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changes in the pre-existing [1949 armistice] lines should not reflect the weight of conquest and should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism.” In 1970, Israeli premier Golda Meir devoted many a fundraising speech before American-Jewish audiences to argue against Rogers Plan. The Milwaukee-raised Meir said Israel did not want territory for its own sake, it wanted secure defensible boundaries. Hadn’t the Arabs made their position clear at Khartoum? For many American Jews, the triumph was a catharsis. To the spiritually inclined, the victory looked like a miracle Susie Gelman, chairwoman of the Israel Policy Forum, recalls her first visit to Israel in the summer of 1970. “I remember vividly how everything felt possible, not only in terms of freely visiting the West Bank, but also the feeling that Israel could determine its own future as a result of vastly expanding its territory and demonstrating to its hostile Arab neighbors that it was truly a force with which to be reckoned.” Construction of strategically placed Jewish neighborhoods began on the formerly vacant hills ringing Jerusalem and its environs. Not all the building was motivated by mainly strategic concerns. In 1972, religious-nationalist followers of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook and his Gush Emunim movement founded the Judean settlement of Kiryat Arba outside Hebron. If anything, the 1973 Yom Kippur War – a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria during the Jewish Day of Atonement – only intensified the American-Jewish community’s emotional attachment to Israel. Israel pushed back the offensive, but to punish America for rearming Israel – albeit belatedly – during the fighting, Saudi Arabia organized an Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries embargo that led to limited supplies and long lines at US gasoline pumps. US Jews feared an antisemitic backlash. Clearly, decisions taken in Jerusalem impacted on the Diaspora. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, declared in 1973 what amounted to a “no taxation without representation” argument. Dating back to their interactions with Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, Jewish machers resented Israeli leaders for being imperious toward the Diaspora, for not listening to them – nonetheless, most kept their sentiments away from the media spotlight. Now, with encouragement from Goldmann, a group of Reform and Conservative rabbis and academics associated with the anti-Vietnam war movement created Breira (Hebrew for choice or alternative). The name was a retort to Israeli leaders who argued that they had no choice but to battle on. Breira advocated the unconditional inclusion of the PLO in any diplomatic process toward establishing a Palestinian-Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza. Foremost, Breira shattered the barrier against Jewish public criticism of Israeli policies. At the same time, though, its dovish message failed to gain traction in the wake of Palestinian terrorism throughout 1973, including attacks in London, Washington and Rome. YITZHAK RABIN had taken over from Meir in 1974 (he would return for a second stint in 1992) and tensions with Washington were taut. Henry Kissinger was now secretary of state and Egypt’s new president Anwar Sadat had told him that he was willing to make a statement of non-belligerency if Israel handed over Sinai’s Abu Rudeis oil fields and the strategic Mitla and Gidi passes. Rabin didn’t see the point of giving up territory for a pledge that could be easily withdrawn. In 1975, with Gerald Ford having replaced Nixon, the US punished Rabin by declaring that Washington was reassessing its entire relationship with Israel. That same year, the settlement of Ofra was established in the northern West Bank by Gush Emunim. Infuriated that Rabin was not prepared to relinquish the West Bank to Jordan, Kissinger sent out feelers to Yasser Arafat’s PLO with whom the US had no diplomatic relations. Earlier, in July 1974, the PLO’s legislative body the Palestine National Council, seeking international legitimacy, had declared that it was willing to establish a Palestinian national authority in any piece of Palestine from which Israel withdrew. The unified Arab policy of no peace, no recognition and no negotiations remained in effect. Still, some US Jewish leaders read the PNC statement as implying a willingness to coexist alongside Israel. Critics, though, saw it as a gambit for the destruction of Israel in phases. In any event, the move eased the way for Arafat to 30 THE JERUSALEM REPORT JUNE 12, 2017
Many American Jews born after 1967 feel increasingly alienated from Israel because of its continued presence in the West Bank, and have thrown their support behind leftist organizations like Peace Now be welcomed at the UN General Assembly in New York on November 13, 1974. More than 100,000 people, most of them Jewish, demonstrated across from the United Nations against Arafat’s appearance. In November 1976, Jimmy Carter defeated Ford. Carter had little patience for Rabin but would soon find himself confronted by a very different Israeli personality: in June 1977, Menachem Begin became Israel’s first non-Labor Party premier. More than his predecessors, Carter would emphasize the centrality of the Palestinian angle. Begin – while not downplaying the military value of strategic depth that Rabin championed – accentuated the Jews’ ancestral rights to Judea and Samaria. In the American-Jewish mind, Israel’s REUTERS ethos was associated with Labor politicians such as Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Meir and Rabin. Few of the community’s leaders knew Begin personally, though he had long headed the Knesset opposition. They’d supported the pre-state Hagana underground; Begin commanded the more militant Irgun. Even if his Jewish literacy was limited, Rabin epitomized the secular Israeli-born Sabra; Begin, though not Orthodox, not only invoked scripture but had disguised himself as a Hasidic rabbi to avoid capture by the British during the Mandate period. Carter and Begin appeared headed for a confrontation; US Jewish leaders were uneasy. In 1977, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, came out against Begin and supported Israeli demonstrations opposed to the new settlement at Kaddum, outside Nablus. Major media outlets eviscerated Begin as a former terrorist, maybe a fascist, with Time magazine telling readers his name rhymed with Fagin (Charles Dickens’s quintessential Jewish villain). Carter seemed to go out of his way to taunt Begin even before he officially assumed office. “The right of the Palestinians to have a homeland, to be compensated for losses that they have suffered” was American policy, the president-elect declared. He did not call on the Arabs to recognize Israel, but summarized US policy as calling for “the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories from the 1967 war,” an end to belligerency and a “reestablishment” of “permanent and secure borders.” Going into his first White House meeting, Begin would have been aware that 66% of American Jews backed the president’s “overall performance” while, at best, he had only the perfunctory support of the organized Jewish leadership. Carter was caught off guard when, on November 14, 1977, Sadat told Cronkite that he was indeed willing to accept Begin’s invitation to address Israel’s parliament. The history-making speech followed on November 20. The next month, Begin announced that Israel was prepared to yield Sinai to Egypt and grant complete civil autonomy to the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. But Begin’s lawyerly efforts to nail down the details and his refusal to abandon Israel’s claims of sovereignty over the disputed area raised Carter’s ire. In March 1978, a group of reserve army officers calling itself “Peace Now” demanded that Begin be more forthcoming. The following month, on April 1, some 30,000 Israelis attended a Peace Now rally in Tel THE JERUSALEM REPORT JUNE 12, 2017 31
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Page 11 and 12: ILAN BRUMER / GPO our agenda and ha
Page 13 and 14: “DON’T FIGHT,” said a patroni
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Page 21 and 22: Once enemy planes and airfields wer
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Page 29 and 30: COURTESY DAN SHILOAH ARCHIVE of the
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Page 35 and 36: only 48% of Israelis would back the
Page 37 and 38: LOOKING BACK, AND FORWARD Shlomo Ma
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Page 49 and 50: THE PEOPLE & THE BOOK RABBI SYLVIA

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