Spoiling and Coping With Spoilers: Israeli-Arab Negotiations by Galia Golan & Gilead Sher

Author:Galia Golan & Gilead Sher [Golan, Galia & Sher, Gilead]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Violence in Society, Israel & Palestine, Modern, Middle Eastern, 20th Century, Peace, Political Science, Middle East, World, Social Science, History
ISBN: 9780253042392
Google: ti6dDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 57954880
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2019-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

Funding the Spoiler Coalition: The Right-Wing Donors Club

Both the religious and secular rejectionists could count on a number of dedicated donors to sponsor their activities. Irving I. Moskowitz, a philanthropist who sponsored settlement activities, especially in East Jerusalem, emerged as a leading donor. His Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation contributed to AFSI, the Freeman Center, and the ZOA, among others. Moskowitz once described the peace process as a “slide toward concession, surrender, and Israeli suicide” and compared Rabin to Chamberlain. Rose Mattus of the Haagen-Dazs ice cream fortune was another important donor. She stated that “everything changed when Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo accord.” Describing it as an “act of appeasement,” she added that “American Jews had learned from the Holocaust [that appeasement] is the sure road to war.” Mattus sat on the board of the ZOA, and Klein supported her candidacy to the World Zionist Congress. Not incidentally, Mattus was close to the Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who befriended her and her husband while serving as Israel’s envoy in the United States. Sam Domb, a New York–based businessman and philanthropist with close ties to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidim, was a veteran Likud supporter. His distaste for the Oslo process was palatable, leading him to personal attacks on its leaders. Domb described Rabin as “a man seemingly devoid of honor, self-respect, compassion, common sense and a sense of history” who was “spiritually destroying the Jewish people.” Morris Baily, another businessmen-philanthropist based in New York, had close ties with the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and one of its leaders, Jack Avital. Like Domb, Baily took a dim view of the peace process.12

Manfred R. Lehmann, a Miami-based businessman, philanthropist, and scholar, was an early opponent of the peace process who called Rabin and his Labor colleagues “mischief makers.” Lehmann wrote that “if Rabin continues to put Jewish lives at risk, delivers Israel to the PLO, and dismantles Israel, he may end up being compared with French hero Marshal Philippe Petain, who saved France in World War I, but betrayed France by delivering his country to Hitler and the Nazis.” Morton Klein gave Lehmann an honorary position for his contribution to the ZOA. Lehmann was the founder of the World Committee for Israel (WCI), which was heavily involved in advertising against Oslo and organizing rallies. On December 13, 1993, in a rally sponsored by WCI and attended by Domb and Hecht, some participants described Rabin as “Hitler” and demanded that he be killed.13

In what was a classic force multiplier, the contribution of major donors helped to establish a large number of groups that one observer described as “letterheads and advertising budgets and nothing else.” In addition to the WCI, the Coalition for Secure US-Israel Friendship, Pro-Israel, and Jewish War Veteran of America, among others, created the impression of a large grassroots presence and solicited for donations in national and local venues.14 Making their opposition to the peace agreement in paid advertisements, conferences, and public rallies was only one way to demonstrate capability. Another highly effective way to undermine the peace process was lobbying Congress.

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