America Abroad

3 minute read
Strobe Talbott

The U.S. has “special relationships” with half a dozen or so countries. Near the top of the list are Israel and Japan. The U.S. was instrumental in the founding of the Jewish state in 1948, and almost 6 million American Jews $ could be automatically entitled to citizenship there. The case of Japan is more ambiguous but no less special. The U.S. used A-bombs to finish off a militaristic empire, then helped rebuild what has become an economic superpower.

Both relationships are strained these days. The Likud government’s commitment to the de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank, hence to the open-ended subjugation of its Palestinian population, hinders the U.S.’s ongoing effort to broker a Middle East peace and jeopardizes Israel as a humane and democratic society.

Ties between Tokyo and Washington are frayed as a result of bad American habits, notably an addiction to debt, as well as predatory Japanese trade practices.

But if the U.S. is having trouble with both Israel and Japan, those two countries have had practically nothing to do with each other. Without ever admitting it was doing so, Japan has aided and abetted the Arabs in their 43- year-old economic boycott of Israel. The U.S., Canada and some countries in Western Europe have laws against companies’ abiding by the boycott. The Japanese kept mumbling that they favored free trade, but that the “private sector” must make its own decisions on commercial grounds.

In fact, there is no such thing as a private sector in Japan. Either that or there is nothing but the private sector. For years Japan Inc. has had a one- dimensional foreign policy: what’s good for Japanese exports is good for Japan. Since there were many times more customers for Toyota and Nippon Steel in the Arab and Islamic worlds than in Israel, Japan abided by the boycott.

That’s begun to change. In April, Toyota announced it would sell cars directly to Israel. Nissan and Mazda are expected to follow. For the first time, Japan is adding a representative of the powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry to the staff of its embassy in Israel. El Al is being allowed to open service between Tel Aviv and Tokyo (via Moscow).

Israeli diplomats consider these moves to be modest and tentative but welcome nonetheless. American Jewish leaders and members of Congress have been lobbying hard for the shift. So, much more quietly, have some younger civil servants inside several Japanese ministries. They see their country’s compliance with the boycott as symptomatic of the parochialism and selfishness that have until now marked Japan’s definition of its role in the world.

The Reagan and Bush administrations have helped too. Former Secretary of State George Shultz raised the issue repeatedly. James Baker and most of his senior deputies have done the same. During a meeting in California in April, President George Bush told Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu that the end of the gulf war “might be an opportunity for Japan to have closer relations with Israel.” Kaifu agreed, adding that the Arab boycott was “undesirable.” Vice President Dan Quayle, who met with Kaifu in Tokyo last week, pressed for more steps in the right direction.

This story, while unfinished, already has a moral: the Japanese need gai- atsu, or outside pressure, almost as much as they resent it. By leaning hard on its friends in Tokyo, the U.S. is doing a favor for Japan as well as Israel. But, then, what else are special relationships for?

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