Israeli Consul speaks at Middlebury

Author: Lisie Mehlman

Friday at noon, a hungry group of students and faculty filed into Robert A. Jones '59 House to hear the Consulate General of Israel to New England Hillel Newman speak about post-Cold War relations between the United States and Israel. The lecture, co-sponsored by Hillel and the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, was followed by a question-and-answer session in which Newman responded in a diplomatic, sometimes evasive way to some hard-hitting questions posed by the lunch-eating audience.

Newman served as a paramedic in the Israel Defense Force from 1982 to 1986 and then went on to study at Bar Ilan University where he earned a masters degree in Psychology and History, and later a Ph.D. in History. Between 1992 and 1998 he concurrently taught history at Bar Ilan and served as director for its Center for Research. Since leaving Bar Ilan, he has served as assistant to foreign minister David Levy and as policy advisor to Israeli President Moshe Katsav.

In his opening remarks, Newman explained the difficulty of creating a focused speech about Israel. At any given time Newman said, "The agenda in Israel is very, very heavy, with many balls in the air that could fall at any moment." Although issues of immigration, relations with the Arab world and, of course, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are of enormous importance, he centered his lecture on the idea that, after the Cold War, the world harbored "expectations that we were advancing to a new world, based on a linear view of history. Unfortunately, I don't believe that the reality is such."

Although the fall of the Soviet Union eliminated decades of old threats to the global community, the years following its fall have seen the emergence of new threats and new blocks to international cooperation and security. Now, however, such threats exist in the form of non-government factions, many of which depend on global terrorism. The greatest threats that now plague our world, he maintained, are terrorist groups and "weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue states." According to Newman, two primary factors have developed to which disrupt the international community. First, the United States and the European Union have failed to align themselves and work together to counter terrorism. Second, the clashes between moderacy and extremism, and democracy and totalitarianism halt progress toward peace.

Newman continued, saying that Israel frequently faces the dilemma of whether or not it should cooperate with totalitarian regimes. "Most of the conflicts in the world today arise within a totalitarian regime," said Newman. He continued, "The reality of the situation is that a democracy can deal with problems in a non-violent way and totalitarianism has an element that does lead to conflict."

He went on to say that the utmost priority of totalitarian regimes is political survival and the most dangerous threat to that survival is democracy, because democracy would limit the power of the government. For totalitarian leaders, remaining in power is more important than pursuing democratic practices or peace with other nations -- in this case, Israel. Newman genuinely lamented the fact that the world has not more powerfully united against totalitarian regimes - which provide weapons of mass destruction to rogue states on the black market.

"How we approach the problems of rogue states and weapons of mass destruction demands leadership in the international community," he said. Now, some states do not feel threatened because they have economic ties with rogue states - this is an illusion, there is no safety. All nations need to overlook national interests and look at international ones." Newman explained that "Israel and the United States very often find themselves on the same side, whether they like it or not. Both find themselves attacked by extremist groups."

Newman was asked by a student if he thought it was contradictory for nations who themselves have weapons of mass destruction to demand that other nations do not have them. He responded by saying, "There is a difference between a democratic nation having one and non democratic nations newly acquiring them. Democracies have checks on their power and on their usage of such weapons." Matt Meade '07, also in attendance, said "It was great to hear him respond to the kid's question about nuclear arsenals and the possible contradiction. I liked his sort of realist perspective that there is a difference between democratic and non-democratic regimes holding nuclear weapons, even though, as sovereign nations, they should have the right. Objectively."

Switching gears, Newman then addressed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He asserted that perhaps peace has not been achieved in the Middle East because it is in the best interests of some nations to maintain peace with extremist groups rather than to try to work against them.

He discussed the complex issue of peace and discounted the oft-held belief that if only Israel were to relinquish land, peace would be achieved. He explained, "It is just not that easy. To whom would Israel relinquish the territory? This is a slow process, one that is going to require legitimacy. But, look at the progress. Ten years ago, you would be hard-pressed to find support for a Palestinian state. Now, the majority of Israelis are in favor of such a state. Just look at Sharon. Here is a man who helped enact settlements, and now he has entirely changed his opinion and is a proponent of dismantling them."

When it was intimated in a question that Newman's argument was one-sided, he responded by saying that "You will never meet people more critical of their government than Israelis. But on some issues, like security and defense, it is necessary [for a nation] to solidify [its views]."

Although Meade thought it was "interesting to hear a state official speak on the subject," he thought it "was one sided because it was from Israel's perspective." Seth Miran '07 echoed this sentiment, saying, "I found his arguments almost entirely one-sided, but I honestly did not expect anything different. Although he was very educated in his field of study (and in general), I felt that he discounted the Arab view without even considering its merits. When an argument is this one-sided, I tend to question it more because I am unsure as to whether or not he has truly considered if there is any validity to opposing opinions."

Still, Roshni Shikari '07 said "Given his inherent bias - the fact that he was Israeli - I would say he was relatively restrained." Going beyond the obvious issue of bias, Miran explained that he "was not, however, completely convinced by some of his arguments. For instance, he argued that, "Terrorism is perhaps the greatest threat to our world today and that the best way to deal with that problem is to kill all of the terrorists. This is simply not plausible. Instead, we should focus more directly on the root of the problem. In order to do so, we must attempt to understand why these people (the terrorists) feel such hatred towards the Western world (and the United States in particular). We must first understand how they think before we can attempt to change the way that they think in an effort to eliminate terrorism."