On Tuesday morning, June 6, 1967, immediately after the Six-Day War broke out, a group of young people dropped in, unannounced, at the San Francisco JCRC office. They were part of the many thousands of “flower children” coming from all over the country to the Haight-Ashbury district to celebrate a “summer of love.”
But those who dropped in to the Jewish Community Relations Council that morning had a different mission. They wanted to use our mimeograph machine to produce leaflets in support of Israel, for distribution in the Haight-Ashbury. Their action symbolized a sharp change in the connection between American Jews and Israel.
Most American Jews supported Israel when it was created, but their attachment tended to be rather passive — partly because they took Israel’s secure existence for granted. After all, the U.N. had authorized its creation, and the seemingly rag-tag Arab armies were not taken seriously after they were repelled in 1948 and overrun in 1956.
But Israel’s Arab neighbors were unrelenting and had used the intervening years to build their resolve and their military. They were now prepared to invade in earnest, with close to half a million well-supplied troops. In May, defying U.N. mandates, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran for any shipping to or from Israel, cutting off much of Israel’s lifeline — itself an act of war. Egypt ordered the U.N.’s peacekeeping troops out of Sinai and moved in its own troops.
The rest of the world was not about to react in a timely fashion. Israel saw that it could survive the upcoming attack only by taking pre-emptive action, especially against the one thousand Arab aircraft and several thousand tanks lined up for the invasion.
Despite its hard-won victory against odds, Israel’s vulnerability — and the inevitability of future invasion attempts — became frighteningly clear for complacent American Jews.
Before June 1967, San Francisco Jewry had the reputation of being the most anti-Zionist Jewish community in the country, having one of the strongest chapters of the American Council for Judaism, which opposed a Jewish state. But one of its San Francisco leaders resigned from that organization right after the Six-Day war. “It scared me,” he said, “and it touched a nerve I never knew I had.” Indifference and complacency disappeared overnight for millions of nerve-jangled U.S. Jews.
Just as significantly, however, another new era dawned with the Six-Day War and its circumstances: the emergence of America as the outside world’s only firm guarantor of Israel’s security. In its Cold War maneuvers (and with a well-oiled State Department), our government had been hedging its bets between the Arab states and Israel. Events leading up to the Six-Day War proved the inconstancy and instability of the Arab nations, as contrasted with Israel.
The importance of this strengthened alliance for Israel’s security has been repeatedly demonstrated. Egypt’s Anwar Sadat had supported the 1973 attempt to invade Israel, which, at one point, seemed to be succeeding until America rushed some needed arms to Israel. Sadat then realized Israel would never give up, America would probably not abandon Israel, and therefore, Israel was invincible. (Besides, America could help him with his economic problems.)
I happened to be in Jerusalem when Sadat came there to sue for peace, and will never forget the Israelis weeping for joy in the streets. Full peace was not around the corner, but neither was another sudden invasion from the Egyptian front.
However, a different kind of threat has been developing: the more global 21st century totalitarian movement known as radical Islamism. Its major target is the West, especially America, but it also wants to destroy “accomodationist” regimes such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia — and, of course, Israel — a symbol of the West’s intrusion.
An Arab columnist, Mahmoud Murad, sympathetic to the Islamist movement, wrote, “The conflict that we call the Arab-Israeli conflict is, in truth, a conflict with Western and particularly American colonialism … America is helped by the smaller enemy, and I mean Israel. The real issue is the Arab-American conflict.”
This is a different and potentially even more formidable enemy than we faced 30 years ago. Nevertheless, a certain amount of complacency about the security of Israel has again built up among some American Jews, because America is still the singular superpower in the world and most American politicians have continued to proclaim their fond support of Israel.
However, all that fond support for Israel will not protect its security if America does not have the ability to back it up. In distressing contrast to 30 years ago, America’s policy-makers seem to be either too inept or too involved in politics-as-usual to forge a strong and consensual foreign policy that can effectively protect America (and Israel) against this new danger.
Where are those Jewish flower children of yesteryear? Please drop in again.
Earl Raab is director emeritus of Brandeis University’s Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy. He is executive director emeritus of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California