israel declared its independence in 1948, it evolved into a war between sovereign states. The next three wars were similar in nature. But beginning with the occupation of Arab lands in 1967 (admittedly brought about by Arab aggression), and through the Lebanon war and the intifada, there can be no doubt that the Palestinians have re-emerged as a political entity with a bona-fide national identity, Arab propaganda notwithstanding. In other words, the Arab-Israeli conflict has reverted back, to a large extent, to its original “communal” nature. To deny this, as Mr. Podhoretz continues to do, is not only baseless propaganda; it reveals embarrassingly outdated thinking.

If Arab propaganda is insidious, then so is Jewish propaganda—both seek to manipulate minds by distorting the truth. I suggest that the politics of delegitimization, as practiced by Mr. Podhoretz and his Arab counterparts, does not bring them honor and only serves to perpetuate hatred, fear, and ignorance.

Why is there “still a great deal of sympathy for Israel in this country,” as Mr. Podhoretz says, if Arab propaganda is so effective? He suggests this has something to do with a perception of “shared values.” Actually, I happen to agree, but it is also interesting to note that there is no longer any mention of Israel as a “strategic asset” now that the Soviet Union has evaporated. I suspect that the “strategic-asset” argument in favor of U.S. support for Israel always held greater charm for Mr. Podhoretz than the “shared-values” one. Now that he is forced to rely solely on the latter, he might want to consider how an Israel that is becoming increasingly undemocratic due to the occupation will continue to impress the American people as a nation with similar values. The status quo in the territories does not bode well for the American public’s continued support of Israel.

Finally, it was refreshing to see Mr. Podhoretz acknowledge the real concern that the Israeli Left and its American supporters have regarding the occupation, namely, that they fear “the corrupting effects of the occupation on their democratic culture.” What a change from Mr. Podhoretz’s customary vilification of those who dare to express a view deviating from what is deemed “politically correct” on matters pertaining to Israel!

Tony Frank
Evanston, Illinois

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To the Editor:

I write to express my admiration (and gratitude) for Norman Podhoretz’s latest article on Israel.

Mr. Podhoretz’s characterization of the Bush-Baker policies as obsessive and irrational is exactly right. What we are seeing, however, is also the consequence of the end of the cold war, and the end of the supposed utility of Israel for strategic defense against the USSR. The old prejudice of the State Department professionals against Jews and Israel is rising to the surface like a submerged rock as the tide goes down. They have always held that our “permanent” interests are with the Arabs—and the Muslim world generally. I think they are doing a good job in manipulating Bush and Baker.

Another factor in the rising tide of pro-Arab sentiment in the State Department and elsewhere has been the emergence of Hanan Ashrawi as spokesman (or spokeswoman) for the Palestinians on the Jordanian/Palestinian Arab delegation to the Middle East “peace process,” which Baker is promoting so assiduously. She is brilliantly articulate (in good American English), and forceful and passionate in ways Americans admire. In a CNN interview with Rowland Evans in January, she bowled over her host with torrential eloquence in behalf of independence and statehood for the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. She sounded for all the world like a latter-day Tom Paine or Tom Jefferson.

She referred throughout to the Israeli “occupation” of her native land in terms indistinguishable from the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe in World War II. One would never have guessed from what she said that the Nazi occupation resulted from Hitler’s unprovoked aggression, while the Israeli “occupation” was of land that was formerly part of the Jewish homeland under the League of Nations Mandate and had never belonged to any Arab sovereignty. Nor would one have guessed from anything she said that the West Bank—like the Golan Heights—had been a launching platform in the Arab wars of aggression against Israel.

Instead, Mrs. Ashrawi spoke only of the terrible oppression of an alien regime, and of the denial of the human rights of those living under a government to which they had never given their consent. Mr. Evans asked about the relationship of the delegation headed by Mrs. Ashrawi to the PLO and to Yasir Arafat. No one could fault the candor of the lady’s response. The PLO, she said, was the government chosen by the Palestinians themselves, and its only legitimate representative. Neither Israel nor the United States—nor anyone else—had the right to say who represented the Palestinians. Although she did not draw the analogy herself, her answer implied that to ask the world to disregard the PLO in the peace process would be like having asked the world to disregard the Continental Congress in the negotiations for American independence.

