What we've done is to hoist them on their own petards, babe… Make that 'principles,'” Jack said after a moment. “Either they work things out in accordance with their beliefs or they reveal themselves as charlatans.”
“And…?”
“I don't think they're charlatans. I think they'll be faithful to what they've always said. They have to be.”
“And soon you won't have any real work to do, will you?”
Jack caught the hopeful note in her voice. “I don't know about that.”
After the end of the President's speech came the commentary. Speaking in opposition was Rabbi Solomon Mendelev, an elderly New Yorker who was one of Israel 's most fervent — some would say rabid — supporters. Oddly, he'd never actually traveled to Israel. Jack didn't know why that was true and made a mental note to find out why tomorrow. Mendelev led a small but effective segment of the Israeli lobby. He'd been nearly alone in voicing approval — well, understanding — of the shootings on Temple Mount. The rabbi had a beard, and wore a black yarmulke over what looked like a well-rumpled suit.
“This is a betrayal of the State of Israel,” he said, after receiving the first question. Surprisingly, he spoke with calm reason. “In forcing Israel to return what was rightfully hers, the United States has betrayed the Jewish people's historic right to the land of their fathers, and also gravely compromised the physical security of the country. Israeli citizens will be forced from their homes at gunpoint, just as happened fifty years ago,” he concluded ominously.
“Now wait a minute!” another commentator responded heatedly.
“God, these people are passionate,” Jack noted.
“I lost family members in the Holocaust,” Mendelev said, his voice still reasonable. The whole point of the State of Israel is to give Jews a place where they can be safe.'
“But the President is sending American troops—”
“We sent American troops to Vietnam,” Rabbi Mendelev pointed out. “And we made promises, and there was a treaty involved there also. Israel 's only possible security is within defensible borders behind her own troops. What America has done is to bully that country into accepting an agreement. Fowler cut off defense supplies to Israel as a means of 'sending a message.' Well, the message was sent and received: either give in or be cut off. That is what happened. I can prove it, and I will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to prove it.”
“Uh-oh,” Jack observed quietly.
“Scott Adler, Deputy Secretary of State, personally delivered that message while John Ryan, the Deputy Director of the CIA, made his own pitch to Saudi Arabia. Ryan promised the Saudi king that America would bring Israel to heel. That's bad enough, but for Adler, a Jew, to do what he did…” Mendelev shook his head.
“This guy's got some good sources.”
“Is what he says true, Jack?” Cathy asked.
“Not exactly, but what we were doing over there was supposed to be secret. It wasn't supposed to be widely-known that I was out of the country.”
“I knew you were gone—”
“But not where to. It won't matter. He can make a little noise, but it won't matter.”
The demonstrations began the next day. They'd bet everything on this. It was the last desperate throw. The two leaders were Russian Jews who'd only recently been allowed to leave a country that manifestly had little love for them. On arrival in their only true home, they'd been allowed to settle on the West Bank, that part of Palestine that had been taken from Jordan by force of arms in the Six Day War of 1967. Their prefabricated apartments — tiny by American standards, but incomprehensibly luxurious by Russian ones — stood on one of the hundreds of rocky slopes that defined the region. It was new and strange to them, but it was home, and home is something people fight to defend. The son of Anatoliy — he'd renamed himself Nathan — was already a regular officer in the Israeli army. The same was true of David's daughter. Their arrival in Israel so short a time before had seemed to all of them like salvation itself — and now they were being told to leave their homes? Again? Their lives had borne enough recent shocks. This was one too many.
The whole block of apartments was similarly occupied by Russian immigrants, and it was easy for Anatoliy and David to form a local kollektiv and get things properly organized. They found themselves an orthodox rabbi — the only thing they didn't have in their small community — to provide religious guidance and began their march towards the Knesset behind a sea of flags and a holy Torah. Even in so small a country, this took time, but the march was of such a nature as to attract the inevitable media coverage. By the time the sweating and weary marchers arrived at their destination, all the world knew of their trek and its purpose.
The Israeli Knesset is not the most sedate of the world's parliamentary bodies. The body of men and women ranges from the ultra-right to the ultra-left, with precious little room for a moderate middle. Voices are often raised, fists are often shaken or pounded on whatever surface presents itself, all beneath the black-and-white photo of Theodor Herzl, an Austrian whose ideal of Zionism in the mid-19th century was the guiding vision for what he hoped would be a safe homeland for his abused and mistreated people. The passion of the parliamentarians is such as to make many an observer wonder how it is possible, in a country where nearly everyone is a member of the army reserves and consequently has an automatic weapon in his (or her) closet, that some Knesset members have failed to be blasted to quivering fragments at their seats in the course of a spirited debate. What Theodor Herzl would have thought of the goings-on is anyone's guess. It was Israel 's curse that the debates were too lively, the government too severely polarized both on political or religious grounds. Almost every religious sub-sect had its own special area of land, and consequently its own parliamentary representation. It was a formula calculated to make France 's often-fragmented assembly look well organized, and it had for a generation denied Israel a stable government with a coherent national policy.
The demonstrators, joined by many others, arrived an hour before debate was to begin on the question of the treaties. It was already possible — likely — that the government would fall, and the newly-arrived citizens sent representatives to every member of the Knesset they could locate. Members who agreed with them came outside and gave fiery speeches denouncing the treaties.
“I don't like this,” Liz Elliot observed, watching the TV in her office. The political furor in Israel was much stronger than she had expected, and Elliot had called Ryan in for an assessment of the situation.
“Well,” the DDCI agreed, “it is the one thing we couldn't control, isn't it?”
“You're a big help, Ryan.” On Elliot's desk was the polling data. Israel's most respected public-opinion firm had conducted a survey of five thousand people, and found the numbers were 38 percent in favor of the treaty, 41 percent opposed, and 21 percent undecided. The numbers roughly matched the political makeup of the Knesset, whose right-wing elements slightly outnumbered the left, and whose precarious center was always fragmented into small groupings, all of which waited for a good offer from one side or the other that would magnify their political importance.
“Scott Adler went over this weeks ago. We knew going in that the Israeli government was shaky. For Christ's sake, when in the last twenty years has it not been shaky?”
“But if the Prime Minister cannot deliver…”
Then it's back to Plan B. You wanted to put pressure on their government, didn't you? You'll get your wish.' This was the one thing that hadn't been fully considered, Ryan thought, but the truth of the matter was that full consideration would not have helped. The Israeli government had been a model of anarchy in action for a generation. The treaty work had gone ahead on the assumption that, once transformed into a fait accompli, the treaty would have to be ratified by the Knesset. Ryan had not been asked for an opinion on that, though he still thought it a fair assessment.
The political officer at the embassy says that the balance of power may be the little party controlled by our friend Mendelev,' Elliot noted, trying to be calm.
“Maybe so,” Jack allowed.
“It's absurd!” Elliot snarled. “That little old fart hasn't even been there—”
“Some sort of religious thing. I checked. He doesn't want to go back until the Messiah arrives.”
“Jesus!” the National Security Advisor exclaimed.
“Exactly. You got it.” Ryan laughed and got a nasty look. “Look, Liz, the man has his personal religious beliefs. We may think they're a little off, but the Constitution demands that we both tolerate and respect them. That's the way we do things in this country, remember?”
Elliot waved her fist at the TV set. “But this crazy rabbi is screwing things up! Isn't there anything we can do about it?”
