The Kissinger covenant and other reasons Israel is in trouble.

• Author: Viorst, Milton
• Position: Henry Kissinger, excerpt from Sands of Sorrow: Israel's Journey From Independence

THE KISSINGER COVENANT AND OTHER REASONS ISRAEL IS IN TROUBLE

At dawn on June 5, 1967, the Israeliair force swooped down in a surprise attack on Egyptian air bases. Israel's plan was to go first after Egypt, its most formidable enemy, while urging King Hussein to keep Jordan out of the fight. Within hours, Israel had knocked out Gamal Abdel Nasser's entire air force, effectively settling the contest. Over the next few days, Egypt's army, operating without cover, was decimated by Israel's air and ground forces.

Notwithstanding Israel's appeal, Husseinjoined the war, unaware that the outcome had been determined before his forces fired a shot. When Jordanian artillery shelled Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel struck. In a three-day offensive, it captured the Old City of Jerusalem, destroyed Jordan's army and occupied the entire West Bank. Before the last battle against Jordan was fought, the Israelis turned on the Syrians, who appeared impregnable in their bastion on the Golan Heights. In the most brilliant military exploit of all, the Israelis stormed the Heights, and by the end of the week, Syria, too, was defeated.

In fighting both on land and in the air, Israelhad demonstrated its superiority over the combined power of its Arab neighbors. It ended the war occupying territory more than three times its size. It was in possession of what its generals called "strategic depth,' with a defensive perimeter that included Egypt's Sinai peninsula and Gaza Strip, Syria's Golan Heights, and Jordan's West Bank. Israel, which had appeared outmatched in 1948 and again on the eve of the Six-Day War, had suddenly become invulnerable to the full power of the Arab world.

Like every Jew in my circle of friends, like everymember of the worldwide community of Jews, I exulted at Israel's victory in 1967. It was a triumph that made us all feel better about ourselves. We stopped having to apologize for being weak, for being dependent, for being Jews. We were winners at last, after two thousand years of losing, and whatever concerns about Israel I have since acquired, that feeling of joy has remained. The issue since the Six-Day War--as it has been debated both in Israel and in countries friendly to Israel--is not a strong state versus a weak one. The issue is whether Israel can bring itself to use its power prudently and wisely.

In retrospect, it is clear the Six-Day War transformedIsrael in ways that went far beyond the simple question of security. It resulted in gains for the winner too huge to be digested, costs to the losers too embarrassing to confront. From the shattered fragments of the conflicts emerged a structure of relations among the nations of the Middle East dominated by Israel's military power, hardly healthier for the victor than for the vanquished.

The war dramatically changed the internaldynamics of Israeli politics and culture. It was only after the Six-Day War that the relationship between Ashkenazim (Jews of European origin) and Sephardim (Jews mostly from the Middle East) exploded into open struggle. The war created a new geographical reality on Israel's borders and established a new psychological reality at home, sharply intensifying the competition among diverse cultural groups and leading to the dominance of the Israeli right-wing. In their own land Jews, who take pride in no longer having to be fearful and servile in dealing with anyone, have created a social structure that demands that Arabs be fearful and servile in dealing with them.

The war has also radically changed how Israelrelates to its neighbors. In creating a powerful army, Israel has freed the Jews of the age-old torment of impotence, imparting to them a sense of mastery over their future. But in doing so, it has failed to grasp the limits of what armed might can achieve. Israel had persuaded itself that, given the shift in the strategic balance in the Middle East, the Arabs had the only advantage in reaching an overall peace settlement. Israel has come to rely on guns, so unfamiliar in the Jewish past and so suddenly acquired, to solve problems that are only peripherally military. The cockiness was reinforced by an American policy, codified in a pact devised by Henry Kissinger that virtually guaranteed whatever arms and assistance Israel requested. The result has been that while Israel is now strong enough to repel its neighbors, it is also strong enough to turn its back on the peace process. Ironically, Israel's military domination--supported by its increasing conservatism--only makes it more difficult to achieve peace in the Middle East.

Evening scores

When the Six-Day War was over, the Israelisfound themselves ruling more than 1.2 million Arabs who lived in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Conflict between Israelis and the residents of the occupied lands was inevitable. But the presence of the new Arab population also exacerbated the bitter ideological quarrels between the Ashkenazim and Sephardim.

"Ashkenazim' was a term first applied to GermanJews, and over centuries came to designate all Jews exposed to the main currents of European culture. "Sephard' was the name originally given to the Jews of Spain that later applied to all Jews influenced by the culture of Islam. It was the Ashkenazim who founded modern Israel, for Zionism was an Ashkenazi political movement. The Jews who settled the new land were for the most part Eastern Europeans, who brought with them ideas current in the world they left behind.

During the many centuries of Diaspora,however, the idea of a return to Zion may have been more deep-seated among the Sephardim. Though rarely persecuted by their moslem neighbors, the Jews of Islam were denied full participation in the economy and society. Then, in the late nineteenth century, with the Ottoman Empire in decline and Arab nationalism on the rise, their position became more precarious. For the first time, European doctrines of anti-Semitism circulated in the Arab world.

In its first months of independence, Israelwelcomed more than 300,000 European Jews, survivors of Nazism, but after that the Western influx abated and immigration from the Arab world soared. They came knowing little of Zionism, without political designs, generally impoverished, and poorly educated for modern life. By 1956, Israel's population had been increased threefold by the arrival of Eastern Jews. Though Sephardim were about 15 percent of the Jewish people worldwide, within Israel their ratio grew from barely a fifth at independence to nearly half. With a substantially higher birth rate, by the Six-Day War their ratio had increased to more than a majority.

The Ashkenazi refugees, adapting more easilyto Israel's Western ways, made their way to the cities, where they entered trade or industry. There they were quickly absorbed into the middle class. The Sephardim who followed them to the cities tended, in contrast, to became an urban proletariat, living in slums. Those who stayed behind in rural areas clustered in state-constructed "development towns,' economically and socially impoverished, a far cry both from the vibrant Arab cities from which they had fled and from the Jewish homeland of their millennial dreams.

In jobs, schools, and the army, the Sephardimsaw themselves as victimized by discrimination. As Arab Jews, they were made to feel like foreigners in a Jewish land. Mainstream Zionist leaders, insensitive to their alienation, publicly lamented the prospect of Israel's being "Levantinized' or...