Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Is it Important that American Jews Identify with Israel?
On the margins of the discussion described in the previous post, Pinchas Rosenne told of a recent public lecture given by Hillel Kook. Kook, also known by his alias Peter Bergson, was a very colorful figure who emigrated to Israel three times and left twice, joined the Irgun but quarrelled with Menachem Begin, worked with Ben Hecht but quarrelled with the leaders or American Jewry during World War II, was elected to the first Knesset but left politics in disgust, and generally didn't fit in. He also came from an illustrious rabbinic family. In 1957, he was once again living in the US, visiting Israel, and generally being critical. Yet his particular criticism, assuming Rosenne was quoting him accurately, has a timeless ring to it[p.12]:
He had expected us to create a normal country here. Instead we're doing all sorts of things that are inexplicable to America's Jews. First, we've set up a theocracy so the Americans hate us. He personally had been in favor of setting up a "Vatican-Sanhedrin" but only on a limited area. Instead the whole country has become a theocracy. Second, we're not assisting the refugees, nor do we care about them. The world can't accept that. This country has become totalitarian and fascist... We must be a normal country, and comprehensible to the world. Just as the individual Jew wasn't comprehensible to his environment and therefore was hated, so the Jewish State is also not comprehensible to the world.To which Minister of the Interior Israel Bar Yehuda responded sharply:
If we must choose being understood or being the owners of our home, I prefer us to be the owners of our home. Of course, if we can have both that would be best.1957, yes?
1957: The UN Gnaws at Israeli Sovereignty
As noted earlier this week, only once between 1956 and 1958 was there a discussion of any real interest in the Ministers' Committee for Foreign Affairs and Security - but it was very interesting. The most interesting part of all was when Foreign Minister Golda Meir reported about tensions with the United Nations.
Background: in those early years of the UN, it seems to have played a larger role in war-zone mediation than it does today, as can be seen, for example, by the short official biography of the UN General Secretary of the day, Dag Hammarskjöld. Moreover, in the Mideast, the UN Truce Supervision Organisation in Palestine (UNTSO) seems to have had a significantly weightier status than its present-day descendants. Its acting chief of staff in 1958, the American Colonel Byron V. Leary, was assumed, at least by the Israelis, to be acting on direct and frequent orders of Hammerskjold. Finally, the armistice agreements of 1949 had left some patches of territory inside Israel's borders as demilitarized zones.
Golda and her colleagues were convinced that the UN was trying to undermine Israeli sovereignty in those areas (which were within the 1967 borders, of course). So, August 11th 1957:
Background: in those early years of the UN, it seems to have played a larger role in war-zone mediation than it does today, as can be seen, for example, by the short official biography of the UN General Secretary of the day, Dag Hammarskjöld. Moreover, in the Mideast, the UN Truce Supervision Organisation in Palestine (UNTSO) seems to have had a significantly weightier status than its present-day descendants. Its acting chief of staff in 1958, the American Colonel Byron V. Leary, was assumed, at least by the Israelis, to be acting on direct and frequent orders of Hammerskjold. Finally, the armistice agreements of 1949 had left some patches of territory inside Israel's borders as demilitarized zones.
Golda and her colleagues were convinced that the UN was trying to undermine Israeli sovereignty in those areas (which were within the 1967 borders, of course). So, August 11th 1957:
Golda Meir: For a while now there's been tension and a sort of struggle with the UN officials including with Mr. Hammarskjold. Recently however, Hammarskjold has stepped back a bit and he operates through Leary. General [Eedson] Burns [Leary's predecessor, whom we've already met here] fulfiled Hammarskjold's orders, but he did so with charm. Leary doesn't know how to do that.
It's clear that Hammarskjold intends to demonstrate with facts that the demilitarized zones are not the same as the rest of Israel. His position is that these areas have a special status, and the UN has enhanced authority in them. He's never said so openly, nor has he asked us to agree with him, but his actions make clear that he sees it that way, for example when he insists that UN observers enjoy greater independence in those areas and need not liaise with IDF officers.
