Future of the Middle East and American Jewry: Next Generation Perspective Saturday 22 July 2000, Vacation Village, Loch Sheldrake, New York.  An audience of 150 elite modern Orthodox Jews.

As part of my profession and to prepare my columns and forecasts, I read papers, monitor newscasts and talk regularly to people of all ages in over 50 countries, many of whom are close to their governments but not in public positions. I also travel to see many of these people personally and to make observations. I go back to the same places to see how they've changed, visit new places to see what kind of opportunities are out there, and try to get a sense of what is really going on.

What I will tell you in the next 40 minutes are ideas and opinions you don't ordinarily hear. Most speakers about the Middle East don't actually talk to or visit all the parties to the conflict. Most Israelis don't know Arabs, except in the sense that you or I see black people on the bus or the subway which means we see them every day but we don't know them. Revered commentators such as AM Rosenthal and Norman Podhoretz have never traveled to and have no contacts in the Arab World. They have both admitted this to me within the past few months. I asked Podhoretz, so how do you know so much about the Arabs? He said, I know what I read. Well, I don't agree. I read a lot too and agree that many people can go somewhere and see nothing or a false reality, but after 10 years of experience I believe there is no substitute for an analyst to go and see things for himself and to maintain a good list of contacts to get personal background when things happen in public that don't make sense or that are not what they appear to be.

My goal today and everyday is to understand what is going on but, more important, what will happen in the future. You, and by this I mean each of you individually, may see a different picture of reality than I do because each of us emphasizes different things that we believe are important. The point here is to be analytical and future-thinking. Put another way, I'd like AT&T to be $50 a share; today it's about $35. Whatever we say about what we think it's worth, it's $35 a share. But we can still talk about what it might be worth in the future and we might both be right.

In evaluating shares of the Enterprise we call Israel, I will deal with difficult issues and go beyond current events to offer a long-term vision. Each party to the Arab-Israeli conflict has vital interests and they cannot be ignored because any agreement that is going to stick has to make both sides happy. Most of the analysis we have tells us what the other side wants or is thinking, but the truth is the information we get is from people who never talk to these people in the first place or consider how the matter looks from the other side of the table, so what good is it? This is not about liberal bias but balance; I don't read only what I want to read or hear what I want to hear but rather try to get and work with the best information available. And since I'm not running for office, I can be honest with you. I will give straight answers to questions after I finish this text and apologize in advance if what I say disturbs any of you, but at least know that I take facts seriously and those discussed today were verified by independent fact-checkers.

To put the Middle East in context requires new thinking, a realization that things are changing, and an admission that many things we were told or thought for years were not necessarily true, now that we know things we didn't know before. We also need more realistic definitions of the terms: Peace, Threat and Risk.

Here's a list of things you hear all the time: The Arabs hate Israelis; even with peace the Egyptians and Jordanians don't buy from us, and don't visit us. They live in dictatorships with no news except what they are told from their governments. Their governments are irrational, have attacked us for no good reason in the past, and might throw nuclear weapons at us, so we need a missile defense system fast. The Israelis have to fear 50,000 tanks on their border if the Arabs ever want to invade. The Palestinians are using their territories and workers with permits to launch terrorist attacks. We need sealed borders with electric fences to keep them out. If only the Israeli government had better public relations, things would go better. Now let's actually look at all this as I address these 10 points one by one.

