RUTH KING

When Golda Meir was told that Israel could afford to take risks because its survival was guaranteed by America, she is reputed to have retorted: “By the time you get here we won’t be here.”

Meir’s pragmatism has eluded a succession of Israeli leaders who have acceded to imposed cease-fires, territorial withdrawals, release of terrorists, restraint in the face of naked aggression, all under the spell of nebulous and illusory promises of support and the chimera of “a special relationship” with the United States.

Only yesterday (as of this writing) Israel’s Tzipi Livni burbled that Israel has the “firm backing” of the United States, apparently clueless how often the United States has firmly turned its back on Israel.

Meir was particularly scalded by so called “guarantees.” As Foreign Minister in 1956, she negotiated the terms for Israel’s total withdrawal after the combined forces of Israel, France and England invaded the Sinai, responding to Nasser’s blockading the Suez Canal and closing the Straits of Tiran. The guarantees she secured were joint pledges by the United Nations and the United States to support Israel’s unrestricted access to the Straits of Tiran and to install a UN peacekeeping force (UNEF) in the Sinai. In 1967, in violation of these signed guarantees, Egypt again blockaded the Straits, dismissed the United Nations forces and transferred close to 100,000 troops of her own troops to the Sinai. The United States agreed that this constituted an act of war but asked for Israeli “restraint.”

Then Foreign Minister Abba Eban urgently reminded President Johnson of the U.S. guarantees. He was categorically rebuffed by Robert McNamara, by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and by President Johnson himself. Fortunately, Israel acted in her own defense. However, few remember that following Israel’s breathtaking victory in the Six Day War, the United States enforced an arms embargo for 130 days.

In 1973 Golda Meir trusted the pledges of support by Richard Nixon (the first President to visit Israel) and was stung by America’s failure to share intelligence “chatter” which indicated a forthcoming surprise attack by the combined forces of Egypt and Syria. When the Israeli government, very late, woke up to the imminent attack, the U.S. warned Israel not to mobilize or preempt. This clearly contributed to Israel’s serious initial setbacks. Furthermore, in spite of Israel’s desperate and repeated pleas, there was a six day delay in the airlift of critical supplies from the United States. Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger subsequently pointed fingers at one another for the delay. It was Nixon who finally ordered the airlift to begin immediately but by that time almost 2000 Israelis had died.

Egypt’s prestige was greatly enhanced by its attack and oiled by a concomitant OPEC embargo. In spite of a brilliant come-from-behind victory, in 1974, Israel was pummeled by then Secretary of State Kissinger’s hard fisted demands that Israel accept a final cease fire on Egypt’s terms or face a “reassessment” of the “special relationship.”

Under Carter, the euphoria of the peace treaty with Egypt clouded the fact that Carter used “the special relationship” to clobber Menachem Begin into conceding to every single one of Sadat’s demands at Camp David.

The “special relationship” was again put to the test in 1981 when a UN resolution harshly rebuked Israel for the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor. The Reagan administration, in the person of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick voted in favor of the resolution. Kirkpatrick said that Israel had “shocked” the US administration by bombing while the possibility for peaceful approaches remained.

A decade later, during the first Persian Gulf War, Israel pledged that if attacked she would retaliate. Iraq bombed Israel, a non-combatant, with 39 scud missiles which caused extensive damage in Haifa and Tel Aviv; 74 people died, most from heart attacks, some from suffocation in gas masks, several in direct hits. But the Bush administration sternly warned Israel to remain out of the conflict in order not to disrupt America’s other “special relationships”, those with the Arab states.

Perhaps influenced by his anti-Israel Secretary of State James Baker, Bush rewarded Israeli restraint by demanding participation in a Madrid conference. In the October 1981 letter to the Palestinian Arabs calling for participation, the US stated:

“We [the US government] do not recognize Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem or the extension of its municipal boundaries and we encourage all sides to avoid unilateral acts that would exacerbate local tensions or make negotiations more difficult or preempt their final outcome. … In this regard, the US has opposed and will continue to oppose activity in the territories occupied in 1967, which remains an obstacle for peace.

To add injury to insult, the letter to Israel was almost identical (apart from a soothing mention of “warm friendship, shared destiny and values”). It is to be noted that the words “strategic partnership” gradually faded from American canned speeches.

The rest is bitter history. Bill Clinton, who as a candidate upbraided Bush for endangering Israel, shepherded along Oslo, the greatest catastrophe of all, on behalf of his “super special relationship” with Yasser Arafat.

After 9/11 there should have been a renewed mandate for strategic cooperation between Israel and the United States, but President Bush, whose stirring post 9/11 speeches vowed to hunt down terrorists and the nations who harbor them, flogs his so called “road map” which rewards terrorists and promises them sovereignty over Israel’s heartland.

Don’t get me wrong. The United States has been generous with both military and foreign aid. Israel, for its part has been (by far) America’s most dependable ally in the region. Israel and America have the same enemies, but America, for reasons of a misguided “realpolitik” or energy needs or foolish utopianism or ignorance of jihad, gratifies the enemy at Israel’s expense. Compounding this failed policy, these gratuitous gifts to the Arabs (who have never honored an agreement with Israel and rarely with each other) are given with the perfunctory invocation of a “special relationship” -- with Israel.

And Israel’s governing auctioneers, selling the illusions of American “guarantees,” continue to offer up their future and security to the lowest bidders.