From Eban to Sharon

In June 1967 I became a passionate partisan of Israel just when it seemed likely that the Jewish state would be wiped off the map forever. Taking all my impressions from the American news media, I saw it as a valiant little outpost of civilization besieged by hordes of savage Arabs. Its victory in the Six-Day War seemed miraculous.

For me, as for countless others, the noble soul of Israel seemed to be embodied in one man: its UN representative, Abba Eban. Eloquent and mellifluous, exquisitely diplomatic yet very tough, Eban projected the image of Israel as civilized, heroic, and urbane. He spoke our language better than we did, and in the bitter debates with Arab UN representatives he made us feel that Israel’s struggle was our own struggle.

In the ensuing years, even when his Labor Party fell from power, Eban remained America’s favorite Israeli spokesman. The world had been shocked in 1976 when Israel elected the former terrorist Menachem Begin as its prime minister, and it wanted reassurance that Eban still spoke for the Israel we admired.

Today Eban seems an ancient memory. So does the Israel he so seductively described.

Israel’s image changed for good in 1982, when Begin and General Ariel Sharon mounted a murderous invasion of Lebanon. Aerial bombing of Beirut, one of the world’s most beautiful cities, killed thousands of innocent civilians. Thousands more were slaughtered in a pair of refugee camps, with the apparent connivance of Sharon.

Many Israelis protested the war. Israel lost sympathy abroad and was even likened to Nazi Germany. More than a few Diaspora Jews who had loyally supported it now repudiated it. Begin had lied brazenly to President Ronald Reagan about his intentions, but Reagan and the U.S. Government continued to treat Israel as an ally. For me, it was all too much. Israel was making enemies not only for itself, but for us.

Today Sharon is Israel’s prime minister and, more than ever, Israel is America’s problem child. Few in government and the media will admit this, of course. Eric Alterman of The Nation has listed more than 60 pundits in the major media who “reflexively” and “without qualification” support Israel, while he can name only a handful who are critical.

In an interview with William Safire of the New York Times, Sharon inadvertently put his finger on the nub of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Scoffing at the new Saudi peace plan, Sharon said, “And do you imagine, for one minute, we could accept what the Palestinians call the right of return? It would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish democratic state.”

This was a reference to the Saudi proposal that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their homes. Sharon reckons that they would shift the demographic balance and outvote the Jews. The result might be a democratic state, but not a Jewish democratic state.

Under Israeli law, Jews around the world, most of whom have never even lived in the Middle East, have a right of “return.” But Palestinians in exile do not — and must not — have the right to go back to the very houses they once owned and inhabited. Thus is the Jewish majority maintained in Israel.

Sharon is really admitting that Israel is based not on universal principles of justice, but on the right of Jews to drive the natives of the land from their homes and to banish them forever. At the same time, he wants to keep the occupied territories, but not to let their Arab residents vote. Too many Arab voters would threaten the Jewish democratic state.

Let’s be clear. We aren’t merely talking about Jewish jurisdiction over historic Palestine; the Palestinians have long lived under alien rule and they could endure it while it left daily life pretty much intact. But the Israeli Jews claim outright ownership of the land, including Arab homes. Sharon evidently reserves the right to expel all Arabs from Israel and the territories, and by exasperating the Arabs he hopes to drive the country toward a crisis that will enable him to do this.

As always, Sharon blames the whole conflict on the Arabs. He insists that Yasser Arafat, confined to a dark candle-lit room with only a cell phone, could instantly stop the suicide bombings if he wanted to.

We can thank Ariel Sharon for one thing: he has revealed things about Israel that Abba Eban never told us.

Joseph Sobran