• The region is changing profoundly and the old rules have been broken. You have new leaders in Morocco, Syria and Jordan. The Syrian leader is younger than I am. Israel's Barak and the people around him and leading the opposition such as Sharon are much older by comparison. Egypt will soon change leaders and Arafat's successor will probably be some fellow in his 40's who you've never heard of before. These new leaders are western educated, friendly with each other, and are considered to be decent gentlemen who listen to other people, emphasize economic reform and like Western culture. Jordan's Abdullah had good contacts with Jews at Georgetown and has in the past parachuted with Israeli army personnel in Israel; it is comforting to know that the new leaders of Syria and Jordan were friends in university, went to horse shows and played bachelor together. Remember that in 1970, Syria sent tanks to invade Jordan and it was only because the Israelis sent planes to the border that Syria stayed out. It used to be that Arabs listened to the Israeli arabic services for news about their countries; today, Internet usage is penetrating the Arab world at a high rate and the new satellite tv stations that Arabs are watching give a very balanced view of what is going on all over the place with correspondents reporting even from Israel. Arabs today follow Israeli political developments very closely and know more of the subtle nuances of Israeli domestic politics than most of us do. Israelis know hardly anything about what is going on in any Arab country. Today's Arab doesn't care much about the peace process and doesn't like Palestinians. They respect Israel, and its democratic system is something they want for their own countries. In Kuwait today I'd say a Jew is higher than a Palestinian on the popularity list since the Palestinians aligned themselves with Iraq, but there is still a Moslem regard for Jerusalem as a holy place. Just because an Arab despises a Palestinian in his own country doesn't mean that he doesn't resent the Israelis for occupying Arab land and people. After all, the Palestinians are fellow Arabs. We say pslams for those Iranian Jews in prison whom we don't know either.

 
• That said, I do believe that most Arabs wish Israel would disappear. King Abdullah's support of the peace process is ahead of his people who don't like it. On the other hand, most Israelis and many of us would prefer that Arabs would disappear from Israel and many of us wouldn't be unhappy if the US would only have people that looked like us. This is a natural human tendency and we should just admit that it is mutual and go on. I hear a lot of talk about Arab schoolbooks that tell them how bad Jews are, but take a look at what the Israeli schoolbooks and teachers have been teaching about Arabs for 50 years. Opinion surveys continue to show high degrees of hatred of Arabs among Israeli teenagers and this is not encouraging. 

 
• About 5 years ago, I spoke with Uri Lubrani who was the head of Lebanon Administration for Israel. I asked him, what about when the Arabs get missiles with a state 10 miles from Tel Aviv? He said, you can't control someone's intentions; you can only try and control what he will do. We will never be able to stop them from getting weapons or wanting to use them; we have to make the price high enough so that they will not exercise the opportunity. You know that you can't stop your 10 year old kid from watching South Park or a 13 year old from getting into an R-rated movie. But if you can make him stay away because he fears the consequences, then you have done about as much as you can expect if you can't convince him he doesn't want it in the first place. 

 
• What you should get out of this so far is that peace means an absence of war and that Jews and Arabs will not like each other, not for at least 25 years. Peres's visions of a Grand Middle East with all kinds of economics scared the heck out of the Arabs and the Israelis didn't go for it either. The Egyptians have no good reason to publicly concede that they should let Israel be the sole nuclear power in the region when the Egyptians like to think they are at the head of the Arab world, and especially when other countries in the neighborhood are going nuclear, a result that is inevitable. The Arab economies are totally backward; they have nothing to sell and there is no reason they should go out of their way to want to buy Israeli just like we have no particular reason to buy Arab. 70% of American Jews have never visited Israel and probably won't and most Arabs will not either. Israelis just happen to like to travel a lot and they are an adventurous breed of people; Arabs are not as curious and they have less money. The cost of tourism in Israel as you know is Manhattan prices so why should you expect that ordinary people in countries with one-tenth the personal income of an Israeli could afford to play tourist in Israel?

 
• There is talk of peace with separation and the Arrow anti-ballistic missile defense system. This is all nonsense. Any Arab can sneak into Israel from any one of over 500 crossing points all along the Green Line and nobody believes they can ever prevent it. You cannot divide Jerusalem and the nature of the Territories are that Jews and Arabs are all over the place and can't avoid each other, and as I explain later this actually guarantees each other's survival against ultimate threats. There is no chance that these anti-missile defense systems will make it impossible to terrorize Israel with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. 99% Prevention is not good enough because you only need 1 weapon to get through to ruin your country. The way you counter these systems is to just throw more missiles at them; this has been true for 40 years. The Patriot missile defense system used during the Gulf War did not destroy 1 single incoming Scud. What this means is that we cannot be safe by building fences and missile systems. It is all bubbemeises [yiddish: folktales] meant to give people comfort, the appearance of action, and money to the defense industry. More important are some facts about Arab terrorism: Since the Oslo Agreement, not one terror attack has been launched from territory under Palestinian military control. All attacks have been launched from territory under Israeli military control. Since Oslo, not one terrorist has ever been in Israel under a legal work permit. All attackers have entered illegally. The Arabs are not stupid: They want Israel to give them military control over territory and to employ them as legal workers. They will not jeopardize those possibilities. On the other hand, they want to show Israel that military control and closed borders will not protect them.

