WE WANT YOU
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Itosovo Fallout

U.S. role in NATO action
is affecting Jewish interests.

JAMES D. BESSER

Washington Correspondent

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Kosovo could dim the Jewish state's
stature as a moral beacon in the fight
against genocide, say some Jewish leaders.
The Netanyahu government issued
belated statements condemning human
rights abuses in the former Yugoslavia,
but its words have been overshadowed
by the impression that overtures to
Russia and anxiety about Islamic control
of Kosovo outweighs possible genocide.
That impression, based on real
geopolitical concerns, but juxtaposed
horribly against ghastly images of
helpless refugees and pillaged villages,
has deeply disturbed and shocked
some of Israel's friends here.
• The cost of the Balkan military
action, $40 million a day with no end in
sight, will affect everything from domes-
tic programs Jewish groups push to
Israel's supplementary aid appropriation.
Before the bombing, Jewish leaders
already feared a big new round of cuts
due to strict budget caps and
Republican-sponsored tax cuts. At the
very least, the war will make it harder
to win Israel's $1.2 billion Wye
Agreement appropriation, or to restore
vital funding for U.S. diplomatic
operations abroad.
"Paying for a war, increasing
defense spending and saving Social
Security while living within the bud-
get caps almost guarantees a huge bat-
tle over the budget that will affect
every part of our agenda," said Reva
Price, Washington director for the
Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "It's
going to be a difficult few months."

merica's military interven-
tion in Kosovo is affecting
Jewish interests in myriad
ways. Consider this:
• The million plus Jews in the former
Soviet Union could be in new jeopardy.
They have seen a rise in anti-Semitism,
in part a backlash to that country's eco-
nomic and political breakdown. Nov
the U.S-Russia rift over Kosovo could
reduce U.S. leverage in the human
rights effort while opposition to the
NATO campaign may fuel an anti-
Western, anti-Semitic revival in Russia.
"We are finding many more Jews
reassessing their situation because of
the increasingly hostile environment
in different parts of Russia," said Mark
Levin, executive director of the
National Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Now there's an added concern: the
growing tensions between Russia and
the United States."
And the Kosovo crisis may point to
what Jewish leaders are reluctant to
acknowledge: Russia may be incapable
of protecting vulnerable minorities. If
true, this fundamentally changes the
calculus for Jewish groups that work
with Russian Jews.
• U.S.-Israel relations, already
strained, were worsened because
Jerusalem offered ambiguous rather than
whole-hearted support for the NATO
campaign. At the same time, Binyamin
Netanyahu's government chose
to intensify diplomacy with
Russia, possibly aimed at slow-
ing Russian arms sales to Syria
or a Russian-brokered deal to
resume peace talks with Syria
and pull Israeli troops out of
Lebanon just before the Israeli
election.
Regardless, the new Israeli
coziness with the Russians
has incensed U.S. officials
and alarmed some American
Jewish leaders. The latter
fears significant damage to
the ultimate rationale for
Israeli Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, left, listens to
strong U.S.-Israeli relations
Russian Prime Minister Evgeny Primakov Monday
— the claim that Israel is this in Moscow. Sharon urged Russian authorities to
country's most reliable ally.
block alleged supplies of weapons technologies to Iran
• Israel's ambivalence on
and discussed prospects for peace in the Middle East.

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