Bill Clinton in a meeting with Yitzhak Rabin. In Israel, Clinton Wins By A Landslide For Americans living in Israel, the choice for president is no contest. They almost all dislike George Bush. LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT G ov. Bill Clinton is such a strong favorite among American Jew- ish immigrants in Israel that even Menahem Swirsky, the former New Yorker who heads the Israel chapter of Republicans Abroad, can't find a good word to say about George Bush. The best reason he can come up with, for the record, on why he supports the GOP ticket is that he "doesn't like the people around Clinton, such as Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter," who, he warns halfheartedly, might be even more damaging to Israel than Mr. Bush and James Baker have been. But Mr. Swirsky admits that his position with the GOP prevents him from say- ing everything he'd like to. "After the election I'll be able to express my views more openly," he promises. An estimated 100,000 Americans living in Israel — dual citizens, long-term residents, students and others — are eligible to cast absentee ballots for next Tuesday's election. "We ex- pect the biggest turnout ever," said Olga Rachmilevitch, head of the Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI) immigrants association, which has been helping voters register. "Most people here vote on one issue only — the Israel issue," she said. It seems the main reason for the expatriates' enthusi- asm to cast ballots is their widespread perception — es- pecially among those on the right-wing — that Mr. Bush has been a real no-goodnik toward Israel, and that his "thousand lobbyists on the Hill" remarks of September 1991 smelled of anti- Semitism. Bryna Franklin, who heads Democrats Abroad- Israel, and who was the only Israeli delegate to the Dem- ocratic Convention, said that when she canvasses -voters, "they don't even ask for an explanation why they should vote for Clinton. People have told me they haven't voted for 40 years, but this year they're voting for Clinton." Ms. Franklin estimates the American Jewish vote in Israel will go over 90 percent for the Arkansas governor, and this might be a conser- vative figure. (The vote for Ross Perot among Americans here is negligible; what little Perot support exists is being drummed up by Vendyl Jones, a devout Christian and archaeologist who lives in Israel and who supposedly was the model for Hollywood's Indiana Jones character.) Nowhere — not Manhattan, not Brooklyn, not West Los Angeles, nowhere —is there a pocket of Jewish voters so purely pro-Clinton as those in the West Bank, where as many as 18,000 American Jews live. One of the most popular placards at the settlers' anti- government demonstrations For Americans in Israel, the issue that counts is U.S. Middle East policy. is "Israel is Waiting for Clinton," a play on the Labor Party's campaign theme, "Israel is Waiting for Rabin." Said Yehiel Leiter, a set- tler spokesman: "You would be hard pressed to find one single American citizen liv- ing in Judea and Samaria who's going to vote for Bush." Nearly a year ago, Eliyahu Weinstein, a recent immi- grant from Las Vegas who lives in the West Bank set- tlement of Kfar Adumim, set up the Heartland Political Caucus as a non-partisan group to register Americans to vote in this election. However, Mr. Weinstein, a lifelong Republican, soon became so incensed by Mr. Bush's actions toward Israel that the caucus, which in- cludes a group of other set- tlers and operates mainly in the West Bank, endorsed the Democrat. The group organizes meetings in people's homes to get out the Clinton vote, and Mr. Weinstein, like Ms. Franklin, says he never has to tell voters why they should choose Mr. Clinton. Instead, they always tell him that they badly want to see Mr. Bush out of the White House. He said he has approached about 500 people and has yet to find the one voter who supports Mr. Bush. David Froehlich, vice- chairman of Democrats Abroad-Israel, has been in regular contact with Mr. Weinstein and says he has tried three times to get the Clinton campaign head- CNI CD M CC w CD CD CD 31