War has undercut both Jewish left and right

A divided American Jewish community rallied to Israel's defense after it was attacked this summer and criticized by much of the world for its aggressive military response.

That unity is already softening as a traumatized Israel plunges into a period of angry self-examination. Still, the American Jewish center is likely to hold, largely because the war has posed big new problems for factions on both ends of the ideological spectrum.

The Jewish left is scrambling for a new approach now that some of its key assumptions lie buried in the rubble of southern Lebanon and Gaza; in private, leaders of some dovish groups say their real goal now is simply to hang on until some fundamental change in the region makes peace negotiations a viable option.

The right is trumpeting how the unprovoked attacks proved the accuracy of its warnings about ceding land to the Arabs. But hawkish groups offer a prescription for Israel's future that most American Jews will find unpalatable. And the conflict revealed the soaring costs of war as Israel's enemies become more sophisticated and better armed; it's harder to be hawkish when the price is so high.

The Lebanon war has given the right some new credibility, but in its wake most American Jews will remain where they've always been: in the political center.

The American Jewish left has long been steeped in the notion that the key to solving the Middle East conflict lies in ending the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

But Israel's pullout from Lebanon in 2000 did not satisfy the Hezbollah guerillas who were fighting that occupation; instead, they turned their attention to battling the existence of Israel itself. Last summer's Israeli pullout from Gaza did not propel the region toward new Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, as the left hoped; instead, Gaza became a platform for new terrorism, as the right predicted.

The left in Israel rallied quickly to support the war; many became advocates for crushing Hezbollah, something they saw as necessary to keep open prospects for negotiations with the Palestinians, or, failing that, for Prime Minister Olmert's "convergence" plan for unilaterally pulling out of much of the West Bank.

But Hezbollah was not crushed — its political status soared, even if it was militarily degraded — and while Israeli peace groups continue to argue that direct negotiations with the Arabs remain the only feasible route out of an untenable status quo, there is not a shred of optimism that new negotiations are likely anytime soon.

Members of the American Jewish left have always taken their cues from their counterparts in Israel. But Israeli peace groups have been paralyzed by the war and remain rudderless as Israel works through its aftermath. That leaves a vacuum for all but the most extreme groups on the American Jewish left.

The growing threat of Iran and the virulent anti-Israel statements of its president have added to an unaccustomed feeling of vulnerability for Jews around the world; in that climate, the idea of negotiating with sworn, unrepentant enemies sounds dangerously naïve to many.

Groups on the right face a different set of problems.

Six years ago, they warned that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon would reward terrorism and allow Hezbollah to bring its bombs and rockets closer to their Israeli targets; a year ago, groups like the Zionist Organization of America campaigned against the Gaza pullout, using similar arguments.

These groups maintained that Israel's adversaries didn't just want to get back territory, but to eliminate the Jewish state, a view most American Jews did not want to accept. But this summer's unprovoked attacks seemed to vindicate the right's harsh assessment of Arab intentions.

But even some leaders of right-wing groups concede that the war and its aftermath won't attract swarms of defecting centrists to their cause; a war-weary Israel, they predict, will once again look for routes to the negotiating table, and American Jews, by and large, will support them.

The right tends to see the Arab-Israel conflict in terms of a broader clash of civilizations — the Christian and Jewish West against all of Islam. There is little evidence most American Jews are willing to accept a world view that all but guarantees eternal warfare for Israel.

The right says it has a positive plan for peace: complete military victory. But when pressed about its meaning, what right-wing leaders describe sounds a lot like what the Israeli public seems to be rejecting: endless confrontation punctuated by periodic, bloody wars.

Ultimately, right-wing groups will probably get some new support in the harsh post-Lebanon climate and some new credibility; groups on the left will try their best just to hang on and to look for new paradigms for peace.

But most American Jews, perhaps even more skeptical of the glib slogans and easy answers of both the left and the right in the wake of the costly and inconclusive war, will stay where they've always been: in the pro-Israel center.




James David Besser is a Washington correspondent for Jewish newspapers across the country.