National leader describes Israeli mood as ‘fatigued,’ although not defeated

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, will tell a local audience on Wednesday, Sept. 6, that despite international criticism and internal dissent surrounding Israel’s recent war in Lebanon, “basically Israel is strong. People shouldn’t look at this as a defeat for Israel.”

But as he prepares to speak at a private fund-raiser at the home of Allan Janoff, a Livingston caterer who is general chair of the State of Israel Bonds campaign of Metropolitan New Jersey, Hoenlein said the Israeli government has many issues to cope with.

“There are internal questions in Israel — questions related to leadership, to preparedness, to execution. Israel is a society where everybody is affected,” he said in an Aug. 28 interview with NJ Jewish News.

“You have 4,000 missiles raining down on them. Some 120 soldiers and 590 civilians killed. As the soldiers came back they told of the lack of preparedness, which is inexcusable. Soldiers did not have the proper equipment and the proper preparation.”

Hoenlein, who has coordinated the foreign policy interests of 52 national Jewish organizations since 1986, said the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in jeopardy of being toppled and possibly replaced by the right-wing Likud Party.

“Is there reason for the opposition to want to topple him? Yes, because his numbers have been very weak. That doesn’t mean they will topple him.”

Saying there is a “fatigue in Israel,” Hoenlein suggested that “the people of Israel are tired and don’t want an election, although the latest poll numbers show the Right picking up a lot of strength.”

Surveying the outcome of the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hoenlein said Israel managed “to remove an important strategic asset of Iran in the war on terrorism. Hizbullah has been diminished even if it has not been destroyed, and its ability to wreak havoc has also been diminished significantly.”

Hoenlein cited the Aug. 27 televised statement of Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, in which he said he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to a war with Israel that took the lives of some 1,200 Lebanese and injured 4,000 others, while Israel reported 120 military deaths and 50 civilian casualties.

Hoenlein said that despite an “uptake in popularity for Nasrallah, he wouldn’t have done it if he had known” the enormity of the outcome. “He knows there is a lot of anger toward him in Lebanon, including in Shiite areas.

“Are they angry at Israel? Sure,” added Hoenlein. “But I can tell you I’ve gotten e-mails and I’ve gotten messages from Muslims in Lebanon and outside of Lebanon. They’ve gotten it very clear. They understand who’s responsible. I’m not saying that Israel’s not paying a price. But [Nasrallah] would not have done a national broadcast and humiliated himself if in fact that weren’t the case.”

According to Hoenlein, an international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon can only be effective if “first and foremost, it has the embargo on arms shipments, then moves to disarm Hizbullah. With Syria saying they will not allow international forces along their border or the Lebanese border and not leaving it up to the Lebanese government to decide, it certainly does not bode well.”

He said it is still too soon to assess the long-term impact of the war on Israel and its neighbors.

“I think time will tell the ultimate balance,” said Hoenlein. “Could I see a positive coming out of this? If indeed the Lebanese government as a result of this incrementally confronts Hizbullah and turns it into a local Mafia group as opposed to the international terrorist network, I could see a positive coming out of that.”