The Bush Administration is trying to assemble an international coalition against a brutal foe. Arab countries are willing to join the coalition on the grounds that Israel is excluded. Worse, the media and the Administration promote a view that Israeli actions are hampering its efforts to restore order. Sound familiar? It should. It happened as the first Bush Administration prepared for the Gulf War, 11years ago.
During the preparation for the Gulf War, the Baltimore Sun published a cartoon by KAL portraying the first President Bush as a juggler trying to restrain a stubborn dog, representing then Israeli Prime Minister. The perception that the Sun was promoting was the Administration's view that Israel was proving a stumbling block in the President's efforts to assemble a coalition.
Underlying that view was the very ugly reality of how the Administration then treated Israel. In his book about Israeli-American relations during the first Bush Administration, Broken Covenant, Israel's defense minister at the time, Moshe Arens, fills in many of the disturbing details of the American antagonism toward Israel.
The Israeli government tried to get America to allow it to defend itself, to no avail. America refused to give Israel the identifying codes so Israel could fly raids into western Iraq and destroy the Scud launchers without running afoul of American allied planes operating in the same area. America refused even to have its forces stand down so Israel could attack Iraqi positions unimpeded by allied forces.
These requests were both rejected. Then Israel asked that the United States at least destroy the Scuds. But General Schwarzkopf objected to using resources outside of the main theater of operations. So American efforts at eliminating the Scuds were inadequate. Israel was left to depend on American batteries of Patriot missiles of dubious effectiveness.
During the Gulf War, Israel was hit with dozens Scuds, killing at least 13 and injuring more than 230 people. Thousands of homes were damaged. Yet the United States stubbornly refused to let Israel stand up for itself; insisting that its forces were doing the job of protecting Israel.
The ugly epilogue to this friction occurred months after the Gulf War was over. In September 1991, as the Israeli government tried to secure loan guarantees from the United States for the purpose of resettling immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the President delivered his infamous "lonely little guy" speech. In that speech the President referred to himself as a "lonely little guy" who was going "up against some powerful political forces." He was referring to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the main pro-Israel lobbying group. Then he cast Israel's disagreement with the United States as a display of ingratitude, claiming that "...just months ago, American men and women in uniform risked their lives to defend Israelis in the face of Iraqi Scud missiles..." While the defeat of Iraq was a good thing for the world, as well as for Israel, Israel did suffer, and the defense that America provided Israel was inadequate. Bush's statement is still shocking 10 years later. America certainly did not set out to save Israel. To demand gratitude for doing so, while suggesting that Americans who support Israel don't have America's best interests in mind is absolutely unforgivable.
For the Gulf War then, Israel wasn't considered a friend, though it wasn't considered a foe either. The question now is, who are America's friends and who are its foes?
Initially, it appeared that Israel, after suffering through years of terrorism would be a natural member for the American coalition. Not only Israel's friends thought that way. Veteran Israel basher Robert Novak expressed his fears that the celebrations of the American dead in the streets of Ramallah would drive Israel and America closer together, harming (in Novak's opinion) America's interests in maintaining strong ties with the Arab world.
It quickly became obvious that Israel would not be included in the coalition. In President Bush's call to arms, he pronounced the need to fight "terrorism with a global reach." The Jerusalem Post's military correspondent, Arieh O'Sullivan explained why this undermines Israel's position. O'Sullivan presents President Bush's argument that terrorism of the type perpetrated by Osama bin Laden "has no brakes." The bad news for Israel is that America won't (and hasn't) put an emphasis on fighting groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah, and will place an increased value on gaining the support of Arab states even at Israel's expense.
The American position is clearly expedient, and it's not just how O'Sullivan explains it. In Congressional testimony, the Administration's coordinator for antiterrorism, Francis X. Taylor, stated, "In the early 1990s, we saw the emergence of radical fundamentalist terrorist groups that relied not on state sponsors but primarily on funds raised independently through front companies and so-called charitable contributions." In other words, since Al Qaeda isn't dependent on the largess of any government, there's no prevailing force to constrain its actions.
Still, if there's a measure of comfort provided by O'Sullivan's analysis of American intentions, it's that Israel is not the focus of bin Laden's activities. So even if Israel isn't on America's list of coalition partners right now, it might be after America has defeated bin Laden. Once bin Laden is defeated, America might turn its attention to foes common both to America and Israel.