Recently he [Leary] wanted to station observers above the [B'not Yaacov] Bridge [over the Jordan River on the Syrian border]. We said: no, there's no need. He said, OK, so there will be visits of observers. We agreed to visits. So what did he do? He came one day and announced he'd put an observer there. Joseph Tekoa, of the Foreign Ministry, responded: What do you mean you're announcing. You must ask. He [Leary] said it's demilitarized and he was announcing, not asking. Tekoa told him that wouldn't work and brought the matter to me. Of course we told [Leary] there was no such option: no observers and no special authority in that area. He went back to saying observers would visit. I said OK. What's he doing now? First an observer stood there an hour then left. A bit later, another one came and stood there an hour. Now he has them standing there four hours, to be replaced by someone else for four hours. We told him again we would not allow it to become an observer's position.
Our problem is that no outsider will understand what we're quarreling with them for. Possibly even some Israelis won't understand.
Justice Minister Pinchas Rosenne: I'm one of those.
Golda Meir: I'm surprised at you. At a different place, we quarreled with them about another little detail. They wanted to raise the UN flag over one of the positions. One of our officers was positioned there too. We said it's Israeli territory, there's an IDF officer there, there's no way you're going to fly the UN flag. There's no precedent for such behavior. If you insist on a UN flag, there will be an Israeli flag above it. They said no, that would anger the Syrians. We said Fine, so no flag at all. So they raised the UN flag, and when we saw that we raised our flag above it. He was angry and reported to Hammarskjold, who must also have been angry. They took their flag down, and then we took ours down, too. Then he wanted his observers to spend the night there. We said we don't see any sense in that but if they wish, fine. Leary then said the overnight observers must be armed. We said none of them are armed anywhere else in the country and they won't be armed there either... What Hammarskjold is trying to achieve is that the demilitarized zone isn't under full Israeli sovereignty, and once he succeeds at that he'll apply the same reasoning to the demilitarized zone on the Egyptian border.File א-7903/5
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Purchasing Jews From the Communists
We recently spent four entire posts on the single stenogram of the December 1955 meeting of the Ministers' Committee for Foreign Affairs and Security. Israel had attacked Syrian military positions on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in response to a Syrian campaign to disrupt fishing on the lake, and post factum the ministers had various comments to make (here here here and here). In one of the posts, I commented on the difference between the committee as it appeared in the 1955 document and its greater significance these days.
Following up on a comment by one of our most veteran staffers, whereby the committee only became active and important after Levi Eshkol became Prime Minister in the mid-1960's, I called up file א-7903/5 which contains all the stenograms of the committee between late 1956 and the summer of 1958, all in one rather slim folder: a convincing demonstration on its own that not much was happening in the committee. It was chaired by Moshe Haim Shapira, the Minister of Religious Affairs and a member of the National Religious Party, another indication that it couldn't have been very important. It convened about once a month, apparently irrespective of events, and most of its time was spent on authorizing diplomatic posts: the General Consul to Yugoslavia, or the one in Montreal.
Riveting stuff. So riveting that at the meeting of July 7, 1957 the ministers interrupted themselves to kvetch - there's no better word - that theirs was a demeaning job. Not only did no-one ever tell them anything, but their lower-ranking colleagues who were mere Members of Knesset were better informed than they were.
Whether it was the complaints, or pure coincidence, the following meeting on the 11th of August 1957, was by far the most interesting in the entire file.
