President Clinton
water as a weapon to defeat the
administration's ambitious so-
cial. agenda.
"It's a diversionary tactic be-
ing used to draw attention away
from a wide range of domestic
issues, as well as the adminis-
tration's foreign policy activi-
ties," said Rabbi Alexander M.
Schindler, president of the Re-
form Union of American He-
brew Congregations. "I'm very
much afraid that these very im-
portant issues will not be dealt
with as a result of these attacks,
which are fueled by partisan-
ship."
Rabbi Schindler, like other
Jewish leaders active on the do-
mestic front, worries that a nar-
row window of opportunity for
progressive legislation, opened
by the Democratic victory in
1992, may be closing fast be-
cause of Whitewater.
"I was just in eight different
communities," he said. "From
the conversations I had, there
is nothing but goodwill in our
community towards this ad-
ministration. But we wish they
could get on with the job."
Jewish Republicans and De-
mocrats alike worry that the
growing obsession with White-
water could also deflect energy
and resources away from for-
eign policy at time when dra-
matic changes around the world
are putting new demands on
American leadership.
"If the press and the Repub-
licans continue to make a
mountain out of something that
may be less than a molehill, it
could make it difficult for the
administration to do all it needs
to do in the foreign arena," said
Steve Gutow, NJDC executive
director. "But my feeling is that
the public and the press —
probably in that order — will
tire of the constant fanning of
the flames for partisan purpos-
es."
Mr. Gutow's Republican
counterpart, National Jewish
Coalition executive director
Matthew Brooks, predictably
took a harsher view.
"When the person at the desk
next to yours at the White
House gets a subpoena, it has
a paralyzing impact," he said.
"Tor a president not well versed
in foreign policy to begin with
to face these distractions will
make it harder to deal with the
situations like Bosnia, the ul-
tra-nationalist rise in Russia
and the Mideast peace process."
Only when the persistent
questions about Whitewater are
answered, Mr. Brooks said, will
the administration be in a po-
sition to assert strong leader-
ship in the world arena.
In the short term, the Clin-
tons' Whitewater woes could in-
crease the president's
involvement in Mideast nego-
tiations because that process
may represent the administra-
tion's best shot at a sorely need-
ed genuine foreign policy
triumph.
"Ironically, the president is
now going to have even more of
an incentive to throw himself
into diplomacy, statesmanship
and the whole range of foreign
policy issues, and to play more
of an active role," said Norman
Ornstein, a fellow at the Amer-
ican Enterprise Institute. 'That
could have a positive impact on
the negotiations."
But Mr. Ornstein warned
that if the furor continues to
grow, political paralysis could
ultimately reduce the adminis-
tration's ability to take a lead-
ership role in the fragile peace
process.
"If this story continues to
build momentum and to obsess
the press, eventually the world
will get the sense of a weakened
presidency," he said. "If a pres-
ident doesn't have the stature
to act as a broker, it is going to
make a difference in these talks.
I think the sensitivities and
weakness of the positions of
both sides (in the Mideast
talks), particularly of [PLO chief
Yassir] Arafat, make a very
strong president a major part
of all of this.
In the same way, the White-
water controversy could deflect
energy from the administra-
tion's handling of the crisis in
Russia, where President Boris
Yeltsin's precarious hold on
power is directly related to the
fate of more than a 1 million
Jews remaining in that country.
"Right now, there's no indi-
cation these political problems
have had an impact on the
issues our organization cares
about," said Mark Levin,
executive director of the Na-
tional Conference on Soviet
Jewry. "But we've expressed the
view that the administration
needs to more forcefully articu-
late why we're doing what we're
doing in the former Soviet
Union, why it's vital to our na-
tional interest to remain en-
gaged and supportive of the
reformers."
Given the current political
crisis, he said, that forcefulness
may be harder to attain. ❑
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