The Administration's differentiation between kinds of terror affects how it views its friends; it also affects how it views its foes. Will this approach of opposing "terrorism with a global reach" be successful? Two opinions question whether America has the correct approach. In an essay for Arutz-7, entitled "Why America has Already Lost the War" (September 28, 2001), Moshe Feiglin argues that-contrary to Bush's politically correct declarations differentiating between Muslims and terrorists-America's enemy truly is Islam, and that America will be unable to prevail until it recognizes that enemy. According to Mr. Feiglin, the two major religions that broke off from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each took a quality from Judaism.
Christianity took the quality of mercy and Islam took the quality of strict justice. Islamic resentment of the West is based on the jealousy Islam feels toward the success of the merciful (Christian) West in gaining widespread acceptance around the world. (This view is similar to the analysis expressed by Bernard Lewis in an excellent article, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm which was written 11 years ago.)
A variation on this critique was offered by Daniel Pipes in the Jerusalem Post ("What Bush got Right, and Wrong," http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/09/26/Opinion/Opinion.35375.html) Dr. Pipes' most serious criticism of the President's declaration of purpose was that he had confused a tactic, terrorism, with the true enemy: Islamism. Islamism, as Dr. Pipes defines it, is an ideology that views Islam as both a political and religious philosophy with the intent to subjugate the world. While Dr. Pipes doesn't view Islamism as a majority view within Islam, he also rejects the idea that it is simply a fringe interpretation of the religion. It has significant support. Unlike Mr. Feiglin, Dr. Pipes doesn't view the whole Islamic world as the enemy. The question still remains, is American's policy of holding Israel at arms' length, encouraging a Palestinian state, and acquiescing to the demands of the Arab states a good idea? An answer to that question may be gleaned by going back 10 years and observing the help America has received from its Gulf War allies. Stating that the world had changed, at the end of 1991, the first President Bush pursued an initiative to repeal the United Nations' resolution that "Zionism is racism." The initiative was successful, but not a single Arab nation voted for its repeal. The best response the United States got was from Egypt, which receives $2 billion in annual aid from America and had billions in debt forgiven for its participation in the Gulf War coalition, and from Kuwait, whose country was restored. Neither of those countries voted. Friends, like Jordan, which backed Saddam Hussein, and Saudi Arabia, which was protected by America, voted against repeal. None of these countries paid a diplomatic price for their failures to support this American initiative. More recently, these "friends" have given little inkling that they've changed in the past decade. Writing in the October 8, 2001, issue of U.S. News ("The Mirage of a Coalition"), Fouad Ajami, a leading scholar and critic of the Islamic world, notes the number of vicious anti-Semitic rumors that have originated in Egypt and concludes, "A country that gives credence to this paranoia can hardly associate with America's campaign." William Safire, ("High Cost of Coalition", October 4, 2001) wrote in his New York Times column that the Saudis have not been very helpful either. They have consistently impeded the American investigations into two terrorist attacks on Saudi soil that killed Americans. In the current crisis, the New York Times reported that Saudi Arabia has been hindering the American efforts at tracing bin Laden's finances. And both these countries have worked against any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no matter how hard the United States has worked for a solution. The New York Times reported last year that Egypt and Saudi Arabia both supported Yasser Arafat's rejection of Israel's generous offer at Camp David in July, 2000. It would appear that America can expect little real help from its Arab allies, so adopting a position that is at variance with Israel's interests will not likely gain America much with those allies. Worse, by supporting the Palestinian Authority's aspirations and ignoring its use of terror against Israel, the United States is demonstrating inconsistency. This was most apparent in President Bush's press conference, when he first mentioned his support for an eventual Palestinian state. In one statement he said that "there are no negotiations" with the Taliban. In the next he talked about the need "to bring the level of terror down to an acceptable level for both" Israel and the PA. Israel then is supposed to allow a certain level of violence, but America won't. What lesson does this teach Osama bin Laden? That if he persists long enough, his terror, too, will be legitimized? The American approach, for now, appears to be muddled. While the Administration's actions towards Israel since September 11 have often been negative, the second Bush Administration hasn't invited Yasser Arafat to the White House, and hasn't allowed the United Nation's Security Council to condemn Israel. Additionally, when the Arab states hijacked an international conference on racism to attack Israel, the United States stood by Israel and walked out. This kind of support for Israel was not evident in the two previous administrations. It demonstrates that the antagonism toward Israel that existed in the first Bush administration isn't evident in the second. Unfortunately, in these dangerous times, that's not much of a comfort.