She also made it plain that by “Palestinians” she meant those in “exile” as well as those living under the “occupation.” During the Gulf War the Palestinians of the Middle East Diaspora were fanatical supporters of Saddam Hussein, thereby making them personae non gratae virtually everywhere else (except perhaps Iraq?). Since their numbers are estimated at up to six million, it is clear that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza could not possibly accommodate an ingathering of all its alleged “citizens.” That is to say, it could not do so on the ground of the West Bank and Gaza alone. Nor could it do so elsewhere in Palestine, without first expelling all the Jews.

Such considerations made all the more interesting Mr. Evans’s next question. Why, he asked, did the PLO not expunge those provisions of its charter calling for the elimination of the Jewish state? Mrs. Ashrawi bridled at the suggestion: why, she asked in turn, should we make such a “concession” without any corresponding concession in return?

One might well ask what the concept of reciprocity can mean in such a case. If “A” demands the right to annihilate “B,” and “B” demands the right not to be annihilated, what concession can “B” make in the interests of compromise? What is the middle ground between existence and nonexistence? Let us make no mistake about it: the PLO charter, to which Mrs. Ashrawi pledges allegiance, calls for expunging all traces of the “Zionist entity.” It denies any legality—or legitimacy—to any actions, either of the League of Nations, or the United Nations, leading to the establishment of the Jewish homeland or the state of Israel. While Mrs. Ashrawi demands that Israel comply with her interpretation of UN Resolution 228, she denies any legitimacy to the original UN resolution of 1947 recognizing Israel’s statehood. Consider these excerpts from the Palestinian National Charter of 1966, as amended in 1968:

1. Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation [emphasis added].

9. Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. Thus it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. [Land for peace?]

15. The liberation of Palestine . . . is a national duty and . . . aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.

19. The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal. [So much for the UN!]

20. The Balfour Declaration, the [League of Nations] Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.

21. The Arab Palestinian people . . . reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine. [Again: land for peace!]

23. The demands of security and peace, as well as the demands of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operation.

The American public is constantly bombarded with references to the Israeli “occupation,” to Israeli brutality in suppressing the intifada, to Israeli intransigence in refusing to trade “land for peace.” Americans hear of Israeli insistence that the PLO is a terrorist organization, but they no longer take this very seriously, particularly when the State Department endorses the Arabs’ claim to the West Bank and Gaza. After all, were not the resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe all terrorists by this same definition? Yet the American public seldom if ever sees the actual charter—or constitution—of the PLO. It is this document to which Mrs. Ashrawi is committed as a loyal citizen of what she regards as the Palestinian Arab state.

It is worth remembering how the peace process between Israel and Egypt began, when it was set in motion by Anwar Sadat in 1977. He flew to Israel, and addressed the Knesset. He said to the Jews of Israel: “I renounce my past.” That past included serving as a Nazi agent during World War II, and also included allegiance to the PLO Charter. Sadat did not ask any compensation for this “concession.” On the contrary, he recognized it as the necessary prelude to any kind of bargaining, in which concessions would be mutual. Of course, in thus recognizing Israel’s right to exist at the outset, he sealed his own death warrant. Mrs. Ashrawi is determined not to make that mistake. . . . In the last year alone, more than 400 Arabs in the West Bank have been murdered by their Arab comrades for fraternizing with Israelis.

How, then, does Secretary of State Baker expect negotiations to proceed, when the strategic goal of the Arabs remains the extinction of Israel, to which all compromises, from necessity, are merely subordinate? How can Israel concede “land” when “peace” is understood by the PLO to mean Israel’s extinction? Why does not the Secretary of State—like Anwar Sadat—demand recognition of Israel as the precondition of negotiations? Why does he not demand that the PLO amend its charter—or that the Palestinian delegation be genuinely independent of the PLO? That “independence” is today a farce.

Harry V. Jaffa
Claremont, California

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To the Editor:

Norman Podhoretz showed his usual perspicacity in assessing the present status of American-Israeli relations.

Israel and its American supporters have been stunned by the contrast between the friendliness of the Reagan administration and the hostility of the Bush-Baker team. This hostility was not so evident in the first two years of the present administration. During the Gulf War and in the period just preceding it, American-Israeli relations seemed almost amicable, for the Bush administration needed Israel’s cooperation in holding together the fragile alliance. In addition, there was the belated recognition that without the Begin government’s destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, the Gulf invasion might not have been possible. Since the war, however, and the disintegration of Soviet treaties with the Arabs, Israel has become an obstacle . . . to the Bush-Baker goal of maintaining cordial relations with the Arab world, and particularly with Saudi Arabia, which in some ways now dictates American foreign policy in the Middle East. . . .

