The Rabbi and the Prime Minister
THE RABBI AND THE PRIME MINISTER; A MOMENT INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDER SCHINDLER On Monday, September 20, the former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations suddenly...
...Begin would rather not have revealed...
...Clearly, Begin could sack Sharon for exceeding his mandate—if he wanted to...
...Yes, he is consistent...
...You know the standard interpretation...
...Even if the proposal were without merit—and I think it has merit—I don't understand why Israel could not have said, "This is a very complicated and serious proposal, and we want to study it carefully before we react," and then have waited for the Arabs at Fez to be the first to say "no" to the President...
...So we can't expect to convince the Israelis, or evert to have them believe what we tell them in private, if we say very different things in public...
...Here, we are guilty, together with others, since we tend to see the world through Ashkenazi-WASP eyes, and we're far too glib in our generalizations regarding the Sephardim...
...And I should add that there are people in Israel who disagree with government policy who still think it counterproductive when we here express our dissent publicly...
...These were my three proposals...
...They must lead us to a reevaluation of our own situation as a community...
...He just said, "I'll see you tomorrow night...
...I was very disappointed that on Tuesday morning, the Israeli Cabinet had decided to refuse the suggestion for a formal judicial inquiry...
...Yes, Israel's moral image was enhanced by the rally—but we'll have to see whether that's perceived by others...
...I don't know whether it was that fundamental...
...Actually, one of the reasons I went to see Prime Minister Begin was because I feared that he would wave a sheaf of telegrams of endorsement from American Jews, and I wanted him to be absolutely clear about what we were feeling here...
...So, even before the Israeli entry into West Beirut, I suggested that perhaps between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Conference should send a delegation— that perhaps some of the past chairmen, people Prime Minister Begin knows and with whom he has a relationship, ought to go and visit him...
...But our support is not directed towards the government...
...The question is whether Christians—who seem unable to focus on the unChristianlike behavior of the Phalange—will focus on the government's turning of its back on the events at Sabra and Shatila, or whether, instead, they will focus on the 400,000 Israelis who showed up for the protest rally...
...If your analysis is correct, what explains Begin's nearly complete yielding—except, of course, rhetorically—during the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations that led to Camp David...
...It's been quite an ordeal here, as well...
...That was the idea...
...Then, finally, regarding the possibility of some gesture to President Reagan, he simply wasn't interested...
...And, therefore, that the rally should have gone a very long way—not the whole way, but a long way—towards restoring people's respect for Israel after the events of the summer and the beating Israel has taken in public opinion...
...We discussed it on Wednesday, September 15, and since Ambassador Arens was coming to town the following Monday, the day after Rosh Hashanah, we decided to discuss it with him as well...
...The very charge of guilt is preposterous, and the institution of a commission would be an admission that something is wrong, and that is an admission I categorically reject...
...Finally, with regard to Israel, we have to enter into the debate on the West Bank and make our own position absolutely clear...
...Yes, it was a dreadful mistake—and I guess you're right, it shouldn't have surprised us...
...I had a real problem with Israel's instant and total rejection of the Reagan proposal...
...So we said to Arens, "For God's sake, can't you change Begin's view...
...I didn't like the entry into West Beirut to start with...
...But they evidently chose not to tell him what they knew he wouldn't want to hear...
...I respect him very much...
...Isn't there another and rather obvious possibility for his objection to an inquiry—to wit, that it might reveal things that Mr...
...I argued that the denial increased the suspicion, and spoke of the Nixon and Watergate precedent...
...One of two things happened there—either he lost complete control of the government, or he demonstrated that he has remained what he always was—a Revisionist...
...And that was the trip—aside from my conversations with people, which gave clear evidence that the country was very profoundly shaken by all this—by the event, and by its aftermath...
...I had proposed that to the leadership of the Presidents' Conference, because there had been a diffusion of our voice in the aftermath of the bombing of Beirut and President Reagan's Middle East initiative...
...I didn't like it, and I especially didn't like it when I heard that they had surrounded the camps and that the Phalangists were going in...
