“F--- the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway”
Those famous words were allegedly uttered in the not-too-distant past by James Baker, the primary author of the recent Iraq Study Group Report.
They provide the perfect backdrop to a cynical and frank assessment by an israeli author about where Israeli interests stand in American politics today and where they may be headed.
Anyone who wants to count the blows absorbed by Israel this week in Washington has to begin with the resignation of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. . . . Since then - the hearing of the incoming Secretary of Defense, who cannot promise Israel that Iran will not attack, followed by the Baker-Hamilton report that presents Israel as more of a problem than a partner.
* * *The recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Commission can be weighed on all sorts of scales, and opinion is also divided regarding Baker himself.
"I don't think he's against Israel," said a senior Israeli official who has met Baker quite a number of times. "It's clear that Baker had it in for Israel," said another official of the same rank, in the same government ministry.
Anyone who rummages through Baker's history will find him that at several junctures, he acted against the Israeli government. But the question remains: Is it Israel that he doesn't like, or is [it] the policy of the governments against which he acted [?]
Baker was one of the main figures who urged Ronald Reagan to insist on selling the AWACS surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s. He also had a good reason: Then prime minister Menachem Begin had leveled public criticism, in Washington, against the transaction that the president wanted. In a power struggle of this type, Baker thought, Reagan should not be allowed to lose.
The more familiar conflict, the one with the Yitzhak Shamir government over the settlements and the loan guarantees, is also not difficult to explain.
And regarding the famous expletive, "F--- the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway," this was blown out of proportion. Aggressive people like Baker sometimes say things behind closed doors that do not accord with the rules of good manners and ceremony.
Of course, the author provides no context within which these famous words were uttered.
It seems likely, however, that Baker was not referring to Israeli (or Zionist) Jews – but, instead to the far less important average American Jew, whose interests don’t coincide with israel’s and therefore can be easily dismissed, by both Baker and the israelis.
But a tradition is already developing. Baker always has good reasons, but he will always be found on the other side of the intersection. He was looking for Iraq and found Israel. He could have chosen differently, since if tomorrow a lasting peace should prevail between Israel and the Palestinians, the U.S. forces would still be stuck under terrorist fire in Iraq.
But the issue raised by Baker in the report for whose content he is chiefly responsible, and in which he is the conductor and the player on most of the instruments, does in fact deserve an examination - and then a reexamination. The Bush administration will not be the first to deliberate over it.
To what extent is the Israeli-Arab conflict central to the Middle Eastern imbroglio?
In discussions conducted by senior administration officials in Arab capitals, even in recent weeks, they heard the old familiar refrain: Take care of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, demonstrate involvement, promote the handling of it. Some of them believe that the time has really come to act - or at least to look as though they are trying to do more.
Two days ago, when the report was published, the names of potential "envoys" were once again tossed into the air, experienced "mediators" who will embark on flying visits among capitals and leaders. Most of the suggestions are unrealistic. That is the way to create an atmosphere of progress, even if it isn't very useful. Perhaps Baker himself? Perhaps Colin Powell? Perhaps Bill Clinton?
Baker would probably be glad to accept this job, but it is doubtful whether U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would agree to something that would turn her from a bellwether into an apprentice.
Powell, as was already proved when he served as Secretary of State, and as an Israeli who worked with him a great deal remarks, "doesn't understand a thing about the Middle East."
And what about Clinton? A U.S. State Department official who was asked about it burst out laughing. First of all, he does not believe that Bush would appoint his predecessor. Second, he doesn't think that Hillary Clinton will allow her husband to take such a sensitive job on the eve of presidential elections in which she plans to run. And moreover, the official asked, "Isn't Clinton the guy who already mediated and failed?"
This is not the first time that James Baker is urging an American president to withdraw U.S. forces from a Middle Eastern country. In 1983, after 240 U.S. Marines were killed in a lethal explosion in Lebanon, he was among the leaders of those urging Ronald Reagan to fold up the flag and withdraw. Secretary of State George Schultz and Reagan himself were opposed. But the coalition they were facing, including Baker, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and members of Congress, had the upper hand in the end.
Reagan, like George W. Bush today, considered such withdrawal a capitulation to terror - but was forced to accept reality. The pill was sweetened by the victory of the Americans in Grenada, which managed to sweep away the harsh impression left by events in the Middle East, and gave Reagan smooth sailing toward the 1984 presidential elections, without being haunted by the ghosts of those killed in Lebanon.