 
• Another point: The dog that barks is not necessarily the dog that bites. In order to assess RISK, we have to be very clear about where the THREAT is and not be distracted by things that bother us but are not threats. Rock throwing is a nuisance but not a threat. A few busses getting bombed every few years is upsetting to morale but not one-tenth as dangerous as driving a car in Israel. The Palestinians and Jordanians have few tanks. The Egyptians and Iraqis have too much space between us and them to be able to use tanks. The Syrians have no tanks that work. Israel has nothing to fear from tanks and the military this year rated tanks as a third level threat. If the Egyptians want to send a million footsoldiers into the Sinai armed with sandals and rifles like they did 30 years ago, they will be cannon fodder and surrounded in 3 hours just like they were then. The Palestinians have many policemen. So what? Half the people are unemployed. They need jobs, so he puts them on the policeforce. They don't do anything but they get paid and you'd have no better luck taking away everyone's pistol in the Israeli territories than in the Arab territories.

 
• Israel did get its butt bitten in Lebanon. No doubt, it was a humiliation. How many people do you think make up the Hizbullah in Lebanon? We are talking about 200-300 Yeshiva Bochers except that they are not from our Yeshivas. That's right - a couple hundred kids aged 18-25 playing guerrilla warfare in the Lebanese mountains with a blank check from Iran and philanthropists around the world forced the Israeli army to withdraw. Here is consolation: In the history of modern warfare, no army has ever been able to beat guerrilla warriors on their home turf. Remember Vietnam and Afghanistan? The Russians carpet-bombed Chechnya last year with no TV cameras watching and still can't win the war.

 
• The Israelis have a PR problem. Meaning they don't spend resources to convince the world of the rightness of their cause. They also don't send representatives to talk to Jews around the world, let alone everyone else. The reason: In Netanyahu's case, he could have spent a billion dollars on public relations. It wouldn't have helped because the world didn't like his policy. You can't sell dogfood to cats. In Barak's case, Barak has decided that he doesn't care what you think and he is not going to spend resources trying to convince you otherwise. The fact is that American Jews have almost no influence on Israeli policy and the American Jewish vote has never affected an election in the US and everyone knows that the minute a US official criticizes the Jewish vote or lobby, we will run for the exits because we know we can't win if the American establishment is against us. Pat Moynihan, who is a good historian, told me that Jewish money is influential and wanted, but as far as votes are concerned, we are totally overrated. 

 
• A good demonstration of this is the recent racket over the Israeli arms sale to China. Israel buckled under real fast when the pressure hit. There is a real Israeli interest at stake - the Israelis made a deal with the Chinese and their credibility has taken a hit. The Americans sell plenty of arms to the Chinese; they sold the same plane - the AWACS - to Saudi Arabia 20 years ago over major Jewish and Israeli objections, saying it was purely defensive. Remember how we lost that fight in the Congress? The Americans supposedly approved of this sale 5 years ago subject to the Israelis doing certain things such as building a hangar to keep the plane secret, which the Israelis didn't do, for one thing. Remember the Israelis wanted to buy Airbus for El Al earlier this year? It was rather humiliating for Boeing which had to make concession after concession to keep the contract. It's an election year now and it's get-even time on top of that. Had the Israelis proposed to make the aircraft for the Chinese with a Boeing frame instead of a Russian Illyushin frame, you can bet this matter would never have become an issue. The point is that we are not so strong here that Barak can count on us so therefore he doesn't waste too much time with us. By the way, someone close to the Chinese government tells me that the new leader of Taiwan has been supported by the Chinese all along and as far as they are concerned, we can give all the arms we want to Taiwan because Taiwan is going to leak them to China anyway. Now that's real politics. [P.S. In the last few days, the American defense secretary was interviewed in Beijing and admitted the sale was killed for commercial reasons. So you see, the US isn't even denying it anymore.]

