The Diaspora’s Influence
Yossi Shain is a professor of political science and the director of the Aba Eben Program of Diplomacy at Tel Aviv University and a professor of comparative government at Georgetown University. He is the author of “Kinship and Diasporas in International Affairs.”
As early as Hellenic and Roman times, politically motivated charitable donations from sources abroad have played a role in international politics, particularly in the Middle East. Members of all sorts of ethnic and religious communities, including Jews, who settled in the Hellenic world, felt no tension between duty to Jerusalem, the symbolic and real embodiment of their faith, and loyalty to their place of domicile.
Attachment to Jerusalem manifested itself in yearly tithes for the maintenance of the Temple, paid by Mediterranean Jews after the Seleucid and Ptolemaic overlords ceased subsidies. The historian Erich Gruen has written that the overseas contributions brought great wealth to the Temple, a gesture that did not signify a desire for return. On the contrary; it signaled that the return was not necessary.
In our time, money from the diaspora to influence national identity and finance conflict in the country of origin is a common phenomenon in many parts of the world. But financial transfers come not only from kin communities; non-kin organizations and individuals may see the conflict affecting their own international vision or even identity.
This has always been the case in the Arab-Palestinian—Israeli conflict, where Muslims and Christians funneled money to promote their causes, while liberal-left groups have invested money to advance their politics.
For example, an Israeli group, Im Tirtzu, recently published a detailed report demonstrating that 16 “anti-Zionist” non-governmental groups supported by the liberal-left New Israel Fund worked to provide the Goldstone committee with material that accused Israel of committing war crimes during the 2009 Gaza operation. The report provoked calls in the Israeli Knesset to investigate the New Israel Fund and its operational arms in Israel.
For many evangelicals, Israel’s victory in 1967 was a confirmation of the accuracy of the biblical prophecies and the nearness of Christ’s own reign. Indeed many Christian fundamentalists find Israel’s conflict with Palestinians over the control of God’s territorial gift to Abraham, not only as a matter of contemporary political battle, but in the words of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma as “a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.”
The historian Joseph Dan noted the disparity between the theological significance attached by many Christians and Muslims to the existence of a sovereign Jewish entity, and the little attention paid by most Israelis to the way non-Jews view their country.
While Israel’s theological significance is accentuated by both friends and foes, the vast majority of (secular) Israelis is completely ignorant about such perceptions and is paying little attention if any to foreign Christian involvement in their domestic affairs.
Undoubtedly, transnational money flows is often a source of influence on politics and national identity in Israel, but most Israelis believe, correctly so, that the solution to the conflict with the Palestinians will be determined in a different arena.
It’s About Politics, Not Money
Ori Nir is the spokesman of Americans for Peace Now, the nation’s leading Jewish organization advocating for Middle East peace.
The fact that tax-exempt U.S. dollars help finance the West Bank settlement enterprise is upsetting. But private American money plays a relatively small role in the patterns of settlement construction; the real question is political. Only the Israeli government can – and should – stop all West Bank settlement construction.
Settlements have diverted funds from desperately needed projects and programs inside Israel. Protecting settlements – as opposed to protecting Israel – has sucked up security resources and put generations of Israeli soldiers at unnecessary risk carrying out needless and demeaning tasks. Settlements hinder the creation of a viable Palestinian state, without which Israel cannot survive as a Jewish, democratic state.
In most of the West Bank, privately donated American dollars have little impact on settlement. The planning and authorizing of construction in settlements are entirely in the hands of the government of Israel. According to Israeli law, the West Bank is an area under “belligerent Israeli occupation” and therefore under the authority of an Israeli military government.
Furthermore, settlements have long been heavily subsidized by the government, whether directly or indirectly. The millions of US dollars that make their way to the settlements are a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of billions of dollars that Israeli governments have for decades pumped into this disastrous enterprise.
The exception is East Jerusalem, which is governed by Israeli civilian law. There, settler organizations are working feverishly to change the facts on the ground in the most sensitive areas, in and around the Old City, with the openly-expressed goal of ensuring that there will be no future compromise with the Palestinians on Jerusalem. Unlike the rest of the West Bank, these settlement projects are private initiatives, funded by millions of dollars of privately donated funds, including – and perhaps mostly — from the US. But just as in the West Bank, Israel’s government plays a key role: even private projects in East Jerusalem could not go forward without the tacit support of the Israeli government.