Instead of an Arab-Israeli negotiation, the situation has now turned into a contest between Israel and the Bush administration, just as the Arabs had hoped. . . .

There can be no denying the immense difficulties in the way of a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, with its irreconcilable differences, deep-rooted hatreds, and 50 years of warfare. Bush and Baker do deserve some credit (possibly even a future Nobel Peace Prize), since the adversaries are at least talking about talking. Yet even while we acknowledge the importance of this diplomatic achievement, it is difficult to understand why the Bush administration has chosen this time to revert to the Eisenhower diplomacy of exerting unnecessary pressure on Israel, the only country in the region that genuinely desires peace. . . .

Samuel L. Tennenbaum
West Orange, New Jersey

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To the Editor:

Norman Podhoretz has written in his customary lucid and penetrating style, and I congratulate him on his updated analysis of the change in American policy toward Israel. Unaccountably, however, but perhaps for some inscrutable reason, he has avoided what, to me, has to be one of the crucial forces driving this new policy.

In a family whose chief income was derived from oil, it would not seem unusual for George Bush to be more occupied with this factor than other Presidents. He is acutely aware of U.S. dependence on a cheap and uninterrupted supply of Middle East oil, particularly in a recession that threatens his reelection. He knows the blackmail weapon the Arab cartel can wield by raising prices, arbitrarily if necessary, to force high energy costs on American companies already closing plants and laying off workers. . . . The Palestinians may “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” but their Arab oil backers are not so unsophisticated. They may be welcoming Jews in Riyadh these days, but they also see oil as the key to the conflict—the eventual lever that could split the “special relationship” between Israel and Uncle Sam. It will take a less prejudiced and more far-seeing President than this one to withstand such pressure—to realize that, in the long run, the U.S. has only one real friend over there.

Stanley P. Kessel
Hollywood, Florida

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To the Editor:

Thank you for “America and Israel: An Ominous Change.” To my mind, the irrationality of the Bush administration’s hostile attitude toward Israel may have a sinister source. By abusing Israel, the administration appeases Arab countries. . . .

By appeasing the Arabs, large amounts of wealth are enabled to flow in certain directions: business as usual. Maybe that is what beckons the Bush administration, even if it means placing Israel in dire straits.

Stephen Fishman
Kingston, New York

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To the Editor:

Norman Podhoretz’s article demonstrates the obsessive nature of the Bush administration’s concern with Israel, the hostility of the administration’s intentions, and the irrationality vis-à-vis American interests of the administration’s goals. It is with this in mind that one can best appreciate the broader significance of a recent action of the administration which was widely viewed as undilutedly pro-Israel.

As we know, in December 1991, the Bush administration engineered, through what was widely acknowledged to be vigorous lobbying, the overwhelming rescission by the United Nations General Assembly of the “Zionism-racism” resolution. While generally viewed as a positive step, this extraordinary effort by the Bush administration can better be understood, in light of the administration’s animus toward Israel, as a means of sanitizing the UN itself.

As was seen during the Gulf War, the Bush administration prefers to act under cover of the UN imprimatur rather than unilaterally. As long as the “Zionism-racism” resolution remained on its books, however, the UN could be clearly seen for what it is and was thus disqualified in the eyes of the American public and most other democratic peoples from legitimately playing any role in the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The essential nature of the UN and its inbred hostility toward Israel was not changed by the rescission vote; as reported in an editorial in the December 28, 1991 issue of the Jerusalem Post international edition:

On the very morning of the repeal, 152 nations, including the United States and the USSR, voted to condemn and annul Israel’s “decision to impose its laws in Jerusalem,” and bade the countries with embassies in Jerusalem to remove them. Another resolution, sponsored by Oman, Sudan, and Vietnam, calling on Israel promptly to withdraw from all Palestinian territory, recognize the PLO and “all the rights of the Palestinian people,” including the right of “return,” was passed by a vote of 93 nations [emphasis added].

The rescission, therefore, placed critics of the administration’s hostility toward Israel on the defensive and sanitized the UN in the eyes of many, but left that organization just as hostile and thus even more dangerous to Israel than ever. . . .

Kenneth L. Gartner
Mineola, New York

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To the Editor:

Norman Podhoretz’s frighteningly insightful article leads me to conclude that President Bush and Secretary of State Baker have little warmth or compassion for Israel. . . . When I look at the friends of this administration (former pals Sununu and Buchanan and current pals Syria and Iran), I am very concerned.

Should Bush and Baker continue to use Israel and American Jews as a scapegoat to shore up falling popularity polls, I trust that COMMENTARY will be in the vanguard, exposing this opportunism.

