Let's represent U.S. interests for once, instead of
Israel's
By Joseph Sobran
'"Much as we want to coordinate our activities
with the United States, the interests (of the
United States and Israel) are not identical. We
have to, from time to time, worry about our own
interests."
That was Yitzhak Shamir speaking in 1981, before he
became Israel's prime minister. He spoke as an Israeli
official should speak: He reminded one and all that as
far as he was concerned, Israel came first.
If you can imagine an American politician talking like
that, you have a vivid imagination. The first American
politician who flatly asserts the primacy of American
over Israeli interests will probably go the way of
Charles Percy, who in 1984 lost the Senate seat he had
held for 18 years when the Israel lobby made his defeat a
top priority. Sen. Percy had voted as Israel wished with
almost perfect consistency, but in this Congress, almost
wasn't good: enough to suit the powerful American-Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He was branded
"Israel's worst adversary in Congress," and now his old
seat is occupied by Paul Simon, who understands that
crucial distinction between always and nearly always.
Our politicians dodge the question of which country
they are serving by asserting that the two countries'
interests, contrary to Mr. Shamir, are practically
'identical. Israel is said to be our "only reliable ally
in the Middle East," our "strategic asset" or "the only
democracy in the region."
Such talk is self-serving sentimentalism. The
politicians who utter it are pretending to be standing up
for America when they are bending the knee before Israel.
I wonder if the interests of Siamese twins could coincide
as closely as those of the U.S. and Israel are said to
do.
If Israel were our enemy; then a vote for Israel would
be a vote against America. But this is not the case;
There is no perfect correlation between our interests and
Israel's, positive or negative, nor could there, since
each country at times has trouble defining its own
interests.
But the interests of the two countries must conflict
now and then, as they visibly do over the Palestinian
question, and it's suspicious when a congressman
professes to be acting in America's best interests by
compiling a nearly 100 percent pro-Israel voting record.
It's a foreign-policy version of the idea that what's
good for General Motors is good for the country: In a
way, Congress' subservience to Israel is of a piece with
its general subservience to domestic special interests --
business, farmers, labor and teachers unions.
The charge of dual loyalty should not be directed
against the American Jewish community, but at its proper
target: our elected representatives. In point of fact,
American Jews have resisted Mr. Shamir's overweening
demands that they give Israel, not America, their
undivided loyalty. It's our leaders who have been guilty
of a collective failure of hardheaded patriotism.
One congressman was recently quoted as telling an
Israeli official, "I sympathize with what you're doing on
the West Bank, but how can I explain it to the lumberjack
in Oregon?" It didn't seem to cross his mind that the
lumberjack in Oregon is the man he was elected to
represent.
Even presidents have been unwilling to enforce the
conditions of American aid to Israel. This was one of
Ronald Reagan's chief failings. The worst, in this
respect, was Lyndon B. Johnson, who squelched an
investigation of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which killed 34
American sailors and wounded 171 others. Mr. Johnson may
have also concealed the theft of American enriched
uranium for use in the construction of nuclear weapons in
Israel.
Israeli spying and technology theft in this country
received brief publicity with the arrest and conviction
of Jonathan Pollard, but there has been no comprehensive
congressional inquiry into the problem. Not only would
such an inquiry undercut the idea that Israel is our
"reliable ally", it also would embarrass Congress itself,
which has allowed this to go on with impunity for so many
years.
If the interests of the two countries were in automatic
harmony, there would be no need of an Israel lobby here
to see that Israel's interests are served. What we need
now is an American lobby in Jerusalem. No, come to think
of it, what we need is an American lobby in Washington.
Joseph Sobran is a nationally syndicated columnist who
now maintains a Website at http://www.sobran.com.
