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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher- July 26, 2010

Alpher answers questions about the affect of Egypt's leadership transition on Israel, the IDF's changes to orders regarding warfare in populated areas, and the controversy surrounding Israel's proposed new conversion law.

Q. Egypt appears to be in a countdown toward the departure from the scene of President Hosni Mubarak. What are the ramifications for Israel?

A. Mubarak is apparently very ill. As he has aged and his authority has faded, Egypt for some time now has not carried its traditional weight as the preeminent Arab power. While the leadership transition in Egypt is expected to be relatively tranquil--either Mubarak's son Gamal or a senior military figure is almost certain to be elected president, with the massive backing of the political-military-economic establishment--Egyptian influence is likely to wane even further during the interim.

In past decades, this might not have worried Israel. After all, even after Israel and Egypt made peace, Cairo often exerted its influence against Israel's interests in the region. Today this is no longer the case. Israel and Egypt need one another to combat Iranian and Islamist influence, particularly in Gaza and Lebanon. Hence a rudderless Egypt, however temporary, is bad for Israel's interests.

In the longer term, we are liable to see bolder attempts by Egypt's own Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, to exert their influence in a post-Mubarak Egypt. Cairo correctly recognizes the existence of a mutually reinforcing dynamic between the Egyptian Brethren and Hamas in Gaza. Here, too, Israel has an interest in ensuring that the leadership transition in Egypt is as short and tranquil as possible, and that Egypt's next leader reestablish Cairo's regional sway.


Q. The IDF has informed the United Nations of changes made in standing military orders regarding warfare in populated areas, reflecting conclusions drawn from IDF investigations of civilian deaths in Gaza in January 2009. What does this mean for Israel's response to international criticism of its human rights record?

A. After broadly rejecting the Goldstone report, and following a groundswell of public opinion in Israel condemning the Israeli and international human rights groups whose findings were cited by Goldstone, the IDF nevertheless has proceeded to investigate the allegations concerning its conduct in Gaza one-by-one and to take strong disciplinary and legal action in a number of cases of proven abuse. Last week, the IDF informed the United Nations that it would impose new restrictions on the use of phosphorus bombs in populated areas.

This is good news for supporters of human rights monitoring in Israel, and bad news for the individuals and organizations that have seen fit to "bash" organizations like B'tselem--the very groups cited first by Goldstone and now by the IDF for the accuracy of their reporting. Yet the punishments imposed by the IDF on soldiers and officers found to be in violation of the rules of war will almost certainly be deemed inadequate by some of those elements in the international community--particularly the United Nations Human Rights Council--that have pursued Israel in this context. Indeed, the UNHRC appears dead set on proceeding with similar follow-up investigations of the Goldstone findings and new inquiries into the Mavi Marmari naval interception.

Thus, while the IDF has proven sensitive to international criticism, this appears merely to have whet the appetite of those who would single out Israel in a totally disproportional manner for war crimes. Nor will it stop here: while IDF directives concerning, say, phosphorus shells can indeed be amended, the exigencies of war waged against militant non-state actors like Hamas and Hezbollah embedded among large hostile populations virtually guarantee that the next conflict will produce a renewed outcry over civilian casualties. As Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel noted last week, Israel, having ultimately embraced the need to investigate and punish, "paid the full price for [its initial opposition to investigating the abuses], without succeeding in registering any significant gain in return."


Q. What strategic issues involving Israeli-American Jewish relations are embedded in Israel's new conversion controversy and the response of Diaspora Jewry?

A. During the 1990s, under the initial impact of the need to convert hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union deemed Jewish under the Law of Return but not Jewish according to Halacha, and under pressure from the Israeli public and from non-Orthodox American Jewish majority, Israel made some modest strides toward liberalizing its conversion regulations. Conversion boards comprising Israeli Reform and Conservative as well as Orthodox rabbis were established. The process offered for soldiers was particularly productive, converting thousands every year.

