Unease Among American Jews

Many of them are worried about Carter--and Begin

When Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sit down at the White House to talk Middle East strategy this week, there will be an unseen third party at the table. It will not be the Palestinians--as much as they have complicated the peace talks--but the Jews of America. For 30 years the U.S. Jewish community has variously served as a voice of conscience, a vigorous lobby and a public educator for Israel's cause. Though there have been periods of war and crisis when it has raised its voice, usually it goes about its mission quietly and discreetly. These days, however, Jews are hardly quiet, and that makes Carter's meeting with Begin all the more complex and difficult.

Pressure on Israel to make concessions to advance the prospects of a settlement has profoundly unsettled American Jews. They are not monolithic, of course, but generally they have become anxious, mistrustful and even angry with Carter and his Administration. Moderates charge the President with a lack of true understanding of Israel's precarious security situation--a point driven forcefully home by the P.L.O.'s terrorist raid into Tel Aviv two weeks ago. More extreme critics claim he is purposely pursuing a peace-at-any-price policy that will lead to Israel's certain destruction.

Across the spectrum, Jews seem united in a feeling of disappointment with the man to whom they gave a majority of their votes in the 1976 presidential election. Says Murray Wood, of the Jewish Federation-Council of Greater Los Angeles: "There's no question that Ford would get more Jewish votes than Carter if the election were held today." Adds Stanley Sheinbaum, one of Los Angeles' chief Democratic Party fund raisers: "Carter is not to be relied upon as far as the security of Israel is concerned. I do not believe he has any solid commitment to Israel, and I think he would do anything or say anything at any given moment."

Though Carter has repeatedly underscored the U.S.'s "special relationship" with Israel, his policy initiatives have made it harder and harder for Jews to see the evidence of that commitment. Last March he became the first U.S. President to call for a "homeland" for Palestinians, instantly raising the question of whether he was beginning to favor the creation of a Palestinian state on the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Later he joined with the Soviet Union in endorsing "the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people." Through it all, the White House has seemed--to Jews at least--to be leaning far more heavily on Israel than on any of the Arab states.

Most worrisome of all for U.S. Jews was Carter's decision last month to wrap together the sale of 15 ultrasophisticated F-15 fighter-bombers to Israel with the delivery of four times that number of F-15s to Saudi Arabia, and 50 of the less advanced but also deadly F-5E Tiger II jets to Egypt. By bundling them in a single export package. Carter has made it exceedingly difficult for Congress to block the Arab sales without preventing the Israeli delivery as well. This has infuriated many Jews, who see the arrangement as gravely jeopardizing Israeli security.

The White House contends that the three-way sale is important for the balance of power in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest supplier of oil, has been a force for restraint in the area and has been helpful to the U.S. Yet it is militarily weak and vulnerable to predatory neighbors. The Administration also felt obliged to show some appreciation and backing of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's bold and promising peace initiative.

Whatever its merits, the warplanes package could not have been proposed at a more inopportune time. Though increasingly troubled by the direction of White House policy, the American Jewish community had also been growing uneasy--and increasingly divided among itself--over Begin's hard-line attitude toward peace negotiations. In fact, early last month the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations advised Begin that his stance was creating the appearance of intransigence and was costing him support from American Jews. Had the White House exploited this opening, it might have been able to nudge Jerusalem toward the concessions needed to get the peace process moving again.

Unfortunately, the announcement of the plane sale, even if the Administration felt it was necessary to show support for Sadat and the Saudis, caused most Jews to begin closing ranks on the bedrock issue of Israeli security.

One indication of the depths to which relations between Carter and the Jews have sunk is a nasty squabble over Carter's chief foreign affairs adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Jewish leaders blame him for much of what they see as the pro-Arab tilt in Administration policy. Brzezinski has aggravated the tension by charging that the Jewish community is trying to smear him as antiSemitic. Retorts Rabbi Alexander Schindler. chairman of the Conference of Presidents: "That's an outrageous overreaction on his part. Nobody called him anti-Semitic or implied that. Disagreement is not racist." His conference colleagues back Schindler: last week they voted to extend his chairmanship indefinitely, as a way of protesting White House pressure on him for airing Jewish doubts about Carter's policies.

But Jewish sentiment was not unanimous that the Administration should be pushed quite so hard. One important skeptic was Richard Maass, president of the American Jewish Committee, who argued against quarreling with the White House in personal terms. Says he: "It's counterproductive. I think the Carter Administration is as dedicated to the survival of Israel as any previous Administration. My advice to both sides is 'Look, let's cool it.' " The advice is sound. Jewish groups do not want to run the risk of giving the appearance that it's Israel right or wrong. The White House badly needs Jewish leaders who can help convince Begin that reasonable concessions are needed if peace in the Middle East is to be achieved.

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