Gaza Strip Pullout Splinters American Jewish Opinion

As Israel prepares to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, beginning next week, Jews in the United States are stepping up campaigns for and against the plan, revealing deep divisions and anxiety.

Opponents of withdrawal are turning out “Let My People Stay” bumper stickers, leafleting in Jewish neighborhoods, encouraging a letter-writing campaign to members of Congress and sponsoring rallies, including one at the United Nations next week.

Supporters and opponents of the Israeli government’s decision to withdraw are running newspaper advertisements in Los Angeles, New York, Washington and other major cities.

The pullout from Gaza and four small enclaves in the northern West Bank has prompted soul-searching among many American Jews.

Particularly among Orthodox Jews, who have largely been unquestioning in their support of Israel and its prime minister, Ariel Sharon, the Gaza decision has brought sharp debate.

“We were born and bred to sort of be in lock step and sync with the Israeli government,” said Los Angeles mortgage banker Jon Hambourger, an Orthodox Jew who organized an opposition group last April, SaveGushKatif.org, named after the largest bloc of settlements in the Gaza Strip.

“To openly dissent, it’s a very uncomfortable thing to do. I have a lot of angst about the whole subject.” He said Sharon was still a war hero to him.

Hambourger estimated that he has spent close to $100,000 of his own funds and contributions from others to oppose the pullout.

Early on, the Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox umbrella organization in the U.S., confined any doubts to private meetings with Sharon’s government. Publicly, the union said questions about Israeli security were “best left to the citizens of Israel and the state of Israel’s democratically elected institutions.”

Then, last February and again in June, there were unsuccessful attempts at its directors meetings to explicitly oppose the withdrawal, according to Nathan J. Diament, director of public policy for the Orthodox Union in Washington. Both efforts, he said, were handily defeated. But the moves pointed to divisions within the ranks.

“Our organization has had to walk the most difficult line in the community,” Diament said. “With a divided constituency and pressures from both sides ... it’s been very difficult.”

Backers of withdrawal said they too have mixed emotions. They empathize with the plight of the settlers, who were encouraged in years past by the Israeli government to make their homes in the Gaza Strip.

“It is important to recognize the sacrifices made by the people whose lives will be uprooted by this process and encourage people to adhere to democratic process and the rule of law,” said Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, one of the sponsors of a pro-disengagement advertisement.

Some American Jewish leaders who endorse the pullout said they don’t believe that the move will produce an immediate peace dividend.

“No one is speaking in terms of peace. They’re speaking in terms of possibly this will add another intermission, a respite, a period of quiet,” said Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark of Temple Beth Ohr, a La Mirada Reform congregation. “But this is not going to be the magic bullet.”

By most accounts, the majority of American Jews support the withdrawal, even if some have private reservations. Although leaders on both sides of the controversy have been closely following developments, they said interest at the grass-roots level has generally been subdued.

That could change in the weeks ahead, particularly if there are wrenching scenes of Jewish settlers being forced from their homes by members of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The Gaza Strip, a narrow finger of land on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea captured in the Six Day War in 1967, is to be turned over to the Palestinian Authority.

“The disengagement is going to happen with intensity, and that intensity is going to create divisions between those who support disengagement and those who are sympathetic with the settlers,” said Gary Wexler, a Los Angeles public relations executive who works closely with Jewish organizations.

“That’s going to play itself out in the synagogues, in the Jewish educational institutions and the conversations between involved American Jews,” he said.

Any active disobedience in Israel against the withdrawal could also affect sympathy for the settlers among proponents of withdrawal.

“The sympathy is limited up to the point when people start in any way to suggest that the democratic processes [in Israel] are not legitimate,” said Kenneth Jacobson, associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which supports the pullout.

“When people call on solders to disobey orders or certain rabbis make certain comments, that’s when they lose the sympathy. As long as it’s merely the human situation, they have a lot of sympathy, even from people who are supportive of the government,” he said.

Opponents of the move, including the Zionist Organization of America, the Alliance for Eretz Yisrael, and Americans for a Safe Israel, charge that Israel is ceding the land without gaining anything in return.

They also warned that Palestinian control of all of Gaza would weaken Israel’s security by placing Palestinians, including potential terrorists, closer to Israel’s major population centers.

“Unilateral withdrawal proves to terrorists across the globe that terror pays,” said the SaveGushKatif.Org ad that appeared last week in the Jewish Journal in Los Angeles.

Some religious Jews and conservative Christians lament that the state of Israel is surrendering parts of the “Land of Israel” they say was given by God to Jews forever.

In contrast, backers in the U.S., including the leaders of most of the mainstream Jewish organizations, have called the disengagement a courageous act by a democratic country that over time could lead to the peace and security Israel has long sought.

A half-page ad in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times listed the support of the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress and agencies of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, including the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, as well as the Reform, Conservative and Reconstruction movements and several synagogues.

“We pledge to intensify our efforts to build support for Israel in the United States, to encourage our government to do everything in its power to help this disengagement plan succeed,” the ad said.

Israel said it would dismantle all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and move their 8,500 settlers to Israel. The four small West Bank enclaves are to be vacated in September. Israel has pledged to compensate settlers for their losses.

In Los Angeles, which has the nation’s second-largest Jewish population, opponents have been vocal but appear to represent the minority view. Several weeks ago they staged a protest rally at the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles that drew a group variously estimated at between 250 and 500 people.

Last month Lyle Weisman, a Los Angeles investor and developer, brought a delegation of Israelis to Los Angeles, including a hero from the Yom Kippur War and a ranking member of the Knesset, to speak at small gatherings against the withdrawal. For Weisman, who is Orthodox, there are religious reasons for opposing the withdrawal.

“I think we all know it’s called the Holy Land for a reason,” Weisman said in an interview. “If you don’t believe that God gave it to us, maybe we ought to pack up and give them the keys to Tel Aviv as well.” He said he contributed more than $25,000 toward the Gush Katif effort.

Such arguments do not represent the views of most Jews, according to Amanda Susskind, regional director of the Pacific Southwest Division of the Anti-Defamation League.

“It sometimes happens the vocal minority can create an impression of real divisions. We want to set the record straight,” she said. Susskind said that when she proposed the Los Angeles advertising campaign in support, other Jewish leaders “quickly embraced” the idea.

John Fishel, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said it was incumbent on Jews to back Israel. “Many of us believe, regardless of our political ideology on the right, left or center ... that this is a very crucial time for Israel in the region. We felt it was important to make a strong statement of a courageous act by the Sharon government,” Fishel said.

For its part, the Israeli government has for months focused on easing the fears of American Jewish organizations during private meetings and telephone conference calls. American support was important, said Gilad Millo, counsel for communication and public affairs. “Obviously it’s not business as usual,” he said.

In Israel, the withdrawal appears to be deepening an already significant divide between secular and religious Jews over the nature of the state and their loyalty to it.

By contrast, few in America expect long-term damage to Jewish unity.

“Once the disengagement happens and it’s over, it will be much easier again to rally everyone together,” said Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and an Orthodox Jew.