All of this was endangered last week by the Yisrael Beitenu/Shas proposal, which for the first time would give the chief rabbis--who are ultra-Orthodox, not Orthodox--authority over conversion. This provision, which significantly overshadows the proposal's "concession" of allowing local town and city rabbis to supervise conversions, would enable the increasingly powerful ultra-Orthodox to eliminate the current Reform and Conservative contribution to conversion and render the entire process ever more stringent and repugnant. A resolute response by American Jewry generated sufficient pressure on PM Netanyahu to freeze the new legislative process for six months, during which all parties are expected to seek some sort of compromise.

This, then, is a good opportunity for the American Jewish leadership to inquire as to what went wrong: why did a process that looked positive in the 1990s end up this way? The answer appears to lie in three developments: the emergence of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, the strengthening of ultra-Orthodox influence on Israeli politics, and neglect on the part of the American Jewish leadership of the need to educate Israelis--particularly Israeli elites--about American Jewry as a strategic ally of Israel. Concerning the first two developments, the American Jewish leadership might wish to better inform itself; concerning the third, it might look for ways to better inform Israelis.

In the course of the past decade, and particularly in recent years due to economic constraints, American Jewish advocacy organizations have apparently radically reduced programs for bringing young Israeli elites to the US to learn about their American Jewish cousins and achieve a basic understanding of the many links that bind the two communities. Yisrael Beitenu is a case in point: a party comprising mainly Russian Jewish immigrant activists who know virtually nothing about the Reform and Conservative movements, organized American Jewry in general, and the role they play in Israeli-American Jewish relations. Not that these new members of Knesset incline toward orthodoxy; they are in fact, like most Russian Jews, very secular. But it was their ignorance that allowed the one Orthodox Knesset member of Yisrael Beitenu, David Rotem, to convince them that he could make good on their electoral pledge to provide easier conversion without angering the ultra-Orthodox establishment.

Yisrael Beitenu's leader, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, is both ignorant about and antagonistic toward American Jewry: "We won't interfere with Jewish community life in the Diaspora and they shouldn't interfere here". He is also essentially indifferent toward America and oblivious to the strategic perception of his senior coalition partner but political rival, PM Netanyahu, regarding the need for close Israeli-American relations based in part on the partnership between Israel and the American Jewish community. Not surprisingly, Netanyahu and Lieberman can't even agree whom to appoint as consul-general in New York and ambassador to the United Nations--two senior Israeli diplomatic posts that work closely with the American Jewish leadership. 

Lieberman has devoted much of his energy as foreign minister to a fruitless attempt to build up relations with such Former Soviet Union "superpowers" as Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan as a counterweight to Israel's dependence on US support. The Russian leadership, not unexpectedly, has kept him at arm's length. Finally, Lieberman's in-your-face quasi-racist politics have alienated much of the American Jewish community (indeed, much of the international community), which consequently can hardly be expected to sympathize with his party's legislative agenda.

Given the growing clout of the ultra-Orthodox and the inclusion of two ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition, it is impossible for Yisrael Beitenu to pass legislation that genuinely liberalizes the conversion process. The party--the first to seriously galvanize the potential of Russian Jewish electoral support in Israel--would be better advised to work with liberal Jewish elements in Israel and the Diaspora to find realistic ways to open the gates of Judaism to immigrants who are interested. But for this to happen, the Diaspora has to reach out to the new elites in Israel and make them aware of the nature, needs and influence of American Jewry.

Of course, not only in theory but in practice as well, Netanyahu could have had, and still could have, an alternative coalition that does not rely on Lieberman as foreign minister or on ultra-orthodox votes. That he does not move in this direction says a great deal about his Jewish priorities. Still, he is sensitive to the requirements of the Israeli-American Jewish alliance regarding issues like conversion. Now the American Jewish side of that partnership should consider reaching out more forcefully to Israel's new elites.