How should American Jews react to the deplorable anti-Semitic rhetoric that recently spewed out of the Syrian press, such as the comparisons of Israelis to Nazis and the canard that Jews fabricated the Holocaust?
What are we to make of the appalling refusal of Syrian President Hafez Assad to stop Iranian arms shipments to the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon? Syrian behavior that insults or hurts Israel should of course be strongly and emphatically condemned.
But what we should not do is allow this conduct to diminish our commitment to helping Israel achieve its goals in talks with Syria, which supposedly may resume soon. American Jews who take the easy route of denouncing Syria without also vigorously supporting Israel’s quest for a secure peace are hurting, not helping, the Jewish state. Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the military strategists on his negotiating teams need no lessons from American Jews about Syrian intentions or Syrian behavior. They were not expecting a love festival or a genial dialogue with Jeffersonian democrats when they embarked on the current diplomatic initiative with Syria. Yet they have decided to press forward because they are convinced it is in Israel’s strategic interest to do so.
Too many voices in our community are using Syrian behavior as a rhetorical weapon to discredit the entire peace process. Today, they are obsessively focusing on anti-Semitism in the Syrian press. Tomorrow, some other anti-Israeli activity sanctioned by Assad will be the focus of ads, opeds and fund-raising letters by hardliner American Jews.
“You see,” they are proclaiming (or implying), “Assad can’t be trusted, so Israel should stop trying to make a deal with him.”
They are ignoring the clear, compelling logic that has persuaded the majority of Israeli military officials to support the effort to achieve peace with the current Syrian government. Israel’s goal is not to transform Assad into an ally or even to diminish Syrian anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism — although the latter results may eventually be a welcome byproduct of a deal with Syria. The overarching goal is what it has always been: to make Israel safer.
Reporting on Barak’s announcement to his cabinet that he would consider withdrawing to June 4, 1967 borders in return for a comprehensive peace, Yediot Achronot, the Israeli daily, paraphrased his explanation: “The decision is necessary because our neighbors are about to equip themselves with nuclear weapons, and if we tarry, a fundamentalist wave of terror will overtake us.”
The kind of peace Barak envisions will take Syria out of the ranks of nations overtly confronting Israel and will create a strategic buffer against the real threats to Israel’s existence: weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Iraq, Iranian fundamentalists and nuclear terrorists.
For Israel, a cold peace with Syria and the Palestinians is better than the hot destruction of a nuclear assault from more distant, more frightening enemies. Achieving peace with Syria is also the best way for Israel to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon, a place that most Israelis want to leave as soon as humanly possible. We American Jews who want to support Israel must never lose sight of these goals, even when our stomachs churn because of the rhetoric of Israel’s negotiating partners.
I have no idea whether Assad will agree to the arrangements that the Israeli government reportedly insists are prerequisites to any deal on the Golan Heights: pushing Syrian troops farther back from Israeli towns than they are now; retaining early warning capacity and access to water; giving Israel new American armaments that will guarantee its qualitative military edge, and others.
I do know that such a deal is not possible without proactive American diplomacy now and some kind of American aid package down the road.
The U.S. Congress and presidential candidates need to know that American Jews endorse the goals of this peace process and think it is up to the Israeli government —not armchair generals and untrained diplomats in our community — to judge the suit- ability of Israel’s negotiating partners.