BACKGROUND
The Link Between Israel
And Crown Heights
Is the loan guarantee fight indicative of
America's weariness with foreign aid in
view of its deep domestic problems?
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
W
hat do the riots in
Crown Heights and
the fight for $10
billion in loan guarantees
for Israel have in common?
Logic dictates that they
have very little in common.
But politics is rarely a
logical affair, and in the
tense, economically pinched
1990s, there is a kind of
backhanded connection here
that could spell trouble for
Israel in the months and
years to come.
The political trench war-
fare for $10 billion in loan
guarantees for Israel, which
moved into a new and more
dangerous phase last week
when President George
Bush offered some harsh
criticisms of the pro-Israel
community, represents
something of a new wrinkle
in Jewish activism.
For the first time, the Jew-
ish grass roots has been
mobilized in a massive way
to fight for an issue that in
the eyes of most Americans
is related to foreign aid.
Pro-Israel activists are
quick to point out that the
loan guarantees are not real-
ly foreign aid — in reality,
they are simply guarantees
by the U.S. government
backing up loans from pri-
vate banks to a country that
has never defaulted on its
foreign obligations.
But to most Americans,
this distinction is nitpick-
ing. And foreign aid, never
popular in the heartland, is
becoming a more volatile
issue as the experience of
millions of Americans rebuts
the administration's conten-
tion that the recession is
almost over.
Anti-Israel groups have
been quick to sense the polit-
ical capital lurking in the
foreign-versus-domestic-
needs debate.
When the Council for the
National Interest, a group
that takes a forthright posi-
tion against aid to Israel,
began lobbying against the
loan guarantees, they quick-
ly zeroed in on the perceived
unfairness of providing
economic help to a foreign
country while American
cities are going bankrupt.
Among the most disturb-
ing elements in President
Bush's recent press con-
ference -blasting pro-Israel
forces for their unwill-
ingness to accept his 120-day
delay in providing the loan
guarantees were his veiled
references to this theme.
"In the current fiscal year
alone, and despite our own
economic problems," the
president said, "the United
States provided Israel with
more than $4 billion in econ-
omic and military aid, near-
ly $1000 for every Israeli
man, woman and child . . ."
Mr. Bush, always quick to
find politically marketable
symbols, may have come to
the realization that while
pro-Israel forces remain
strong in the political realm,
foreign aid issue could
quickly become the "Willie
Horton" issue of 1992 — a
convenient, vivid symbol
that plays to the deep-seated
biases of the American peo-
ple.
Enter Crown Heights.
The explosion of violence
in the Brooklyn neighbor-
hood, with its strong thread
of black anti-Semitism, was
more than the simple
"pogrom" that many com-
mentators have described.
In fact, it was the tip of a
very dangerous iceberg.
Ethnic and racial tensions
are reaching the critical
Foreign aid could
be the Willie Horton
issue of 1992.
mass-stage as the current
recession begins to look like
a permanent state of affairs
for most American cities.
Competition among groups
for scarce resources -7 hous-
ing, jobs, schools — is ac-
celerating wildly in the
trickle-down world of the
1990s.
In this context, the ques-
tion of foreign aid seems to
have special resonance to
some groups.
On inner-city talk shows,
this theme — why are we
spending billions of dollars
on aid to other countries
while Americans go hungry?
— has become a dominant
one.
And the country most
often pointed to, for reasons
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Artwork from Newsday by Ned Levine. Copyright* 1991, Newsday. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
of visibility and convenience
— and outright anti-
Semitism — is Israel.
It was at this precise mo-
ment that American Jews
mobilized as never before in
support of Israel's request
for $10 billion in loan guar-
antees. Israel's supporters
have argued all along, with
impeccable logic, that these
loans represent almost no
cost to American taxpayers,
and that in any case, the
effort is a humanitarian
gesture that is entirely ap-
propriate in view of this
country's long support for
freedom for Soviet Jews.
But the fact remains that
in areas of the country that
are reaching the end of their
economic tether, this is an
issue easily manipulated
into a perfect example of the
overemphasis on foreign
over domestic needs.
Moreover, the scowling
countenance of Israel's
Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir and the widespread
belief that Mr. Shamir has
been spitting in the ad-
ministration's eye when it
comes to the question of
Israel's settlements policies
make Israel • an even more
convenient rallying symbol
for the anti-aid forces that
are building just below the
surface of the American po-
litical landscape.
A recent poll by the Arab-
American Institute sug-
gested that a strong plurali-
ty of Americans do not want
Israel to get the money at
all, while a substantial
number want the money
given with clear strings
attached.
Only 9.7 percent favored
providing the loan guar-
antees without conditions.
Pro-Israel activists are
quick to point out the small
sample size and the obvious
biases of the group sponsor-
ing the poll. Still, the results
are not entirely inconsistent
with what Israel's friends
would have predicted. For-
eign aid is never a popular
issue, and thanks to the
shaky economy in this coun-
try, its popularity is on the
wane.
The Crown Heights riots
had nothing to do with
U.S.-Israeli diplomacy, or
with U.S. economic support
for Israel.
But the forces that con-
tributed to the riots — the
awesome deprivation in
America's inner cities, the
growth of a permanent cul-
ture of poverty, the rising
animosities between racial
and ethnic groups — may
become significant variables
in the foreign aid debate in
the coming months.
And President Bush's
implicit acknowledgement of
that tool may give new
legitimacy and new strength
to those arguing that this
country's pressing domestic
needs should take
precedence over helping for-
eign countries.
American Jews have to
live with American political
realities. One of those
realities is that the loan
guarantee fight has opened
up the whole question of for-
eign aid in a way that pro-
Israel forces have not had to
deal with in recent years.
❑
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
33
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