Why I’m Not Going to Israel This Year (and why I am going to Israel this year) and Why Last Year’s Policy Speech Is Still Correct — 8 July 2001

Today in synagogue the rabbi’s sermon, like so many other sermons I’ve been hearing lately, was about convincing people to visit Israel as a show of solidarity during these difficult times. The main arguments were (1) Israel needs our moral support; (2) Everyone agrees that Arafat is the sole cause of the problem; and (3) Our show of solidarity will “help” Israel. I will deal with the issue of travel to Israel a bit later but first I want to deal with the underlying assertion that Arafat is the sole cause of the problem and the implication that the Israelis have nothing to do with it, a thesis which has been repeated ad nauseum and risks becoming accepted wisdom.

About a year ago, I delivered a 40 minute speech (reprinted on the website) which was not popularly received and which many people say was wrong, considering the events of the past year. Certainly, much has changed during the past year and it is hard to believe that last July everything including East Jerusalem was being discussed at Camp David. However, I did offer one major caveat during that speech which everything else depends upon and which explains why my statements made a year ago ultimately were proven correct by the events of the past year. The relevant excerpt follows:

…….If they are going to agree, the parties must begin to work to make sure that a good atmosphere is created so that people feel good and economies can grow. What worries me about this peace process is that Israel under Netanyahu and Barak is giving away everything we knew it would have to give away but does so in a miserly manner so that it gets nothing in return. Barak and Netanyahu couldn’t survive if they told their coalition partners what would happen so they squandered all their goodwill saving face, and both of them seem to take pride in trying to humiliate everyone they meet with. This makes it too easy for the Arabs to pocket what we are giving them and Arafat benefits by maintaining a constant state of conflict. In my opinion, if you are going to pay a bill, pay it b’simcha, with happiness, and get some appreciation from the other side. If you throw money and spit at someone, you know what it feels like. Even the Left in Israel can’t bring themselves to understand this because it is just not in the Israeli psyche to deal this way. If you are going to give the Palestinians a state, you can’t expect to have 200 roadblocks, check every tomato going in and out, hold up their citrus in port for 2 weeks while it rots, and make people wait a month for applications to be approved or disapproved with no rational basis to cross from one part of their state to another. You can choke them in a dozen ways but it won’t work and they will have every right to continue to hate you even though you think you gave them everything. Until everyone gets this point and really understands it, I don’t care how much the Israelis give away, they will get no appreciation for it…… 

It was clear then as it is today, that Barak did not negotiate; he attempted to dictate terms. The terms never realistically dealt with the aspirations of the Palestinian community, and Arafat could never accept and implement what was on offer. It is disingenuous to say that Israel offered everything but the kitchen sink and that Arafat answered the offer with the Intifadah and therefore nothing good can ever occur as long as he is running the show.

Now read this next paragraph carefully. I would agree that the Intifadah was planned in advance by Arafat, that Arafat is not capable of making a deal with Israel and that nothing good can ever occur as long as he is running the show. However, that does contradict the previous paragraph. The reason: We still don’t know whether or not peace is possible because Israel offered what appeared to be the kitchen sink but wasn’t and didn’t fashion its offer with an eye toward creating a friendly relationship with its Palestinian counterparts and therefore did not internalize the caveat mentioned above in my speech. It is a fact that more so than the actual contents of the peace will be the way it is packaged and sold. Under the current conditions which offer no hope to an ordinary person, it is totally reasonable and predictable that Palestinians hate Israel and support terrorism against it. I don’t expect that to change until Palestinians feel any tangible benefit obtainable from peace with Israel and a true end to occupation.

The reason the Left in Israel is so dispirited and willing to concede that the Right has been proven correct is that they never “got it” with regard to the peace process. That’s why Assad, Senior walked away from the Golan deal. I can now state with certainty that there was no security rationale to Barak’s unwillingness to give the Syrians water rights to the Galilee; the sole reason for Barak holding out on the issue was the desire to humiliate Assad and therefore to have him reject the deal even though it appeared the Israelis were offering him 100%. So the Israelis walk around saying they offered 100% but the truth is they didn’t (and there were plenty strings attached to the Israeli offer). Same thing with the Palestinians; the Israelis have convinced themselves that they offered the Palestinians an acceptable deal but the fact is they didn’t. They could have dealt with issues such as the Right of Return in a manner that would have satisfied the honor of their counterparts even though it is understood that little would have changed on the ground but they refused to do so. There is no reason to think that any Palestinian leader could have sold Camp David as a final deal and called off the conflict without bringing back some sort of face-saving resolution of the Right of Return. Barak didn’t negotiate at Camp David and, for that matter, neither did Arafat. Arafat just sat there and did nothing because, after all, Barak was having a one-way conversation with himself. Had Arafat been more of a risk-taker and innovator, he might have taken more initiative but the situation is more complicated and belies an understanding of Arafat’s history and psychology; the Israelis and Americans never brought the Egyptians and Saudis on board and, both with Assad in Geneva and Arafat at Camp David, tried to corner an isolated leader into a deal which was not coordinated with him in advance. So yes, Arafat didn’t help Barak when he needed it, but then Barak never helped Arafat either; just keeping him alive and dangling as a stooge and puppet governor wasn’t enough. In return, Arafat let Barak go down and set his world back several years as Israelis found themselves embracing Sharon out of frustration. This analysis is harsh but closer to the mark than sulking in the corner as the scorned lover.