 
• Another point about what we think we know. We have been told many things about history. With the end of the Cold War, many secrets are coming to light. Both the Arabs and Jews in Israel and the US were lied to by their governments for the past 50 years and all are realizing it. A Catholic former CIA attorney named John Loftus wrote a book, The Secret War Against the Jews. I recommend it even though it is a long book. You won't like America too much after reading it. You certainly won't want to vote for Bush. The BBC did a rather good documentary about Israel's first 50 years and one of its most revealing portions were about the wars of 1967 and 1973. The BBC documentary says the 67 war happened because the Russians tricked the Egyptians into thinking the Israelis were going to attack it because the Russians had their own interests, and the 1973 war happened on the Golan because the Egyptians lied to the Syrians to draw them into the war and the Egyptian attack happened because the Israelis refused to deal with the Egyptians on the Suez Canal and left them only with a military option. Both the Israelis and Arabs exaggerated the Deir Yassin events of 1948 for their own propaganda purposes which boomeranged and caused thousands of people to flee in terror. What we get out of this, and what I've tended to get out most history I've learned about anything, is that instead of some big wonderful conspiracy you are dealing with human beings who deal in normal ways and all sorts of accidents happen. What you also get out of this is the understanding that all things being equal, the states in the region are essentially like animals that don't attack unless they fear attack. Also, war costs a lot of money. Russia paid for the 1967 and 1973 wars and the Americans shelled out $2.2 billion to rearm Israel in '73; today the Arabs, Russians, Saudis, North Koreans - even the Sultanate of Brunei - are going bankrupt and have no possible way to pay for war. Neither do the Israelis. And that last point is the most important - as they say - no tickie, no washie, no war.

The point here is that the reality is often much more complex than the daily news. Deborah Sontag of the New York Times has 2 translators but meanwhile she can't speak Hebrew, can't read a document, can't overhear a conversation and understand who is leaking something to her and why. AM Rosenthal, even after 17 years of being executive editor at the Times and 12 years of writing columns and who makes speeches criticizing editors as ignoramuses, still tells me he can't see why this is a problem. The news you get can't be much better than the correspondents who report it and that's why you can read all you want but it will only get you so far. I can tell you that Haaretz's correspondent in Washington is fluent in English and French and you can be sure that he knows what's going on here - and his reporting shows it.

So much for what is. Now, let's look forward.

• What is the Risk? The risk is not from states, but from Rogues. States do not do crazy things. The Russians never acted irrationally and were very convenient adversaries; even Saddam Hussein has always been careful not to cross a red line. You may think he's nuts but he still has his 40 palaces, the people around him have whatever they want, and all of his past adversaries are either dead or out of office. People like Osama bin Laden are accountable to nobody and are hard to reach. They mean business and the global village is making it easier for them to cooperate and to move people, information, money and weapons around the world. They feed off poverty but they and many of their followers are rich and well educated. It should be foreseen that one of these guys will get on a speedboat one Thursday night in Cyprus, a place like the Bahamas, and will sail 200 miles to Tel Aviv and from 20 miles away launch a small nuclear-tipped missile toward the boardwalk at midnight with thousands of Israelis out for the evening because that's their Saturday night. In my opinion, you can't stop this. If some person wants to cross into Israel and plant biological organisms in the water, you can't stop it. I discussed this issue 2 weeks ago with the director of Rambam Hospital in Haifa, who is one of Israel's leaders in the field. Most efforts to prepare to fight this kind of terror are wastes of money; at least you would be happy to know that Israel today is the world leader in civil defense against such types of attacks and the US is very interested in Israeli technology and methods. 

 
• The only real protection for Israel is that because the Israelis and Arabs are on top of each other, you can't destroy one without destroying the other. That's why Saddam Hussein never hit Jerusalem or the Territories with the Scuds. Hit Tel Aviv with unconventional weapons and Jaffa goes with it; Haifa is half Arab. Arab regimes have their public opinion to deal with and killing Arabs or taking away their incomes by using people with Israeli work permits to do terror is not good for public opinion. The best protection against future risk is for Israel to work with its neighboring states to monitor and prevent acts by rogue individuals who threaten both Israel and its neighbors. The best prevention is good intelligence and to keep these people alive but under surveillance and pressure. Killing them has proven counterproductive because it only creates the need for revenge and new leaders who we know less about. The Israelis paid triple for knocking off the Engineer with the booby-trapped cellphone 5 years ago and it just wasn't worth it for the people running Israel at the time. Hamas bombed the buses in retaliation, Peres sank in the polls, Peres went into Lebanon to look big and had bad luck when someone fired on a civilian target by mistake, this made the Arabs stay home on election day and he then lost the election. 

