Americans support Israel, and a Zionist organization objects
Are Americans too dumb to have an opinion on Israel’s plans for a withdrawal from Gaza? That seems to be the implication of the latest press release from the Zionist Organization of America, which takes the debate over the plan to a new low.
The ZOA was responding to a poll conducted by the Anti-Defamation
League that found that Americans clearly support the Israelis and the Gaza pullout. ADL found that “74 percent of Americans believe Israel is serious about reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians” and that 67 percent of Americans believe that the Israeli decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip without a peace agreement is “a bold step toward peace.”
ADL declares that the Israeli government’s favorable rating is at its highest in over a decade, at 43 percent positive to 26 percent unfavorable.
Normally this might sound like good news for an organization that purports to defend Israel’s interests. But the ZOA is no longer part of the American-Jewish communal consensus that believes it is up to Israel’s elected leaders to make the decisions it deems best for its security and prosperity. In its latest salvo in a campaign to discredit Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the ZOA labels the ADL survey of 1,600 Americans “meaningless.”
According to the ZOA release, “There is little value in polling a group on an issue where the population polled is either misinformed by propaganda myths or uninformed of the critical issues determining a certain decision.”
It’s worth taking the release point by point:
• “Firstly, most Jews and Americans believe that (a) Israel’s choice here is to get rid of all of Gaza or keep all of Gaza with its 1 million Palestinian Arabs. They have been told repeatedly and falsely that there is a serious demographic problem for Israel in ‘keeping Gaza.’”
The ZOA’s point is that Israel should be able to hold on to the “Jewish section of Gaza,” which it describes as a “beachside community where 9,000 Jews and 2,000 Palestinian Arabs live,” while ceding control of the rest of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. But this ignores the vast military infrastructure that is needed to secure the “beachside community,” the daily threats to both settlers and soldiers, and the daily humiliations of Palestinians who must thread through the Israeli cordons.
As for what most Americans “believe” about the Middle East peace process, I’m guessing that a majority understands that it must be predicated on a viable Palestinian state (President Bush tells them this all the time). And viability means disentangling Jews and Arabs. If anything, the average American might ask: If it means dismantling only one small “beachside community,” what are you waiting for?
• “Secondly, most Jews and Americans believe that the Jews of Gaza live in caravans or temporary housing in the middle of major Arab population centers that are dangerous and ugly slums like Gaza City. The truth is that the 9,000 Jews live in a beautiful beachside community with gorgeous modern homes and gardens, beautiful synagogues, schools, and libraries…. If this setting were in a waterfront area in the U.S., only the wealthy could live there.”
This is the first time I have heard Better Home and Gardens invoked as a reason for staying in Gaza. Maybe the ZOA is right — when it comes to a trade-off between a breakthrough in the Middle East and a seaside duplex in walking distance of houses of worship, Americans would opt for the real estate.
• “Thirdly, almost all Jews and Americans believe that the Jews living here are wild-eyed, ugly, religious fanatics and radicals sent here by a far-right-wing Israeli government…. [T]he people living here are the sweetest, kindest people you’ll ever meet. They are physically and spiritually beautiful.”
First of all, I don’t know how the ZOA knows that “almost all” Jews and Americans believe these things. But once again, this argument reduces the deadly serious debate over Gaza and the future of the Middle East to a beauty pageant. It’s incredibly patronizing to think that Americans would base their foreign policy opinions on which side is better looking and has the nicer houses.
The serious point ZOA makes here is that the Gaza settler movement was supported by both Likud and Labor governments (although settlement activity accelerated only after Likud took power in 1977). But I think most Americans, like many, many Jews, are more interested in the future of the region, not its past, and are more than willing, unlike the ZOA, to take their cues from the sitting Israeli government.
• “Fourthly, many Jews and Americans think that the Jews took over Arab land and homes when they moved to Gaza. The truth is that there was only sand and rocks in the area the Jews took over — no homes at all — it was G-d forsaken land.”
This is mischievous in that it ignores the strategic arguments made by the settlements’ defenders. As the settler news service Arutz Sheva puts it, “Currently, the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip break up the refugee camps and provide an infrastructure for the Israeli army to monitor illegal terrorist activities.” Barren or not, the locations were chosen for the impact they would have on the lives of Palestinians.
• “Fifth, most Jews and Americans believe that there is a military benefit to leaving the Jewish section of Gaza. The truth is otherwise.”
This is the first serious argument that the ZOA press release offers, and it should be the starting point for a discussion of the withdrawal. Will the withdrawal be seen as a reward for terror? (A theoretical question that would abort any possible move toward reconciliation on Israel’s part.) Will it turn Gaza into a terror state run by Hamas?
ZOA marshals experts suggesting that the pullout would be a military disaster. But Israel and the ZOA itself spent the last three years defending the construction of a security fence along the West Bank by pointing to the rare instances of terrorist infiltration across the heavily defended Gaza border. Maybe Americans are misinformed, but they’d be right to ask: If separation was a good idea for Jerusalem and the Galilee, why is it the wrong solution for Sederot and Netivot and other communities in the western Negev?
Listen, the ZOA may be right on the dangers of a Gaza pullout. But it has embarked on a dangerous game of its own in trying to discredit the Israeli government in the eyes of the American people. When pro-Palestinian groups do it, we call them anti-Israel, and worse. If the ZOA’s tactics are the taste of things to come, it will be a very bitter summer.