Washington — Pro-Israel lobbyists are patting themselves on the back these days for yet another congressional resolution declaring solidarity with the embattled state of Israel, and the kudos are justified.

Pro-Israel resolutions these days are routinely passed with token opposition. Lawmakers who would have had trouble finding Israel on a map when they arrived here now rush to praise Israel’s leaders and policies.

Even many who have doubts sign onto these resolutions. Why make trouble for yourself? Why help your political opponents?

Short term, such resolutions provide public affirmations of U.S. support for Israel — nothing to scoff at when Israel is unfairly isolated in the world.

But do they serve Israel’s long-term interests? Or does the risk-and-responsibility-free sloganeering make it harder for America to play the difficult, nuanced role that most experts say any real peace effort requires?

There are no easy answers, but there are plenty of reasons to be worried.

The latest congressional boost to Israel, sponsored by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), praised Israel for its forceful response to terrorism and condemned Palestinian attacks since the recent Aqaba summit. Only five members voted against the resolution, despite heavy lobbying by Arab-American groups; and seven others simply voted “present.”

Still, there were murmurs of protest. Some pro-Israel lawmakers wanted to know why the resolution didn’t express support for the administration’s current peacemaking initiative, and why it didn’t say a word about Israel’s obligations under the Middle East “road map.”

But that misses the point. These resolutions aren’t intended to be balanced, to reinforce the president’s diplomacy, or to offer new ideas for solving the conflict. They are crude political speed bumps, intended to slow U.S. diplomacy in the region.

Low cost posturing

In the past, such resolutions have been necessary responses to presidents who have squeezed Israel to mollify their friends in the Arab world, a process President Bush’s father raised to a new level.

But the climate today is different. This President Bush has been much more sensitive to Israeli security and political concerns than his predecessors, and much more critical of Palestinian leaders.

Using Congress to erect barriers to Bush’s Middle East initiatives suggests motives beyond expression of solidarity. It’s revealing that leaders of the religious right who oppose the idea of territorial compromise are among those pushing hardest for these shots across the administration’s bow.

While the pro-Israel sentiments in these resolutions are heartfelt for some, the driving force here is retail politics. The authors feel no obligation to propose actual solutions to the region’s complex problems, or to balance conflicting U.S. interests.

They don’t have to deal with the reality that, sometimes, Israeli leaders have welcomed modest U.S. pressure, which gave them the freedom to take steps they believed were in Israel’s best interests but that would have produced a political backlash.

The resolutions’ authors don’t have to seek to balance U.S. and Israeli interests, which are generally compatible, but not always. There’s virtually no cost to supporting pro-Israel resolutions, and a lot of benefit, including campaign money and praise from important constituents. Besides, lawmakers rationalize, these lofty proclamations really don’t mean a thing. The resolutions are non-binding and, usually, broadly worded.

But they do mean something. They put modest political limits on administrations that are hostile to Israel, but also make it harder for friendly ones to conduct real-world diplomacy that may be in Israel’s interests.

They send a message to the world that U.S. policymaking is based more on domestic politics than on careful, detailed assessments of U.S. interests.

They may also give Israel a false sense of security. They are not accurate measures of support for the Jewish state. Today, voting to praise Israel is a cost-free way of winning important support. But that could easily change.

Bush has not been deterred by congressional resistance to his initiatives, but there’s little question it has slowed him down. It will slow him down even more if the Palestinians comply with their end of the deal, ratcheting up pressure on Israel to fulfill its obligations under the road map.

Peace in the Middle East will come only through painstaking, complex diplomacy, with strong and creative U.S. leadership — something that some backers of these resolutions hope to forestall. Sometimes expressions of “solidarity” may not be in the best interests of a Jewish state that has seen far too much bloodshed in its short history.

Former Madisonian James Besser has been Washington correspondent for the New York Jewish Week, the Baltimore Jewish Times and other leading Anglo-Jewish newspapers for 15 years.

Margaret Miller was outstanding community leader

By Melvin S. Zaret
Special to The Chronicle

Margaret Miller, a truly eminent leader of the Milwaukee Jewish community, died this past February at age 88. I learned of her death many weeks later after returning from a trip out of the country.

2002 marked the centennial of the founding of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, and was a time for recollection and remembrance. During the past 100 years, countless professionals and volunteers devoted themselves to the community, among whom Miller was outstanding.

Miller, a Milwaukee native born Margaret Plonsker, was the first president of the year-round Women’s Division of the MJF and later its campaign chair. That was nearly 50 years ago.

In the late 1930s, she was a prime force in creating the Milwaukee Committee for Jewish Refugees, combining efforts of the Jewish Family Service and Jewish Vocational Service, Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Jewish Community Center, the Board of Jewish Education, each serving refugees arriving after cataclysmic experiences — concentration camps, torture, decimation of their homes and towns, death of loved ones. The committee’s work to rebuild lives was one of the most successful such efforts anywhere.

Miller was instrumental in creating the Central Planning Committee for Jewish Service in 1947: a sensible, efficient social engineering program through which all agencies worked in unison; differences were submerged, a cooperative mood prevailed for the common good.

All agencies abided by guidelines; none expanded, contracted or created new services without consideration and approval of the CPC. Agencies with particular interests learned to respect the goals of others, cognizant that people would be best served if all worked together. Other communities benefited and modeled their work on Milwaukee’s experience.

Disliked praise

After reaching great heights in 1948 when the people of Israel fought for and created a state, the campaign floundered.

Wondrous leaders of the Women’s Division — Esther Cohen, Ann Agulnick, Charlotte Bernhard, Evelyn Lazarus, and Miller — designed ways to lift the community out of its lethargy, leading to a rebirth of an inspired spirit. Campaign procedures, standard all over America, were altered.

The first events in campaigns became those of the Women’s Division. Men joined in the latter part of them to be uplifted by their spirit.

Miller was then president of the year-round Women’s Division, which became an inspiration to communities everywhere, and she served as chair of the National Women’s Division of the Council of Jewish Federations.

In the late 1950s, the Women’s Division needed professional help the MJF felt it could not yet afford. Margaret agreed to take on the task, but as a volunteer. The MJF insisted on paying her a salary, which Miller reluctantly accepted and promptly returned in the form of a special gift.

The Women’s Division went on to create educational programs for men, women and children that other communities adapted. Milwaukee had become a leader in the planning and initiation of services for people and in creating order in fundraising. Milwaukee’s leaders provided advice, leadership and inspiration to many communities in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.

Concerned with the reproductive health and individual liberty of women, Miller became director of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in 1964. During her tenure, that organization created branches to take its services to the people. When Miller retired in 1979, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin was the largest affiliate in the nation with the exception of New York.

Miller had a Master’s Degree in chemistry and had taught on the high school and college levels. She could have pursued that career, but her humanitarian impulses drove her to help build the Jewish community and to make life worthwhile for all people.

She presided over the Milwaukee County Mental Health Association, attended a White House conference on children and youth, chaired high levels of units of the United Way and the divisions of the state of Wisconsin. She eschewed praise, which she regarded as unnecessary flattery.

Miller planted seeds and saplings out of which much has grown. Anyone who knows the history of the past 100 years of organized Jewish life in Milwaukee would place her on the first team of any aggregation of leadership of the century and on a high plateau of national leadership.

A community should never forget. It must remember a person who has done so much during many decades of the last century.

Melvin S. Zaret is executive vice president emeritus of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.