Stopping the flow of private funds will not solve the issue of settlements. The solution will be a negotiated agreement that ends the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such an agreement will come only as the result of political decisions by the Israeli government. And such decisions will only be the result of pressure from inside Israel and from friends of Israel worldwide. Shining a bright and unflattering light on private US funding for settlements can be part of this pressure, but ultimately political capital matters most.
Transparency for Donors
Naomi Chazan, professor emerita of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, served in the Knesset between 1992-2003 and is now president of the New Israel Fund.
The Times article raises issues for U.S. policy-makers in general and for those concerned with how tax-exempt dollars are used. But in an era of increased globalization, these concerns should not be used to curtail the freedom of Americans and others in the world community who share a deep interest in Israel’s policies and prospects, and who donate to Israel in ways that reflects their values and aspirations for the future of the country.
These contributions, of course, cannot fund illegal activities and must adhere to clear, concrete standards of transparency to ensure accountability.
The New Israel Fund, which I am proud to chair, has over the years supported hundreds of Israeli N.G.O.s committed to social justice, equality and tolerance in Israel. The fund and its grantees not only live up to, but often exceed all legal requirements for disclosure in both Israel and the United States. It welcomes close scrutiny of its activities and invites other organizations — especially those with which it disagrees — to do the same.
Many N.G.O.s in Israel depend on foreign support to maintain their viability, and access to such funds should remain open. It is therefore ironic that many organizations supporting settlement activity have used their resources and energies to attack progressive groups in Israel.
They have not only attempted to stifle dissent and silence critical voices by demonizing those who disagree with government policy, they and their allies in the Knesset have also introduced legislation to impose funding restrictions on progressive groups (which also receive support from foreign governments), while exempting private financial support to right-wing groups from similar constraints.
The entire human rights and civil rights community in Israel is at risk. Should this legislation be adopted, it would abrogate Israel’s status as an advanced democracy dedicated to open debate and the protection of a diversity of civil institutions.
Of course, from a progressive and pro-peace point of view, support for settlements, including the takeover of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, negatively effects the prospects for peace. The principles of democracy must nevertheless be upheld. Those who are truly dedicated to Israel’s future would do well to reject efforts to use outside financial support to skew the Israeli political landscape by selectively constraining their opponents. The same standards must be adopted by all and applied equitably to every group in Israeli civil society.
The Evangelical Perspective
Stephen Spector is the chair of the department of English at Stony Brook University. He is the author of “Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism.”
Born-again Christians support Israel more than any other group, aside from Jews. Widespread reports that they do so to hasten the end-times are exaggerated and alarmist. Though some American evangelicals believe that Israel must hold on to its entire biblical inheritance in order for Christ to return and usher in the Millennium, nine out of ten of them do not.
Rather, they believe that God will bless them if they bless Israel, and they are deeply remorseful for Christian persecution of the Jews. Their faith typically comports perfectly with their political views: they consider Israel a crucial democratic ally in a dangerous neighborhood, an essential firewall protecting the West from Islamic extremists.
President George W. Bush knew this. When he asked Karl Rove in 2002 what “our people” thought of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rove replied that that they consider it part of his war against terror. Although conservative Christians enjoyed generous access to the Bush White House, Bush’s advisers insist, on and off the record, that evangelicals had little or no influence on U.S. Mideast policy.
Still, a high official in the White House did ask the Southern Baptist Convention’s Dr. Richard Land how evangelicals would react if Washington supported Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s planned disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Land replied that if Israel ceded territory for peace, most born-again Christians would not object.
Under President Obama, a smaller camp of progressive evangelicals has access. They sympathize with Palestinian rights and support a two-state solution. For Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, conservative Christians remain key supporters. They backed him enthusiastically during his first term, in 1998, when President Clinton summoned Netanyahu to Washington to confront him over his foot dragging on the peace process. Jerry Falwell promised to mobilize 200,000 evangelical pastors to oppose returning any of the West Bank. John Hagee led a large crowd in chanting, “Not one inch!” Yet both Falwell and Hagee declared that if Israel decides to give up land in the hope of getting peace, they will not oppose it.