Another point: The Israelis point to their withdrawal from Lebanon to UN lines and the continued hostility over the northern border as proof that they gave 100% and are getting dumped on in return. Yet they didn’t withdraw from a sliver of territory known as Shebaa Farms which is what Hizbullah (effectively the party running southern Lebanon) demanded, even though there is no security reason to keep it and the only dispute is whether it belongs to Syria or Lebanon (which the Arabs can settle among themselves). This is another example of appearing to give 100% but not doing so with the understanding it gives the other side a pretext to continue to attack — and the Israelis the ability to show the public that withdrawal doesn’t pay. I think this is just moronic behavior; the entire withdrawal wasn’t handled well and this only compounds it. I don’t like it when a person owes me 39 cents and pulls 37 cents out of his wallet; the Egyptians didn’t let up till they got all of Taba back and I don’t expect anyone else to settle for less either.

It is a cop-out to say that events of the past year have proven the peace process a failed idea. The Oslo process was flawed but this was because it was ambiguous and essentially left both the Israelis and the Palestinians worse off than before. Its architects knew from the beginning where they expected to wind up, but nobody had the courage to say so up front for fear of being too far ahead of popular support – a shortsighted strategy which left all sides disillusioned.  There is plenty of blame to go around on all sides: The Americans became more interested in the process than the outcome; the Israelis could not bring themselves to look at the issues from the viewpoint of their counterparts with whom they would have to live, and the Palestinian leadership squandered opportunities to show Israelis that acting like empathetic human beings was not a “concession” and to institutionalize the idea that peace was not just a truce on the way to eliminating Israel. 

I still maintain that Israel can and should agree to final status positions with its neighbors that satisfy the aspirations of their counterparts and that a leaner consolidated Israel will be stronger and offer its citizens a more normal and promising future. The status quo offers no hope and promises only mutual misery. The illusion of separation and security will bring no security either to Israel or Israelis; the bypass roads as a magical cure have been proven to be a false messiah. I don’t support the status quo  and I feel no responsibility to resign myself to it just because there are Jews involved and they have concluded there is no alternative. The equivalent would be having a cousin who is addicted to drugs telling me there is no alternative because he is addicted. The Israelis are addicted to occupation and control; many of them on the Right actually prefer occupation to peace no matter how much they say they want peace because their only vision of peace presupposes continued occupation or transfer of all Arabs living in the area. This is unrealistic and I feel no obligation to humor this vision and addiction.

Now about tourism. I have been visiting Israel for close to 20 years as a tourist, student and, at one time, a potential professional immigrant. I have been there at all times, including the 1988 intifadah where I could have looked for miles on deserted beaches and not seen one soul or this past Yom Kippur Eve where I had to pay a taxi driver $20 to drive me to the Western Wall because no one would go there. At all times, with the exception of a few close personal friends, Israelis we dealt with as tourists never saw me or my family as fellow Jews or solidarity tourists; all I am and ever were was a rich American there to be soaked. We overpaid every hotel and taxi driver (and resented it), found ourselves mocked by some of our cousins as Rich Americans, and constantly picked restaurant tables and travel routes with an eye toward avoiding terrorist attack.  Movement around the country has been restricted and it is boring to keep coming back, going to the same mediocre places to pay Manhattan prices and to find that next to nothing has been done, particularly in Tel Aviv, to improve tourism infrastructure in over a decade. We learned not to trust our Israeli lawyers, not to expect appointments or commitments to be honored, and have always sat around grousing that this would be our last trip to Israel for a long time. So I have a long memory and can compare Israel to other places for my tourism time and dollar, unlike many of my counterparts who never go anywhere else and have nothing to compare it to. Plenty of my colleagues, even those on the Right, say the same thing when it comes to this.

