The American Jewish Committee

Let’s Look at Something Else This Time

As we await major developments, soon to come, this period is perhaps an opportunity to avert our gaze, if only for a while, from the sad and often frightening headlines, and to look at things that add a fresh dimension to our sense of what Israel is all about. Ilan Ramon’s flight aboard the shuttle Columbia did just that, its tragic ending notwithstanding. A revelation of my own came last week at a gathering of Israeli nongovernmental organizations engaged in aid and rescue abroad, under a new umbrella organization called IsraAid—in Hebrew,  P’nei Yisrael la-Olam, “Israel’s Face to the World.” (IsraAid was founded a little over a year ago and is comprised of 35 Israeli organizations from many sectors of society—aid organizations, youth movements, and religious groups—dedicated to promoting global responsibility and doing practical service work.)

But first, to the broader picture, marked by the tense anticipation of momentous events that could reshape the region—and our lives:

1.      Above all, of course, we await “the war” (as if we were not already in a prolonged war with Arafat’s forces, the so-called Intifada, which is not a popular uprising at all, but a campaign of terrorist violence). No one here, or anywhere else in the Middle East, could have misread the meaning of Bush’s Wilsonian vision in the State of the Union address, let alone Powell’s direction in his speech at the UN Security Council. The time for diplomatic subtleties is over. Unless Saddam abdicates—unlikely, for in his mind he is the embodiment of Iraqi sovereignty—we are likely to see military action within weeks, if not days. Will Saddam try to punish us for being coreligionists of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz? Yes, he might. Can he? I doubt it. As we now know (or to be precise, as we can now discuss more openly), there are plans, based on Jordanian cooperation, for a large-scale deployment of troops in western Iraq (where any missiles might come from) at a very early stage in the fighting. The six-week-long ordeal of 1991 will not repeat itself.

2.       Meanwhile, we also might end up waiting some weeks (the law says six) before Sharon exhausts his ability to put together the government he really wants—i.e., one that would give him the political base to work within the Bush framework. Old angers and hatreds, let alone fresh commitments made in front of many cameras, will stand in the way; but two powerful elements—public sentiment and American preferences—might lead to the emergence of a broad-based coalition.

3.      Change in the Arab world: Do not hold your breath. All too many danced with joy to see Americans, an Israeli, and a Hindu dying together. Yet, perhaps, we are beginning to see some useful changes in various places. President Mubarak’s invitation to Sharon to meet him and the mission of Osama al-Baz, Mubarak’s political adviser, to the United States (which included a session with the AJC leadership) indicate a recognition not only of the election results, but also of the new American order soon to emerge—and Israel’s role therein. (As a friend put it, the Egyptians were told, “Go to Sharon; he has the tickets.”) The decision of a large group of Israeli Arabs to go to Auschwitz to see the death camps for themselves is also highly significant at this point in time. The war is far from over—two soldiers died tonight in a battle in Nablus—but there are clear signs that the cost of choosing terrorism is coming to haunt many Palestinians (but not yet Arafat, unfortunately).

            So much for the matzav (“situation”), and the distant sound of thunder rolling. There is much more to Israel than that. As mentioned above, a revelation came to me as I sat listening to the stories of Israelis who have gone out of their way to help and rescue others, far beyond our borders—not the usual image one associates with us (for some, the fallacious slur about Jews’ indifference to the fate of others has stuck like a stain) but nevertheless a long, remarkable, ongoing story. This time it was a village—a town, really, named Chemba in Malawi, located in a spectacular spot, Cape McLear, on a lake, often frequented by tourists—that served to demonstrate the point. Two young Israeli women, backpackers (“muchileras,” to borrow a Latin American term that has become semi-standard Hebrew) came, loved the place, stayed to work in an AIDS clinic—and then found that floods had wiped out almost all the crops around, and people were quietly starving. On a shoestring, they organized an aid operation, feeding the hungry on a few dollars a day, tending the sick, teaching hygiene, recruiting others to join.