Some traditionalist Christians go even further in their pragmatism. They believe that God’s promises will be fulfilled, but in God’s time and according to His plan, not man’s. Indeed, despite a deep distrust of Islam among evangelical pastors, fifty-two percent of them favor a Palestinian state, as long as it doesn’t threaten Israel. Why? They want peace.
The Effectiveness of Divestment
Benjamin N. Schiff is the William G. and Jeanette Williams Smith Professor of Politics at Oberlin College. He has written books on nuclear arms control, Palestinian refugees, the South African transition from apartheid and the International Criminal Court.
With a new divestment movement at colleges and universities rising in reaction to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, comparisons to South Africa have been made, along with questions about the effectiveness of these boycotts and their role in foreign policy.
Calls to divest from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s complemented other efforts intended to pressurize the Pretoria government to terminate racial domination. Opponents argued that the investment decisions of educational institutions should not be politicized. They also expressed concern that the economic damage to South Africa would hurt that country’s most vulnerable citizens.
Advocates argued that divestment would show the government that its policies were unacceptable, that U.S. corporations would become uncomfortable operating in South Africa, and that divestment would show solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement in the country and in exile. They believed that it was immoral to benefit economically from profits generated in the officially racist state: investment supported apartheid just as divestment expressed condemnation.
The divestment movement helped isolate the apartheid government, along with other boycotts. The Afrikaners really hated being international pariahs, and as international banks refused to roll over South African loans in late 1985, economic sanctions began to bite.
All these efforts paled compared to South Africa’s own anti-apartheid struggle and domestic economic dependence upon the oppressed majority, but they showed international solidarity and increased the pressure on the Nationalists.
The calls to divest from Israel are similar. Proponents argue analogously to their predecessors in the anti-apartheid movement, as do their opponents.
But corporate and national links between the U.S. and Israel are much tighter than those with apartheid South Africa, and they are probably harder to unravel and politically more sensitive. Debate over the U.S.-Israel relationship is moving into the political mainstream, and activists will seek all possible demonstrations of disapprobation with Israeli actions and policies in the territories.
While divestment on its own did not bring down South African apartheid, the campaign added to a snowballing opposition that contributed to Afrikaners’ perception that they had to negotiate. Similarly, while the Israel divestment movement won’t by itself alter U.S. or Israeli policy, it can supplement wider efforts to convince U.S. legislators and policymakers that support for Israel should be conditional on movement toward a resolution of the occupied territories’ status and communicate to Israel’s leaders that change is imperative.
Benefits Across the Political Spectrum
Daniel Gordis is senior vice president of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. His most recent book, “Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End,” received a 2009 National Jewish Book Award.
Though some readers are undoubtedly troubled by the Times’ report that American tax-deductible funds are being used to support elements of Israel’s radical settler movement, it would be a serious mistake to overreact and to end the flow of this money.
First, the settlement project is a result of Israeli government policy, not of American funds. The small outposts described in the article will not survive any imaginable peace agreement. If and when Israelis and Palestinians agree to end the conflict, the outposts will be gone. And the trickle of American funds to these causes will be utterly irrelevant.
Second, while the article notes that the funds can be used to further enterprises contrary to American foreign policy, that is a double edged sword. Many American administrations, including President Obama’s, have openly endorsed the notion that Israel must be a specifically Jewish state. But the New Israel Fund, for example, which supports many worthy causes, also directs American money to Adalah, the Israeli-Arab organization that openly calls for ending Israel’s Jewishness. And unlike the settlements, Adalah might not exist without American supporters. These tax benefits apply across the political spectrum, and may have more of an impact on the left.
But most importantly, with the flow of American funds come American ideas. The Shalem Center is now creating Israel’s first liberal arts college. Our Israeli students, like students at America’s finest colleges, will study a broad core curriculum and then select a major. It’s an obvious model to Americans, but surprisingly, does not exist in Israel.
Shalem College students will read the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine and Alexis de Tocqueville, among others, because we believe that educated people need to know about the great experiment in democracy and freedom called the United States. Israel will be an intellectually richer and more democratic country because of this effort, but we, too, could not do our work without American tax-deductible contributions.
American tax policy can be used to further causes that some may find objectionable, but that is true on both the left and the right, and is the exception to the rule. The fact is, American funds are also the means by which American ideas continue to enrich the world.
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