The first topic was presented by Golda Meir, the Foreign Minister, who prefaced her report with the swoon-inducing compliment that what she was about to report she would not repeat in the full cabinet "because I'm afraid of telling it there. I trust that none of it will leak from here." She then launched into a description of negotiations with Hungary. Apparently the Hungarians had let it be known that they were interested in a payment of $2,500,000 or $3,500,000 to facilitate the immigration of Jews to Israel, and Israel had refused to comply. Recently, however, while Jews with passports were still being allowed out of Hungary, no new passports were being issued. One of Israel's diplomats had tried to investigate, and had been told that Hungary was interested in negotiating a new trade agreement. This, Golda mused, might indeed be the way to tansfer the funds without the unfortunate appearances. "The Hungarians, in any case, said they'd not be issuing any new passports until the negotiations began" [p.4-5].
If the Hungarians were openly hinting, the Romanians were being explicit.
Following up on a comment by one of our most veteran staffers, whereby the committee only became active and important after Levi Eshkol became Prime Minister in the mid-1960's, I called up file א-7903/5 which contains all the stenograms of the committee between late 1956 and the summer of 1958, all in one rather slim folder: a convincing demonstration on its own that not much was happening in the committee. It was chaired by Moshe Haim Shapira, the Minister of Religious Affairs and a member of the National Religious Party, another indication that it couldn't have been very important. It convened about once a month, apparently irrespective of events, and most of its time was spent on authorizing diplomatic posts: the General Consul to Yugoslavia, or the one in Montreal.
Riveting stuff. So riveting that at the meeting of July 7, 1957 the ministers interrupted themselves to kvetch - there's no better word - that theirs was a demeaning job. Not only did no-one ever tell them anything, but their lower-ranking colleagues who were mere Members of Knesset were better informed than they were.
Whether it was the complaints, or pure coincidence, the following meeting on the 11th of August 1957, was by far the most interesting in the entire file.
The first topic was presented by Golda Meir, the Foreign Minister, who prefaced her report with the swoon-inducing compliment that what she was about to report she would not repeat in the full cabinet "because I'm afraid of telling it there. I trust that none of it will leak from here." She then launched into a description of negotiations with Hungary. Apparently the Hungarians had let it be known that they were interested in a payment of $2,500,000 or $3,500,000 to facilitate the immigration of Jews to Israel, and Israel had refused to comply. Recently, however, while Jews with passports were still being allowed out of Hungary, no new passports were being issued. One of Israel's diplomats had tried to investigate, and had been told that Hungary was interested in negotiating a new trade agreement. This, Golda mused, might indeed be the way to tansfer the funds without the unfortunate appearances. "The Hungarians, in any case, said they'd not be issuing any new passports until the negotiations began" [p.4-5].
If the Hungarians were openly hinting, the Romanians were being explicit.
Regarding Romania, I invited the attache to a talk. It was rather fantastic. He's new here, and we began by talking about Zionism. So long as we spoke in generalities, about the Jewish connection to Israel and Hebrew, he understood and everything was fine. But when I got to the specific parts, regarding the unification of families and aliya in general, the conversation took a turn I've never seen before. The attache requested permission to speak, and he took out a paper. "I knew you were going to get to this, so I prepared a written response to ensure accuracy." And then he read a four-page response.
Immigration from Romania is made of two parts. The first, reunification of families, is fine. The Romanian policy is that each case must be investigated individually, but if Jews wishing to leave fall into the right catagories they'll be let out; if there are any delays they must be purely technical. Immigration in general, however, is an Israeli intervention in Romanian sovereignty. This demand is an affront to Romania.It was clear, Golda summed up, that he was acting on orders from above.
Idiotic Journalists
At one point during Golda Meir's report to the ministers on August 11th 1957 (see the previous post), she and they were congratulating themselves on a successful visit of an Israeli acting troupe to the Soviet Union.
Golda: It was a great event. We've got idiotic journalists, if they presented it the way they did.
Minister of Interior Israel Bar-Yehuda: We've got a newspaper called Yediot Acharonot which publishes articles by a fellow from MAKI (the Israeli Communist Party), he went there as part of their delegation, and he always tries to see things from their perspective.
Minister of Health Israel Barzilai: Sadly, our paper isn't any better, and they also reported with no brains. They didn't even mention the meeting with the local Jews.
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