"In hindsight," wrote Reagan's biographer Lou Cannon, "this withdrawal seems inevitable." Perhaps people will write the same in the future about the difficult decisions Bush will be making in the coming months.
* * *A group of influential Israelis and Americans will be participating, starting today, in the annual forum of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, which this year is discussing "America and Israel Confronting a Middle East in Turmoil." Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will address the forum, as will Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Minister of Strategic Threats Avigdor Lieberman and chief of Military Intelligence Amos Yadlin. But the real stars will be Bill and Hillary Clinton.
* * *The panel in which Hillary Clinton will participate, "U.S. Strategy in the Middle East: What Works, What Doesn't," is of particular importance mainly in light of the Baker-Hamilton report and its recommendations, which return U.S. policy to the days of Madrid-style regional summits and talks with anyone possible. If Clinton thinks that a regional summit is a good idea, maybe she will try to implement it in the future. By doing so she will be presenting a position that differs from that of the new Israeli ambassador Sallai Meridor - and of the Israeli government, which this week decided that the bilateral route is the proper one for those who are "serious" about the peace process.
The author then assesses the incoming israeli ambassador's effectiveness by comparing him to his predecessors.
The story about the meeting of former Israeli ambassador David Ivry with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California has already become a legend.
* * *Pelosi pointed to the wall, to show Ivry the picture hanging there. A difficult picture. The Chinese demonstrators of Tiananmen Square, and the tanks approaching them on their way to the brutal crushing of one of the most important demonstrations of the 20th century.
Ivry glanced at the picture, and as a veteran military man who had difficulty overcoming an old habit, uttered only one short sentence, which left Pelosi in shock: "That's a T-72."
Meridor will probably not experience such mishaps. He is more polished, more communicative than Ivry. This week, at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he successfully got through his first public appearance. Afterward, some of the audience stood around trying to guess what kind of an ambassador he will be . . . He may be less “nice” than his predecessor, Danny Ayalon, and it's not certain that he will excel at the “CNN test” like him [what about “the lie detector test?”], but he will be better than Ayalon in discussions with senior administration officials, who will listen to his assessments seriously.
Someone suggested that Meridor would be an ambassador in the style of Itamar Rabinovich - a fluent if not outstanding speaker, and a respected statesman. That is an interesting possibility, which depends on one unknown that has still not been made clear: Rabinovich had a real portfolio, and received exceptional powers from then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. He also worked with the Clinton administration, whose relations with Rabin were among the closest ever between a U.S. president and an Israeli prime minister - perhaps the closest.
(The stories about the wonderful friendship between former prime minister Ariel Sharon and President George W. Bush are no more than a popular legend for natives and friends.)
Meridor is dependent more than anything else on how Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wants to conduct his relations with Washington, and how Washington wants to conduct its relations with Israel.
This week it was the second question that was the greater unknown.
Finally, this is what the author had to say about the likelihood that Bush would follow Baker’s advice.
U.S. forces are deployed today in 150 countries, out of 193. That is an instructive statistic that was mentioned this week by a U.S. official who wanted to assess the possible influence of the Baker-Hamilton Commission on American policy. "So at most, we'll leave one of them," he said with a somewhat bitter smile. He knows, everyone knows that in the end the U.S. will leave Iraq, bruised and battered. Unless President George W. Bush decides otherwise."Our president," remarked that same official . . . "is made of tough stuff." He has not always fulfilled the expectations of journalists and other people in the know.
Bush is seeing Baker's smile and it drives him crazy, said an acquaintance of the president. Don't believe the nice words, the polite smiles, nor the longstanding relationship between Baker and Bush's father, whom Baker accompanied as early as the 1980 presidential race when Bush Sr. lost to Ronald Reagan.
"Bush doesn't like it when people tell him what to do," said the acquaintance. "Anyone who wants to have an influence has to whisper quietly into his ear, not humiliate him in public; look at [Vice President] Dick Cheney."
So, there you have it – according to this author, American politicians are nothing more than egotistical pawns to be used and ridiculed by israelis.
It's high time that Americans do something about it.
In a related article,
Has everyone seen the recent comments Jimmy Carter made during a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview? He correctly stated that apartheid in Palestine is worse than it ever was in South Africa. He has all those nasty Canadian Zionist Jewish Supremacists upset with him for his telling the truth! I suppose they expect everyone to be traitors to humanity - for us all to be submissively stupid and useful goyim like George Bush.
Justice Seeker
Thanks for the tip, Justice Seeker.
Withholding funds from Palestinians 'criminal': Carter