One thing I can tell you is that I personally feel much safer in Arab countries and act accordingly even though people think I am nuts to travel as I do; if I am going to be harmed in an Arab country, it will be because I personally am being targeted. I don’t expect to be targeted as I travel on official visas with gracious hosts (who show me a helluva a lot more hospitality than I get in Israel where everyone seems to be quite busy – if they are not out of the country – and not at all in need of my presence); I am much more afraid of being the victim of a random attack because of my Jewishness in Israel than I am in Syria, Lebanon or anywhere in the Gulf and I strongly stand by my risk assessment which is based on actual odds rather than perception. Guess what? You’re much more likely now to see troops all over the streets in Israel than in the Arab World and it hasn’t occurred to me to calculate for a random terrorist attack in a civilian area while I was in an Arab country. They are not checking people’s bags at the entrance to shopping malls anywhere in the Arab world that I know of.

I think it is wrong to be pushing teenagers to go on $4,000 tours if they will get less than the full experience and to have them and their parents view Israel as a life-threatening place. This year, the Israeli airlines and hotels have not reduced their prices and I am not at all averse to having the market punish the industry for being overpriced and mediocre and offering phony discounts. My roommate stayed at the King David Hotel 34 nights this year in their best category room and, upon returning home, found room-nights cheaper on the Internet than the “special rate” the manager offered him just 2 days earlier while he was there. While El Al is free to keep cancelling flights and prop up airfares, other airlines such as Austrian and Lufthansa are being true friends in need by keeping to their schedules and running flights that are 80% empty; I’d rather reward them than patronize El Al which turns to the Israeli taxpayer to subsidize each and every flight it does operate.  El Al is, in my opinion and that of most of my colleagues, one of the airlines in the world I try hardest to avoid, and I don’t expect them to improve unless the market forces them to.

In sum, I see no compelling reason to visit Israel. In fact, I feel obligated to do just the opposite. I want them to know that I don’t agree with their policies, that I expect them to figure out how to get themselves out of the rut they have helped dig themselves into (although I admit that right now it does seem a rather large hole to get out of), and to fix longstanding problems in the tourism industry that have alienated their repeat visitors for years. As for moral support, when they decide to appreciate me as a fellow Jew and not just as a Rich American “sucker in waiting,” then I will try to forget all the times I have found myself cursing out Israelis whom I couldn’t believe were Jews (many of who drive taxis). Bottom line: I would rather be a welcome guest than a terrorized occupier — my tourism and support for Israel is not built around creating opportunities for martyrdom and crisis management. This is not the Enterprise we intended to build.

Right now, when I see an article headlined “Jewish solidarity”, I turn the page. This doesn’t mean I’m a self-hating Jew or think the Arabs are blameless. But internally there are some real issues that need to be resolved and not white-washed and my patience has come to an end; the Israelis have been in crisis for over 50 years and it has never been convenient for them to deal with real issues.  I said last October that Israel was rotten to its core and the Earth swallowed a wedding hall last month in affirmation attesting to its failure to deal with corrupt municipal departments and failure to institute building codes that factor in the real risk of earthquakes – real issues that ultimately involve more lives than terrorist attacks. My high school principal died in Israel from dangerous roads — a cause of many more deaths than terrorism.

I believe in tough love. Many Right-wingers are happy that Clinton’s prodding has been replaced with Bush’s hands-off policy; this is a temporary respite and will only make the day of reckoning worse when it arrives. The majority of American Jews feel, even more so than the American public in general, that Israel is headed in the wrong direction and I don’t intend to feed their addiction to occupation and control or delusion of uncontrollable hopelessness by lending them the moral support that Israeli and Jewish leadership on both sides of the Atlantic crave at the moment. This may not be the most tactful time to make these points, but it is not helping anyone to keep repeating mantras that people may come to believe and to continue to deny reality.

Now read the next paragraph carefully. I am presently ticketed to make a special visit to Israel and have booked an executive suite at the King David to boot (I don’t even want to know what they will charge me). Huh? There is a biblical obligation to visit Jerusalem for holidays and to spend a portion of one’s money there. So regardless of my policy of non-visitation there in the political and touristic spheres, there is still room for visits in the religious context and, in this case, it matters not what it costs or whether I enjoy myself. Just like many Moslems who don’t care for Saudis or Saudi Arabia still go to Mecca for Haaj. Facing conflicting issues of life, a man wears many hats. (At least I don’t have to fly El Al.)

Share:

Share This Post

Most Recent Posts

Archives
Get The Latest Updates

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

No spam, notifications only about new posts.

Read More

Related Posts

Global Thoughts — 20 December 2023

Karen and I shared a salad for our 20th anniversary lunch out. 20 years ago it would have been lots of food and desert. In 30 years will we be sharing our dentures for lunch? I would like to dare

Act II for the Jewish State — 19 December 2023

After 75 years, Israel as an enterprise is not succeeding as it should. Jews should cut their losses in the Middle East and reboot the Jewish State elsewhere, focusing on building excellence instead of simply trying to survive. Thomas Friedman’s

Scroll to Top