Finally, in assessing risk, we have to take the cold-hearted step of being prepared to discount the cost of a certain amount of terrorism as being the price of doing business as a nation. Even in total peace there will be terrorism; there will be crazy people from who knows where, and it will be a waste to keep the current level of defense spending going and have soldiers on every corner just to prevent an occasional attack, or to use terror as an excuse to shy away from a peace deal. In the past 15 years in the US, we have had very few attacks by Arabs; many more attacks by terrorists who look like the average person and build bombs using fertilizer and instructions off the Internet and then there goes a federal building in Oklahoma City. Who would have thought? Just like we won't spend every last dollar or implement every security precaution to make every 747 or flight perfectly safe. We must understand this as a cost of doing business. Even if we can't accept it, it is our leaders' responsibility to make these tough decisions.

• Now let's translate risk into territory. If you accept the idea that the threat is more from rogues than states and that holding territory is not going to protect you from the kinds of attack that are truly existential threats, and that Israel's ultimate deterrence is its nuclear forces which it will never give up, then 10 miles of Golan Heights with 20,000 residents or 10 miles of Lebanese territory become very insignificant even though you can stand on the Golan and look down on the Galilee as sitting ducks. The Arab areas of the territories become worthless as does Gaza. As it is now, Israelis know to stay away from East Jerusalem just like we don't cross 125^th Street in Manhattan, and you can call it what you like but it ain't ours if we won't go there. Now I know this is an emotional issue to us and has been for Israel, but we are now in a time where people are becoming more tachlis [yiddish: bottom line] oriented. Dudu in Tel Aviv says, If it's not going to affect my life, why should I be bothered by it? Do I want to spend 40 days a year marching around in Gaza getting rocks thrown at me or freezing up on the borders this winter, or do I want to be skiing in Switzerland? You may consider this kind of thinking defeatist and a loss of faith but the average Israeli thinks that getting out of Gaza and Lebanon was a m'chayeh [breath of fresh air] and doesn't care if you or the Arabs think he left but got nothing in return. It was good for him so he did it. The point is that today's Israeli will fight if he thinks it's important; if not, forget it. Rabin and Barak had to face this reality. 20% of Israelis today dodge the draft because they are tired of being put into fights they think are unnecessary. The Arabs understand both sides of this. Beyond the statements for public consumption, people know that the Israelis did what was good for them and that the withdrawal gives Israel much more flexibility than it had before. They also know that the Israelis are not going to let the Arabs march into Jewish settlements like they did in Jezzin in Lebanon; there are pretty liberal shoot to kill orders out now if the Arabs make real trouble after the summit and they are aware of them.

 
• Back to the Real Israeli for a minute. When we go to Israel, we tend to go to Jerusalem. Remember that if you go outside Jerusalem or a major hotel, it is hard to find a kosher restaurant in Israel. Do you know that in Israel, 80% of Israelis who are not from Jerusalem or its surrounding area have not visited Jerusalem in at least 5 years? More than 50% of newly inducted soldiers have never been to Jerusalem. There has not been one industrial development in the city in 25 years. The fact is that Israelis view the entirety of Jerusalem as something apart from the rest of Israel and the issue of a united Jerusalem has been more of a slogan than something people really thought about. Now that they have to deal with it, there is no overwhelming constituency within Israel to insist on it and there have been some surprising developments. The chief Sefardic rabbi, Bakshi Doron, issued a statement this month that said that he would not object if control over the Temple Mount was given to the Palestinians. 

Clearly, there is a difference between what we here think is important for Israel and what Israelis have on their minds. We are about to find that the majority of Israelis are not going to continue to pay in money, blood and army service to hold onto disputed territories as soon as they think they have an alternative - and now they just about think they do. 