...And you met with him on Tuesday night...
...One of the people reported that he had talked that day with people in 16 different Jewish communities around the country, and that everything was in disarray...
...I regard this as a watershed moment for the American Jewish community...
...Yes...
...Now that, in turn, raises some very important questions regarding dissent over here, and the propriety of such dissent...
...Who knows...
...I don't believe they're all of one caste, of one mind...
...Yes, that he was giving up the Sinai in order to acquire the West Bank...
...I don't think anybody's been better on television...
...I'm referring to the growing division between Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewries...
...Would you go farther...
...Maybe I should just say that in the spirit of the season, I wasn't surprised—but I was disappointed...
...In short, maybe we're not talking here about the war in Lebanon, but about an understanding of Jewish history that leads one to these places, and even to these events...
...Arens indicated that he thought a trip might be useful, so, though I hadn't planned it for that day at all, and didn't have any of my things with me, I left from my office for the airport...
...The MacArthur analogy came up more than once, and the fact that Sharon is a minister rather than a general doesn't, under the Israeli circumstances, destroy the analogy...
...I thought that was a reckless gamble...
...Having lost in the game of driving out the PLO politically, they thought that by marching into West Beirut they could make their losses good, take care of the whole thing in one fell swoop...
...I had come with three basic themes...
...Our support is for the people of Israel, and for its ideals—ideals which are obviously very much intact in Israel...
...And that of course also meant the Israeli withdrawal from Beirut, which was tied to the multinational force in the President's speech...
...But I don't know...
...And if we make too much of the second, we will remain a community with an inadequate sense of itself...
...In any case, then came the terrible events of the weekend...
...It's going to be counterproductive in the general community, and it won't even convince the Jews...
...I mean that we cannot place ourselves in a position where all we are about is Israel...
...Begin didn't really respond to that...
...If you lose that party, the government most likely falls...
...There are a number of basic questions that arise in that regard...
...At the same time, it's clear that the private representations we make to the Israeli government, in which we share our true feelings with them, are completely overwhelmed by the public statements we make here...
...Herewith, the story of that encounter—and Rabbi Schindler's reflections on the implications of recent events for American Jews...
...With regard to the first, his response was two-fold...
...I stopped at the hotel, where I was brought up to date on the day's developments...
...I can't tell you what was exchanged between us, because it was a private conversation, and it wouldn't be right for me to report directly on it...
...I'm also concerned about the divisions within the Jewish people...
...What were the circumstances of your trip...
...I continue to believe that when we openly dissent, we play into the hands of Israel's enemies...
...I really don't know...
...If you fire Sharon, you lose the Techiyah Party as a member of the coalition...
...But there's a more fundamental issue that's now emerging into the open, and it's that issue that gives me greater concern...
...Anyhow, then came the weekend, with the news beginning to trickle out, and on Monday, the day after Rosh Hashanah, we had an emergency meeting of the Presidents' Conference—not the entire Conference, but the five or six people who constitute a kind of crisis committee...
...Personally, I'm convinced that the real reasoning here is mathematical, and very simple...
...This is the major question before Israel now, and while it is obviously their decision to make, I don't want them to be misled, by the support we offer them here, into thinking that we agree with the hard-liners there...
...Do you improve a wrong-headed policy by firing a wicked minister...
...But if that's so, then don't we indulge ourselves when we express surprise at the turn of events...
...And that may well yet happen, of course, so he's probably right to believe that there are purely political motivations at work here—as well as the other motivations, which he may or may not understand...
...I had come to the Knesset with very serious questions, and none of my questions was answered...
...I have no idea whether or not he was implicated, although I suspect that his sense of loyalty would prompt him to accept the responsibility even if he didn't know about it in advance...
...Let's stop there for a moment...
...One could well argue that Israel reasserted its idealism at that rally...
...So the question for us now is how to take people who have been using Israel as a kind of kidney machine, without which they cannot live, and teach them at one and the same time that they have worth as Jews independent of Israel and that they must continue to love and support Israel...
