It took a decade, but there are stirrings of realism in the American Jewish community. Except for the incorrigible Americans for Peace Now, the organizations that make up the Presidents Conference have lost enthusiasm for Oslo. They have ceased berating Israel for failing to make more concessions more quickly. A few have gone further. The Zionist Organization of America has moved beyond urging compliance by the PA with its undertakings (for years even this seemingly obvious demand was considered "extreme" by most of the Presidents Conference) and has come out forcefully against a Palestinian state. It has been joined by the Jewish War Veterans, JINSA (the Jewish Institution for National Security Affairs) and, the only Orthodox group to sign on, the National Council of Young Israel.
The American Jewish Committee, once one of the most ardent on the Oslo bandwagon (it mounted an elaborate publicity campaign in its support), has now produced a first-rate study of the UN's anti-Israel obsession and funded a series of ads focusing on Israel's ordeal by suicide-bombing. The Anti-Defamation League, which a few years back issued a defamatory study of the religious right, now recognizes this community as a major ally in support of Israel.
Even some Hollywood types (admittedly few) are raising their voices. In the Forward, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and screenwriter David Mamet writes of his visit to Israel: "How, I wonder, can I not be here, and how is it possible that I did not come here in my youth and 'grow up with the country' instead of wasting my time in show business?" "Here in Israel," writes Mamet, are "actual Jews, fighting for their country, against both terror and misthought public opinion, as well as disgracefully biased and, indeed, fraudulent reporting. Here are people courageously going about their lives, in that which, sad to say, were it not a Jewish state, would, in its steadfastness, in its reserve, in its courage, rightly be the pride of the Western world."
"If you love the Jews as victims," writes Mamet, "but detest our right to statehood, might you not ask yourself 'why?' That is your debt to the Jews. Here is your debt to the Jewish state. Had Israel not in 1981 bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, some scant weeks away from production of nuclear bomb material, all New York (God forbid) might have been Ground Zero."
While most Israeli leftists have continued to hang on to Oslo with messianic faith, a few have opened their eyes. Among them is writer (and Holocaust survivor) Solly Ganor, who recently -- ruefully -- published a letter he had written to a publisher in September 1993 when Oslo was first announced and Ganor's chief worry was that Arafat might be killed or Hamas defeat Arafat. Despite such anxieties, Ganor had been euphoric, writing: "Whatever happens peace is now inevitable. Thank God."
Today, a disillusioned Ganor draws on his Holocaust experience. " It reminds me of the hopes we were fed by the Nazis, when they made a selective action in our ghetto of Kaunas, Lithuania. After the 'Big Action' on October 28, 1941, ten thousand Jewish men, women and children, most of them the elderly and the very young, were separated from the rest of us and were sent to the 9th Fort. The 9th Fort was the killing grounds where Jews from our ghetto and from all over Europe were brought to be executed....To make this action as smooth as possible, the Nazis spread the rumor that these people were going to be sent to camps in the conquered part of Russia. "You don't really believe that we are going to kill ten thousand people?' they said.... It wasn't until we heard the machine guns going day and night that we realized that they were indeed killing ten thousand of our people. And the amazing thing is what happened after the big action. The Nazis once again waved the banner of hope before our eyes. 'This is the last action that will ever take place in this ghetto. We need you all for Germany's war effort. If you work hard and follow orders, no harm will come to you.' And once again the desire to believe what they were saying was so strong that we closed our eyes to the truth and actually believed them."
Of course, there are some Jews even now closing their eyes. Among them, alas, is Joseph Lieberman, who recently returned from a trip to Ramallah, where he praised the scam that goes by the name of "the Saudi peace plan," and in an interview with Tim Russert on Jan. 19 announced that he considered it a top priority to get back to "the peace process" and create a "viable Palestinian state."
Al Gore did a terrible disservice to Joe Lieberman in tapping him as his running mate, for in doing so, he destroyed the man's character. Once widely admired as the "conscience of the Senate," Lieberman has turned into its chief shape-shifter. His flip-flops have become legion, from affirmative action to school choice to Louis Farrakan (with whom Lieberman was suddenly eager to meet) to cleaning up the entertainment industry (he no longer had a quarrel with sex and violence in Holllywood).
Now Lieberman seems eager to prove that being a religious Jew will not prevent him from being the most pro-Arab of presidential candidates. Lieberman even donated $1,000 to the primary campaign of Earl Hilliard of Alabama, a Congressman famous for trying to persuade his fellows in the Black Caucus to vote against any and all pro-Israeli legislation. Thanks in part to large sums contributed by Jewish Democrats, Hilliard was defeated in the primary. His response? Stephen Hayes, in the Weekly Standard, reports that Hilliard warned of a "future with a great deal of conflict between African Americans and Jews in this country" and said blacks would seek "retribution."
Let us hope that Jews, waking up on Oslo, do not fall into the dangerous embrace of the Lieberman Pander-bear.
Outpost - 8 - February 2003