• The religious parties in Israel will insist upon these things but the current illusion that they hold the balance of power will disappear as soon as peace is made. The Likud and the Labor have nothing to argue about once the territorial issue is resolved and they both are secular parties that want the religious parties out. Ariel Sharon voted against the religious parties this month when the draft exemption bill came up and no one will forget this. The Russians are fiercely secular and have decided the last 2 elections in Israel, and if they vote Barak out it will be because he ignored their economic and secular demands and not because he gave away territory, because they voted for him in the first place knowing he would do it. The Shas party will get votes (albeit 5 or 6 fewer seats than last time) but will be frozen out and they know it; that's why they don't want a peace deal because they know that will be the end of their swing vote. When the Likud and Labor parties finally figure out that the way to beat Shas is not to resent them but to beat Shas at its own game by funding an educational system that offers Sefardim a way out of the ghetto instead of the Shas system which creates perpetual dependency, then they will win these people back. Many of the Shas voters are not religious; they want hot lunches and after-school programs and that's what Shas gives. Just like Hizbullah and Hamas are doing in their societies and that's why all these parties are giving the established governments a hard time.

 
• So what's going to happen? Barak shouldn't expect to win another election because no one likes him. But he has no real opposition so Barak benefits by calling elections now and trying to deal himself a better hand than he currently has and he will probably win with 65% of the vote in late September. Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu are not viable opponents, but because they don't stand aside the younger leaders of the party have no chance to make a name for themselves. Sharansky and David Levy have no real support and want titles without responsibility. Ehud Olmert has too many red flags around him. Dan Meridor doesn't want the job. The Left and the Arabs have no place better to go although the Arabs may decide to stay home and not vote because Barak has given them nothing and this could destroy him if it is a close race as it destroyed Peres against Netanyahu. Barak has one thing going for him. Nobody says he's a liar or corrupt. Almost everyone in the mainstream thinks he is a highly intelligent patriot and strategist who feels the weight of responsibility. The worst you can say about him is that he is an autocrat and arrogant and not a politician, but you knew that before he ran in the first place. And for all the talk about concessions, all the evidence shows that Netanyahu was willing to make the same concessions up until now.

 
• The best reason to make a deal now is that Clinton has a good chance of convincing Congress to pay for it during the lame duck session in December. Money does matter in this part of the world and those who pay have their say. Because Hafez Assad died, Arafat can now take less than 100% without Mr. Assad criticizing him and this in turn will allow Bashar Assad to take less than 100%. There is a golden opportunity here. Bashar Assad gives every indication he will agree to a deal; we will never know why his father turned down a decent offer but it probably turns out he just didn't have the guts to sign on the dotted line. But remember that if Syria deals with Israel, it has to get out of Lebanon. It can't survive without Lebanon because that's 90% of its income. Assad can't give away the family business and survive without assuring his army and supporters some sort of replacement income and we don't want his government to fall. Again, this is one of those areas that is much more complicated than on the surface. I don't have high confidence that Bashar Assad will survive long as leader but I think that if he makes a deal with Israel, it will stick because the Syrians know they need this deal if they want to join the rest of the world and have a future.

 
• 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 will 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.

• Still, I am optimistic about Israel viz. a viz. the Arabs mainly because people on all sides really want this thing to end. In my opinion, a leaner consolidated entity is good for Israel in the long term and I believe it will be stronger for it. I am less optimistic about domestic politics. 

 
• It is important to liberalize the economy and to bring down taxes; the effective tax rate in Israel is still almost 70% and the economies of the surrounding Arab countries are becoming much more free than Israel's because they realize they have to change dramatically. True, Israeli companies are doing wonders but they locate themselves outside Israel. Hopefully, peace will force the Israeli government to deal with economic issues and create a place where people want to live and work. The best way to get American Jews to start looking at Israel as a real alternative and not just as a safety deposit box is to make it a place where a person has an equal chance to make a living.

 
• More critical: American Jews are more alienated from Israel and the secular Israelis are alienated from the religious; the rabbis in Israel are not figuring out a clever way to deal with the conversion of a million Russians who will be lost to Judaism and ultimately vote out the Rabbis and institute civil marriage and divorce in the country. It is not realistic to expect a Russian to become shomer shabbos [sabbath observant] and observant when almost all the prime ministers and presidents have been shrimp eaters. In 10 years, you will see a country that looks more like Belgium and less Jewish in character because of it. My cousin, a native Jersualemite whose grandfather was a rabbi and who is in a special army unit for computer geniuses, had no idea what I was talking about when I said the word Kol Nidre [prayer service at beginning of Day of Atonement] to him. This to me is a real problem; we can destroy ourselves without any help from the Arabs.

