The Soft Sell

Former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was in New York City; so was Chaim Herzog, Israel's Ambassador-designate to the U.N. Foreign Minister Yigal Allon had been in the U.S. and gone already, as had his predecessor Abba Eban and Itzhak Navon, chairman of the Knesset's committee on foreign affairs and security. Minister of Transport Gad Yaacobi and Minister of Justice Haim Zadok flew in at week's end, while Teddy Kollek, the mayor of Jerusalem, and Supreme Court Justice Haim Conn were packing their bags. Small wonder if Premier Yitzhak Rabin felt lonely in Jerusalem: some days it seemed that there were more Israeli VIPS in the U.S. than in Israel.

The notable upsurge of visits to the U.S. by dignitaries from the Jewish state was unmistakably a response to the breakdown last March of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's Middle East shuttle. Although publicly evenhanded, the Secretary and President Ford had allowed that they felt Israeli intransigence was primarily responsible for the collapse of the talks. Thus it was no coincidence that so many Israeli VIPS were in the U.S. conveying the same basic message: that the onus for the failure belongs on Cairo and not Jerusalem.

Israel's propaganda effort is stoutly backed by major Jewish organizations in the U.S., which fear that the Ford Administration may be less favorably inclined toward Israel than its predecessors. In big ads in the New York Times and the New York Post, the local chapter of the United Jewish Appeal has warned Jews that "the price of silence was the Warsaw ghetto. Bergen-Belsen. Auschwitz. Dachau. Buchenwald .

Speak now, so that we never again pay the price of silence."

Although the major Jewish organizations are apprehensive about a possible re-evaluation of U.S. Middle East policy that may take place under Ford, they have carefully refrained from directly criticizing the President or Secretary Kissinger. Israeli visitors and diplomats have been equally circumspect, and Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz has praised Kissinger for having done "a superhuman job."

Serious Reaction. "Generally, the leadership of the Jewish community has been trying to act as responsibly as it can under the circumstances," says Bertram Gold, executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee. "It has been trying not to make the Administration the enemy. On the other hand, there is an apprehensive feeling that the Administration's reassessment [of Middle East policy] is being used as a form of pressure on Israel. If 1975 turns out to be the year of intense pressure on Israel, there will be a very serious reaction among American Jews. We will go directly to Congress, and 1976 is not that far away."

That threat of retribution in a presidential election year is underscored by more extreme sentiment on the fringe. One splinter group calling itself American Jews Against Ford has already sent out propaganda handbills. "At this moment of crisis," reads one broadsheet, "American Jewry is called upon to work tirelessly to change the Administration and the kind of thinking that leads to sellouts ... Learn what you can do to oust Kissinger and Ford by joining A.J.A.F."

In Washington itself, pro-Israel lobbying has so far been decidedly soft-sell. Last week a group headed by Rabbi Israel Miller, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, met with Joseph Sisco, Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Later the group talked with 20 Jewish U.S. Representatives. "I think the Jewish leadership is concerned, but it hasn't really got into lobbying yet," says Thomas Rees, a Democratic Congressman from a largely Jewish district in Southern California.

The test--and more intense lobbying--will doubtless come soon. President Ford will meet with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israel's Rabin next month, and only then will the results of the Administration's Middle East reassessment become clear. Ford will also tell Congress what he wants to give Jerusalem in the way of military and economic aid in the next fiscal year. If the money and the diplomatic support are not as much as Israel's friends think it needs--and if the special American-Israeli relationship seems to be weakening--the Ford Administration will probably discover that even the responsible Jewish organizations can talk very tough indeed.

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