Questioning Sacred Cows

Abstract

Seymour Reich, the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, reassured his Israeli hosts last November that the level of Washington's annual $3-billion aid program to Israel was not even an issue of debate. At the time, Reich's assessment was correct. Although the revolutions throughout Eastern Europe had sparked discussion in Washington on the need for a substantial program of economic assistance to this region, debate was limited to whether or not an aggressive, well-funded American program was desirable. The larger, and more politically explosive issue of cutting aid to Israel in order to support such a program had yet to force itself onto the political agenda. By the New Year, however, the issue had reached critical mass. For the first time in recent memory, Israel's heretofore sacrosanct entitlement became a legitimate topic of debate. The opening salvo was fired by Senator Robert Dole, who, in a 16 January op-ed piece in the New York Times, called for at least a 5-percent cut in the aid appropriations to the Big Five-Israel, Egypt, the Philippines, Turkey, and Pakistan. Dole, like all senators, takes pains to present himself as a friend of Israel. Yet he had been scathingly critical of Israel's kidnapping of Shaykh Abdul Karim Obeid at a time when it was believed that this action had resulted in the killing of American hostage Colonel William Higgins. And more recently, Dole had been stung by Israeli efforts to quash his seemingly innocuous (except to Turkey) Senate resolution commemorating the Armenian genocide.