Who is responsible for Jewish settlements?

By J. Zel Lurie

DELRAY BEACH, Florida — Chautauqua is a remarkable, unique institution. Lying on the shore of 18-mile-long Lake Chautauqua between the cities of Buffalo and Erie, it is not easy to get to, but I have managed to spend a few weeks there every summer.

Elsewhere in the summer months, one can find informative lectures or  theater and opera festivals, or dance recitals or symphony orchestras or golf and tennis resorts, but only in Chautauqua can one find all of  these things plus a large dose of religion. There are 14 denominational
houses which includes a Jewish center named for my friend, the late Henry Everett. Next year, there will be 15 when the Chabad house opens its doors.

This year I arrived in Week 7 of the nine-week season. The theme of the week was “Diplomacy,” and the array of speakers for the morning session  was typical of Chautauqua, men and women who were experts in their fields.  I had just missed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg who had lectured in Week 6.

Week 7 offered a typical array of informed experts in the 400 seat amphitheater each morning.

R. Nicholas Burns, director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard University, was the Monday morning speaker. His message was simple. Lead with diplomacy, not military.

That is what I and other Obama supporters have been telling President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The planned cruise missile strikes would have been a mistake but the threat did lead to  diplomatic actions by President Vladimir Putin and the successful
agreement between Russia and the United States on Syria’s chemical weapons.

Burns was followed by Stuart Bowen, who had been the inspector general of United States efforts at reconstruction of Iraq. His message was shocking.  Iraq had received hundreds of billions of dollars and much of it had gone into “waste, fraud and corruption.” An example was a
prison that cost 21 million that stands unfinished and empty. But Baghdad now has a fine electricity system for which American taxpayers paid another 21 million dollars.

Next came Molly Williamson who spoke about oil, on which “this planet runs for good or ill. The planet consumes 89 billion barrels of oil every day of the year.

The week ended with Dennis Ross who knows more about the complex problems of the Middle East than most of the Washington experts.

Tom Becker, president of Chautauqua, who chaired the meeting, spotted me in the first row. He made me into a celebrity by introducing me the 4,000 people in the amphitheater audience. He said that I was in my hundredth year and that I had begun my career as a journalist 80 years ago on the Jerusalem Post.

The afternoon lectures are handled by the Department of Religion. They are called interfaith lectures but they do not always have a religious theme.

This was the case on Week 7 when Aaron David Miller gave five lectures on the Middle East. Miller has worked in the State Department on various aspects of the Israel/Palestine conflict for 25 years and is now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute.

I am not a fan of Aaron David Miller. He has listened to the complaints and arguments of the Palestinians for years and he believes that the Palestinians will never accept a compromise offered by Israel.

That is a common belief held by Israelis most of whom have never met Palestinians. I believe it is wrong.

Miller said that it was “a common myth” to believe that hat the pro-Israel lobby controlled U.S policy. He said “the notion that American Jews in collusion with millions of evangelical Christians held hostage the policies of President George H.W, Bush and  Secretary of
State James Baker is wrong and is “not supported by historic evidence.”

Let’s look at the evidence. From the day of the first settlement the United States administration has opposed them.

In the early ’70s, in a background off the record  interview at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, the political officer, an Orthodox Jew named Daniel Kurtzer, told my Israeli readers: “you (Israel), are using our money to do what we oppose” building settlements.

This is the first time that I have published this 40 year old quote.

Kurtzer, who is now a professor at Princeton, had a distinguished career in the foreifn service. He is the only person who has served as American ambassador to Egypt and then switched to ambassador to Israel. His reports on Jewish settlements were filed away in the State Dpartment’s archives, he told me.

The first American president to take any anti-settlement action was George H.W. Bush, who  withheld $400 million of American aid money which, he said, was what Israel was spending on settlements annually.

President Bush fended off congressional leaders who supported Israel for many months —  until the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which  coordinates pro-Israel lobbyists. I was present at this meeting when the announcement that Bush had
capitulated and Israel would receive the $400 million was greeted with loud cheers.

It is not too much to say that the American Jewish establishment, which consists primarily of the American Jewish Committee, the anti-Defamation League, Hadassah and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, are responsible, together with the Christian evangelicals,
for Jewish settlements in the West Bank to continue to thrive.

That is what makes compromises that would lead to an Israel-Palestine agreement so difficult.

P.S. George H. W. Bush was not elected to a second term.

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Lurie is a freelance writer based in Delray Beach, Florida.  He may be contacted via jzel.lurie@sdjewishworld.com