Colin Powell: ‘Men kent reden Yiddish’

RIBUTES have flowed for Colin Powell, who will be remembered as the first black US national security advisor, the first black military chief of staff and the first black secretary of state … and the first American military chief to speak Yiddish as a second language.

Powell, who brokered the “road map” to a two-state peace deal that still informs much of US policy, died last week aged 84 from COVID complications. He was fully vaccinated and, according to news reports, had been undergoing treatments for blood cancer.

From the age of 13, the child of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in the Bronx, had worked for Sickser’s, a Jewish-owned shop with many Jewish customers who spoke Yiddish as a first language. He also worked as a “Shabbes goy”, turning on the electricity for Orthodox families.

In a 2017 speech before the World Jewish Congress, he spoke of the “joy throughout the neighbourhood” when David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence in 1948.

“Tears flowed, celebrations everywhere, it wasn’t just the Jews who were celebrating, the rest of us were celebrating for the Jews. We all shared in their joy, the joy of having a homeland,” Powell said.

Reflecting on his military career, he recalled, “I came to know and admire fellow soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces. I came to understand the commitment of blood we had with Israel. I was a student of the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. And as an American professional soldier, I marvel at the professionalism and successes of the Israel Defense Forces.”

When he met Yitzhak Shamir, the Israeli prime minister ahead of the first Gulf War in 1991, he said, “Men kent reden Yiddish” (we can speak Yiddish), to Shamir’s surprise.

Shamir and Powell shared more than a language: In Powell, Shamir found the only senior national security official who was sympathetic to Israel’s reluctance to hold fire in the face of Iraqi Scud missile attacks on the country.

His sympathetic ear helped bring Shamir around towards complying with the Bush administration’s demand that Israel lay low throughout the conflict.

Powell was consistently concerned about Jewish sensibilities; heading a volunteerism initiative under President Bill Clinton, he formally apologised to the Jewish community after the commission’s first summit was held on Pesach.

There were tensions, however, as Powell at times clashed with the government of Ariel Sharon over Israel’s actions during the Second Intifada.

Powell was the first Bush administration official – indeed the first US official – to say, in 2001, that the likely outcome of peace talks would be a Palestinian state. The development stunned the pro-

Israel community, which had expected the second Bush administration to step back from the intensive Middle East peace brokering that had characterised the Clinton and first Bush administrations.

Powell had the ear of his boss; by the summer of 2002, Bush was speaking of Palestinian statehood, and by 2003, Powell had dragged a reluctant Sharon into endorsing – with caveats – the roadmap, which envisioned a process culminating in Palestinian statehood.

Sharon was signing onto the very thing he had accused his Labor Party opponents of rushing toward barely a decade earlier, when the Oslo Process, which did not explicitly envision Palestinian statehood, was launched under Clinton. Powell worked hard to bring the US pro-Jewish community on board.

Powell forever regretted becoming the leading advocate for the Iraq War ahead of its 2003 launch, notably with a speech to the United Nations that was later revealed to have included distortions, and wanted to clean up the mess.

Bush, however, chose in his second term to let Powell go and elevated his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to the job. Once again the pro-

Israel community, noting Rice’s reputation for hawkishness, rejoiced; once again, it was disappointed when she spearheaded pressure on Israel to enter the Annapolis peace process in 2007.

Several years after retiring from politics, Powell found himself in the headlines for a leaked email he wrote in which he doubted Iran would ever use an atomic bomb against the Jewish state since “the boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted on Tehran, and we have thousands”.

While widely accepted as a nuclear power, Israel maintains a policy of so-called ambiguity, neither publicly confirming nor denying the existence of an atomic arsenal. Jerusalem never officially commented on Powell’s remark.

Expressing condolences on behalf of the State of Israel to Powell’s family and friends,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid hailed him as “a true friend and committed partner of Israel”.

The sentiment was echoed by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the country would always remember his “deep friendship” and by Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who expressed “gratitude for his legacy,” noting, “his support for the US-Israel alliance was unwavering”.