...And we've got to figure out a way of balancing these different constraints, or being more honest with the Israelis even at the risk of weakening our position here somewhat...
...in the other, it's a wrong-headed policy...
...Like Harry Truman with Harry Vaughan...
...That is, you seem to have been advising the Prime Minister on how he could contain the political costs of what happened...
...Actually, I spoke to Begin by telephone first, just after President Reagan spoke on TV...
...And, in addition to that, there was his overbearing manner—the manner of a Texas bulldog...
...let me ask you, as a rabbi, to comment on an understanding of Judaism and of Zionism that is built principally, if not exclusively, on fear...
...What do you make of the American Jewish reaction...
...Who can judge the policy of a man...
...Begin was very unhappy with me, but I felt that 1 had to convey what we were feeling—which turns out, obviously, to have been what quite a large number of Israelis were also feeling, as witness the demonstration in Tel Aviv that Saturday night...
...He does not acknowledge that Sharon made any mistake, but he makes it clear that even if Sharon did, he will stick by him, that he has always stuck by his people—loyalty above all...
...having spent five years in the infantry, I know what a poker game is, and I'm a bit of a gambler, and I knew that going into West Beirut was a case of pressing your bet...
...I was there, and I listened to Sharon, and it made me sick to my stomach—as I later told the press...
...Does it strike you that he really doesn't understand at all that Israel was somehow involved, if only through negligence...
...We're going to have to do a much better job of understanding them if we're going to have a united Jewish people...
...A MOMENT INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDER SCHINDLER On Monday, September 20, the former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations suddenly flew to Israel for an urgent private meeting with Prime Minister Begin...
...everything you have and put it in the middle in the hope you'll recapture it...
...There are people in Israel who are convinced by the basic Sharon line that everybody is against us and that we're going to have to bomb our way into survival...
...We need a credible response from Israel, and the blood libel ad"—which was scheduled for the next day, and which Arens had told us about—"is, from our point of view, disastrous...
...There's got to be more to what we are about than that...
...Our reaction to Israel, now and in the future, is at stake...
...That means that when you're losing, you then take Rabbi Alexander Schindler is President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations...
...That alone would be grounds for dismissal, if the will were there...
...That's something we'll have to consider very carefully...
...I really do believe that he's one of the ablest representatives we've had here...
...second, the firing of Sharon, which I recommended—that is, that he dissociate himself from Sharon, and do it immediately...
...third, some overt gesture to demonstrate dramatically Israel's intentions in Lebanon...
...He's learned the situation here very quickly and very well...
...Yes, but the real analogy would be like Harry Truman with Douglas MacAr-thur...
...If we make too much of the first, there are those who will use the argument as an excuse to distance themselves from Israel...
...Actually, I had thought of making the journey to Israel a week or so earlier...
...His response to the suggestion that Sharon be fired was clearly based on his loyalty to his people...
...And then I went off to Begin's house, where we met for well over two hours...
...First, obviously, the need for a judicial review...
...Arens was there, and he began to offer a defense of Israel, and some of the people around the table exploded and said, "Listen, don't give us this 'blood libel' business, it simply won't wash...
...So now you're back home...
...Clearly, there are people in Israel who are of a different mind from us—from what I take to be the centrist position of most American Jews...
...Obviously, if you lose faith in humankind and in humaneness, you're ultimately going to lose faith in yourself, you're going to come to believe that nothing matters except power—political power so far as internal matters are concerned, and military power externally...
...It's a blood libel...
...In one version—the version you took to Israel—the problem is a wicked minister...
...I even felt a sense of personal betrayal, because I'd always hoped that Begin would return to the mainstream of Jewish life if he were given the opportunity...
...Obviously, Lebanon was not that opportunity...
...So I'm happy to tell you his position, based on those statements...
...As it happened, I discussed the idea with him on Thursday or Friday, and he told me that he thought it would be an excellent idea...
...Incidentally, I note that the Ambassador is a very, very able person...
