WASHINGTON, 19 November — A leading American Jew has caused furious debate within his community by calling for a "separation" between Israel and Palestine.
Edgar Bronfman, billionaire son of a beverage company and president of the World Jewish Congress, recently set off an angry debate within the American Jewish community when he told members at an annual meeting of the WJC: "The intifada is going to stay, and we can negotiate endlessly and get nowhere. If there is no peace, Israel should separate from the Palestinians."
It is time, Bronfman said, to dismantle Israeli settlements and enforce a unilateral separation from the Palestinians. American Jewish observers say that, until now, the "separation" debate has taken place quietly behind closed doors of the American Jewish community. Unsettled by the fury of Palestinian violence during the past year, most American Jews have been unwilling to criticize Israel publicly and have mostly unified to publicly support the state.
Bronfman, a longtime Labor advocate, has become the first major American Jewish communal leader to openly break ranks with Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As a result, the debate is "almost certain" to grow in the weeks to come, observers say.
Three prominent Labor figures: Shimon Peres, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin — have all spoken to American Jewish audiences the first two weeks of this month. As a result, Sharon is sending his right-wing gun, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over to the US next month to try to "repair their damage."
American Jewish leaders are worried that public disagreement about Israel would hurt the community’s ability to defend the Jewish state in the US. "It’s already happening," Abraham Foxman, head of the powerful Anti-Defamation League, recently told journalists. "Edgar Bronfman is a public figure in the American Jewish community, a leader of the American Jewish community, a philanthropist. He is a significant person."
Bronfman has defended himself by saying he deliberately intended to stir things up, and said he has no "objection" to launching this debate with the American Jewish community. "It is very difficult to be told to agree with the government when the government won’t agree with itself, and has no policy in place to attempt to deal with the situation," Bronfman said, referring to Sharon’s fragile political coalition, and the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. A Forward survey of American Jews conducted last week showed a statistical deadlock between those who agree with the Bush administration’s call for greater Israeli restraint in dealing with the Palestinians and those who disagree. Along with a 10 percent drop in support for the hawkish view that Israel should be "less forthcoming" toward the Palestinians.
The Forward survey also showed a strong 61 percent majority agreeing that American Jewish organizations should criticize the administration’s stance and refrain from questioning Israel. "Go figure," wrote Forward, a weekly Jewish American magazine, "A slim majority (of US Jews) backs US calls for Israeli restraint, but a larger majority wants Jewish groups to fight the administration on it."
