The tide against the influential wealthy American Jewish community is slowly rising in the United States. Nowadays, it is glaringly evident in the media and at some public conferences as America prepares itself for a presidential election next year.
The New York Times noted in a front-page news story, titled ‘Debate on Iran fiercely splits American Jews’, that “in one small but influential segment of the electorate, Jewish voters, it has been brutal”. It continued: “Differences of opinion among Jewish Americans may be nothing new, but the vitriol surrounding the accord between Iran and six world powers has become so intense that leaders now speak openly in long-term damage to Jewish organisations and possibly to American-Israeli relations.” A prominent American Jewish leader, Greg Rosenbaum, the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, declared: “We are on the verge of fratricide in the Jewish community and it has to stop.”
The focus here was on the draft deal that the so-called P5+1 (United States, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) have negotiated with Iran over its nuclear arsenal. But Israel and its divided supporters within the American Jewish community are also encountering a similar loud conflict. At the same time, Egypt has, in turn, launched a diplomatic campaign that included several Arab and Muslim states to subject Israel’s nuclear facilities to international supervision at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) General Conference in mid-September.
A projected resolution, titled ‘Israeli nuclear capabilities’, condemns Israel and demands that it open its reported nuclear facilities to inspection by the IAEA. The Cairo government, much to the regret of Israel, is also urging that an international conference would initiate a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, a position that the US and Britain were initially opposed to in response to Israeli pleas. But the expectation nowadays is that Israel, in the wake of the Iranian deal, may find it hard to defeat this Egypt-led attempt.
What is eye-catching here is that King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia will be in Washington tomorrow for his first meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House and, it remains to be seen, whether the issue will be on the agenda of the two leaders since Saudi Arabia is in favour of the Egypt-proposed resolution. Moreover, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has recently written a column in the Guardian titled, ‘Iran has signed a historic deal — now it is Israel’s turn’.
On the other hand, it is very likely that the Saudi monarch will also focus on the Palestinian-Israeli question when he is at the White House since the issue is gaining growing international attention in the US. For example, the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America at their 74 National Convention last week had adopted a resolution calling for “Justice and peace for the people of Palestine and Israel”. The resolution also endorsed the world-wide popular Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, launched by the Palestinians, “to pressure Israel to end its apartheid over the Palestinians, similar to the tactics that helped end the South African apartheid in the 1980s”.
Israel’s continued expansion into the Occupied Territories has once again been the focus of clashes last Sunday between Palestinian Christians, led by their priests, who marched in the Christian majority town of Beit Jala, close to Bethlehem, to protest the expansionist intentions of the Israeli separation wall that divides the Arab region from Israel — a step that has been considered illegal under international law.
Last but not the least, a new book that is worth reading is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, written by American author Max Blumenthal, who was there when Israel attacked the besieged Palestinian enclave known as the Gaza Strip that remains virtually neglected a year after the war. Described as “ripping, indispensable and a first-hand account” of last year’s ferocious Israeli attack on Gaza — that resulted in the death of more than 2,000 Palestinians, including more than 500 children and the destruction of 18,000 homes — an experience that Palestinians will not forget.
George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com