...In talking with Begin, I chose the arguments that I thought he might listen to, not the arguments that expressed how I really felt...
...You've focused here, in describing your mission to Israel, on its "damage-control" aspect...
...It was my hope that we might elicit from him a forthcoming gesture to President Reagan, which he would transmit through us, and which would in turn give us a platform here...
...It could lead to a recognition of the need to form our own judgments here, perhaps a somewhat greater willingness to express such judgments to the Israeli government...
...Even if he didn't exceed it in this case, there have been so many prior cases, and just that morning, Sharon had refused the invitation—a summons, really—to testify before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee...
...That was at five o'clock on Monday afternoon...
...I thought, for example, that since Israel was withdrawing its troops from Lebanon almost daily, that the Prime Minister might go on television and announce that so many and so many troops were being withdrawn, as a unilateral act by Israel, indicating Israel's commitment to the withdrawal of all foreign troops, and that it was now time for Syria to make a parallel gesture...
...I suspect that he thought this was intended as a show of solidarity, so he was rather shocked when I spoke as I did—even though his people knew exactly why I was coming...
...And that was that the entire effort was politically motivated, that people were out to get him, that these commissions always work that way...
...I resented the arrogance of his talk...
...You're a rabbi...
...Now, I don't think that these events mark a watershed only for Israeli Jews, or for our relationship with Israeli Jews...
...And then I think that there has also been a fundamental change in our relationship with the Christian community...
...They even tell me that we do not help their cause when we visibly make it our own...
...But I still think from a personal point of view, and probably from a political point of view as well, that if, when Begin had heard the news, he had immediately gone on television before the nation, and had made clear his terrible distress at what had happened, and had indicated that this was a clear problem for Israel because Israel had undertaken the responsibility for civilian security in West Beirut, and that under those circumstances, Sharon would have to go, that Begin would have come out of the whole thihg alright, perhaps even with his credibility enhanced...
...That thought assuredly crossed my mind...
...But even before that, the siege of Beirut shocked me, and undermined my faith in the Begin government and its program...
...So I called him to tell him that I was coming, and he said, "Of course, glad to have you come over," and we set a time for the following night...
...He was reported to have said to the Cabinet that morning that "we have nothing to have a commission about...
...I must say that he hadn't been well-briefed on the purpose of my visit...
...And I told Begin that I thought the President had made a very temperate statement, and that the President's suggestion that a multinational force go into Beirut was a welcome one, so far as I was concerned...
...That's quite different from mainstream Zionism, which sought to build on Jewish hope...
...I think they mark a watershed for us as well...
...But it may be that his second objection to the commission was the more telling, the more fundamental objection in Begin's mind...
...And it's hard to believe that he lost control of the government...
...With regard to our continuing support for Israel I think the answer is clear...
...The Presidents' Conference had become just one voice among many voices...
...But there is a different line of reasoning one might have adopted...
...And the next day was that incredibly stormy session in the Knesset, where the debate was on the question of a judicial review, and where the government's position—that there not be such a review—was sustained by a majority of the members of the Knesset...
...To us here, the absolute denial sounds preposterous...
...But I can tell you that there is virtually nothing that he said to me during our time together that he didn't say in public, and hence for the record, in the days immediately before and after our meeting...
...So I must say I just don't understand the reasoning, not at all...
...All photos by Bill Aron...
...This conversation with moment took place on September 29, 1982...
...And for all that time we went ring-around-the-rosy...
...Later that night, after our meeting, and the next day, I made a number of statements to elements of the Israeli press, and these were very widely reported...
...I never had any doubts about West Beirut...
...Those ideals, at any particular moment, may be well-expressed in government policy, or they may not be...
...So that may be enough of a reason for Begin not to fire him...
...At best, they might lead us to a recognition of our integrity and our independence as a community—and here I'm not talking necessarily about independence from Israel...
...And I added that it was our judgment here that not only should Israel accept the idea of the multinational force, but that Israel should accept it enthusiastically...
...I think that Christians will look at American Jews rather differently...
Vol. 7 • November 1982 • No. 10