I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to say a few words about the opportunities and threats that we face here at home because as much as Israel is important, we cannot overlook our own priorities. We have waiting lists to get into New York day schools because they need professional teachers, classrooms, and everything else. Today, 90% of Jewish philanthropic dollars being spent by American Jews are not going to Jewish charities in America and I will tell you having attended a convention in Phoenix this year of Jewish philanthropists and meeting with many foundations afterward that there are very few people giving anything beyond lip service to building Jewish infrastructure in the United States. Where is the money going, you ask? Universities, philharmonics, cancer research, labor unions, migrant worker movements, and environmental and religious pluralism movements in Israel. I am not knocking these causes, but very few are interested in day schools, creating Jewish media or promoting Jewish identity involvement in America. Those that are in this business know that at the current rate it will take 25 years to solve today's problems. Not so if we begin to take this seriously and demand action.

There is no sophisticated daily or weekly media in America that puts forth a modern Orthodox message. The Orthodox keep complaining that all the media bashes the Orthodox but they have never created an alternative. There are FCC licenses for local radio stations soon to become available; for less than $1,000 in equipment you can be broadcasting a Jewish message to the Upper West Side 24 hours a day; broadband broadcasting has made television more affordable than ever before but there is no real Jewish programming available. A person who goes on a Birthright Trip to Israel or to the Makor Institute in New York gets no followup media or message, meaning no religious impact. Investing in free media is the key to getting an Orthodox message out and not remaining in the margin.

For less than $100,000 and less work than you think, we could create a Daf Yomi-like [page-a-day] program that would start with the end of Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] and that would give the Jew who comes to synagogue one day a year a book to take home with things to learn about each day and remain involved in the community. It would be something appropriate for any Jew of any denomination. Backed up by the Internet and the local communities, it could become a source of excitement and put all Jews around the world on the same page and give them something in common to talk about. This would do more to create a sense of Jewish Unity than anything we have ever done. If we could bring ourselves to work with non-Orthodox Jews.

There is no equivalent in the Jewish community to the annual ethnic pride events that take place in other communities. A disproportionate number of people that work on Gay Pride events are Jewish. We have an Israeli Day Parade in New York at a time where Israel is less central to Jews, and it was reported that so few resources are put into the project and the project has itself become hostage to special interests that it has become an embarrassment. We need to create things that make people proud to be Jewish and feel part of a future, not just the offspring of a generation that managed to survive a Holocaust. I attended the Limmud Conference in Manchester, England which offers 5 days of mini-courses on every Jewish topic imaginable and a full array of entertainment, lodging and meals to over 1,200 people of all ages from Europe each year during the Christmas-New Years break. I cannot understand why there is no such thing in America.

We must put more resources in place to train and pay for future leaders and role models who share our values. If we continue to feel and tell our children that being a rabbi, educator or community leader is a $35,000 a year occupation for those who are so fanatical they don't care about money, we will get what we pay for and children will not want to grow up to be in these professions. We will drive for a month around the country to look at colleges but send 17 year olds for a year in Israel without checking out the place. And then we complain when they come back. There is a connection here - if the resource is to be directed locally, we look at the issue from 100 angles critically and don't do too much. If it's Israel, we give beyond our proportion without questioning. We need to become more clear-eyed and follow a balanced path with both, and I believe that we will have more success on both tracks if we stick to the golden mean, and remain alert and informed consumers and contributors. 

Finally, we need to be receptive to constructive criticism if we are to accomplish anything. When a newspaper exposes decades of child abuse by a revered public figure that was constantly covered up and became public only because of the newspaper, do we claim Loshon Hara [evil gossip] and Anti-Orthodox bias, or do move forward to deal with the problem? If we don't encourage our leaders and media to talk straight with us, it only creates bigger problems. And that's why I'm talking straight with you today, for the common good.