Sheldon Seller
Riverton, Connecticut

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To the Editor:

Congratulations on Norman Podhoretz’s fine article, “America and Israel: An Ominous Change.”

As a somewhat eclectic conservative, I agree with all of it, every word, including his indictment of the feckless Bush administration for believing that some sort of settlement of the so-called Palestinian problem will bring peace to the Middle East. What a laugh.

I myself do not see how Israel can give up one inch of territory. As Napoleon somewhere said, strategy is geography. Without the West Bank, Israel is less than twelve miles wide at its waist. Once Iraq had (has?) the bomb, an Iraqi tank thrust through Jordan just might do the trick, but with the buffer of the West Bank, Israeli armor could certainly smash any such tank thrust. (If the other side had nuclear bombs, Israel could not use its nuclear deterrent.) As for giving up the Golan Heights, who is kidding whom? . . .

Jeffrey Hart
Hanover, New Hampshire

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Norman Podhoretz writes:

It is Alan O. Ebenstein, I fear, who “has it wrong.” For insofar as Islamic fundamentalism is a factor in the Arab war against the Jewish state—and I agree with Mr. Ebenstein that it is—it makes a new Palestinian state even less likely to result in a peaceful resolution of the conflict. The reason is that the religiously based hostility to Israel is, if anything, more intransigent and less subject to possible compromise than the politically based opposition. To Islamic fundamentalists, the existence of a sovereign Jewish state, no matter where its boundaries might be drawn, is an abomination and a blasphemy. This is why the fundamentalists, unlike the Palestinian nationalists, cannot even pretend to favor trading land for peace or to settle for a two-state solution. In their eyes, the entire area belongs by divine right to Islam. Therefore a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza could not possibly satisfy them; indeed, even if (as an Egyptian journalist once proposed) Israel were limited to one synagogue in Tel Aviv and the ten meters surrounding it, the Islamic fundamentalists would still consider it their religious duty to correct this violation of the divinely ordained natural order. Mr. Ebenstein, admitting that a new Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza would pose “great potential dangers for Israel,” nevertheless thinks that it would be in the interest of the United States. Yet his own stress on Islamic fundamentalism belies that dangerous illusion.

If Tony Frank had paid more careful attention to some of my earlier writings, he would not have been so surprised to find me acknowledging that the Israeli Left and its American supporters believe that continued occupation of the territories in question has had and will continue to have a corrupting effect on Israel’s democratic culture. I have said as much about the Left many times in the past. But I have also then gone on to express my strong disagreement with this belief. To me it seems obvious that Israel’s democratic culture remains alive and well—amazingly so, given the strains of living in a state of siege and considering how other democracies, including our own here in America, have behaved in periods of national emergency.

Incidentally, my version of the “strategic-asset” argument has always rested less on Israel’s contribution to the containment of Soviet power than on the value to the United States of a democratic ally in the Middle East; and it still does. Furthermore, I have always been convinced, and I still am, that people like Mr. Frank, who keep insisting that Israel is no longer a true democracy, are helping, in some cases (though not, I hope, in his) deliberately, to undermine the main basis of American support.

This is not to say that I consider the status quo pleasant or desirable. Yet the question must always be: compared to what? Unlike Mr. Ebenstein, Mr. Frank evidently thinks that a new Palestinian state poses no threat to Israel; to assert that it does is “baseless propaganda” and “embarrassingly outdated thinking.” Well, I suggest that Mr. Frank take a look at Harry V. Jaffa’s letter above, and especially the sections Mr. Jaffa quotes from the Palestinian National Charter. And with regard to the Arab world in general, I suggest that he also ask himself why Syria has been importing Scud-C missiles with the accuracy and the range to hit Israel’s cities, and why the “moderate” Saudis are helping them pay for these missiles. Perhaps then he might begin to understand why so many of us—along with a great majority of the Israeli people—are convinced that, short of a change in the Arab world comparable to the one that has occurred in the former Soviet Union, there is no way Israel can withdraw from the territories in favor of a new Palestinian state without placing itself in mortal danger.

I thank the other correspondents for their kind words and their many interesting clarifications and additions. Among these, I am especially struck by Jeffrey Hart’s passionate statement. Mr. Hart was Patrick J. Buchanan’s campaign chairman in the New Hampshire primary, which only goes to prove (as I suggest elsewhere in this issue) that backing Buchanan does not necessarily imply approval of his hostility to Israel or of his advocacy of a new Palestinian state.

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