I hope I have offered you today a fresh look at age-old problems and given you the impression that there is room to think that there are avenues for innovation and vision that will move us forward toward providing creative solutions to our challenges at home and throughout the community of Israel.

Several questions focused on 1930's Europe and Hitler appeasement and the world's unwillingness to take Palestinians at their word when they continue to say they want all of Israel and will carry on this effort in stages. Several questions mentioned Palestinian educational and media efforts to promote the above idea. My consistent answer was to refer to the discussion of Uri Lubrani on page 3 of the text who said that we should believe what they say and assume that the Arabs will always want Israel to disappear; the important point is to create a situation where they will not want to act upon those impulses. I also mentioned that we should consider some of the extreme demands of the moment in the context of negotiations underway at Camp David and that the important thing is not what the parties demand, but what they ultimately agree to. Clearly, both the Israelis and Palestinians would not have come to Camp David and stayed for 2 weeks if they knew that neither could compromise on Jerusalem when they have agreed to talk about it. Would the audience feel happier if the Palestinians instead said nice things now and then reverted to form after the deal was signed? No matter what they would say, you wouldn't believe it. Better to have an adversary who tells you up front what his intentions are.

Several questioners harped on the point that Israel gives tangible things and the Palestinians give nothing tangible. I asked them, suppose you are the Israelis negotiating with Arafat. Now tell me what you propose to ask from the Palestinians? The answers were "recognition, release of claims, security..." essentially intangible goods. I answered, that's the problem. You have no idea of what you want except to ask for the same things the Israelis are asking for. The point here is that Israelis really want a general release from the Palestinians and an end to the conflict. If Barak walks out with an interim deal, it's a loser. He needs a general release. On the other hand, the Palestinians can't be expected to issue one unless the refugee and Jerusalem issues are resolved. A questioner thought that 5,000 refugees a year for the next 20 years would overwhelm Israel. I answered that 100,000 Russians a year did not overwhelm Israel.

The speaker before me was Mrs. Wachsman whose son was killed by Hamas terrorists after being kidnapped by them in 1994. She believes there is no willing partner for peace and considers the peace process a precursor to national suicide. She, and quite a bit of the audience, were visibly upset by my speech, particularly my reference to my tolerance of a certain amount of ongoing terror as a "cost of doing business." How could I be insensitive to the lives of Israelis who are children of such people? My answer is that yes, I am sensitive to standing here and speaking right after such a speaker and to some extent it is my desire to sit down and say nothing, but we know that professionals have to wear different hats for different occasions, so therefore my answer is (1) it is her right to be emotional over her experiences and her version of reality; it is Leadership's obligation to ignore her and do things for the common good, because after all we don't want more of these types of things to happen overall. (2) The bereavement vote (meaning parents of children who died in the army - and, by the way, Mr. Wachsman) shows a solid majority in favor of the peace process. Put a more earthy way, a few mothers who lost sons to terrorists and bear a grudge can't hold the rest of the country hostage. 

Several questions concerned my generally rosy view of peace and my discounting of important assets such as the Golan. My answer was that I personally have stood on the Golan, think it is militarily important and personally can't understand why it is expendable, but I don't vote in Israel and if the generals and leaders say they can give it up, I am not going to be more Catholic than the Pope. What I think is not important. My point here today is not to tell you what I think Israel should do for itself, but to tell you what the Israelis are saying and what they are likely to do as a matter of national policy. And what I am telling you is that they are going to make these concessions and that Barak is going to win 65% of the vote in an election.

Overall, response was positive in that the speech was informative and realistic even if hard on the ears of the audience, especially after an hour of emotional tear-jerking remarks by Mrs. Wachsman.

Finally, a personal note: I did not know that I was going to be speaking with Mrs. Wachsman and didn't know what she was going to be talking about. At a certain point, I would have been happy to sit down, shut up and say nothing. The scheduling was odd. She was visibly upset by my speech and was sitting in the front row. The contrast was, as I said, striking. However, because it was the sabbath and I could not make written notes to an 8,000 word opus, I had no choice but to stick with the prepared text and went off text twice to mention the fact that I was sensitive to the situation at hand, but that people should keep in mind that our common goal was that no more Wachsman tragedies should occur.