Mr. Clinton Goes To Gaza Netanyahu scores some points, but his coalition remains fragile. DAVID LANDAU Special to The Jewish. News Jerusalem Mr Palestinian schoolgirls hold a poster welcoming President Clinton to Gaza as they wait for his motorcade to pass by in Gaza City. bile President Bill Clinton's Middle East visit is widely seen as a major success for the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is also claiming victory. But it remains unclear whether these claimed victories will enable the premier to survive a knife-edge vote of no-confi- dence scheduled for next Monday in the Knesset. On the face of it, Clinton's visit may have gone well for Netanyahu, who is now claiming two successes: • Palestinian officials, with the entire world watching, annulled the clauses in their national covenant that called for Israel's destruction. This had long been Netanyahu's demand, and it represented one of his conditions for further progress in the peace process. • Netanvahu made no new conces- sions to Clinton and succeeded in post- poning the next redeployment in the West Bank, which was supposed to take place Friday. By making no new concessions, Netanyahu can now urge hard-liners in his coalition to support him and not carry out their earlier threats to side with CLINTON IN GAZA on page 29 Queasy feelings" about Clinton's boost to the Palestinians. MATTHEW DORF Special to The Jewish News Washington ro resident Bill Clinton's visit to Gaza and Bethlehem this week solidified the Palestinians' standing as friends of the United States. But the visit — the first by an American president to the Palestinian self-rule areas — has triggered con- cern in the Jewish community that this new friendship will come at the expense of America's historic "special relationship" with Israel. Clinton's comments and the sym- bolism of the visit were widely inter- preted as a boost to the Palestinian quest for statehood. For the first time in his administration, the president adopted the language of the Camp David accords calling for the "legiti- mate rights" for the Palestinian peo- ple. The Palestinians consider the phrase a code word for statehood. The Palestinians "now have a chance to determine their own des- 2/18 1998 28 Detroit Jewish News tiny on their own land," Clinton said in Gaza on a trip with all the trap- pings of a formal state visit. Turning the tables on Israel, which had labored for decades to convince the Arabs to negotiate peace, the president told the Palestinians they had "issued a challenge to the govern- ment of Israel to walk down that path with you." The burgeoning U.S.-Palestinian relationship could mean continued rocky times for Israel if Palestinian Authority Chairman Yassir Arafat continues to capitalize on the cool relations between Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "For friends of Israel, there is some- thing very sad" about Clinton's visit, wrote Henry Siegman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an op-ed piece in an Israeli publi- caticn on the eve of the president's trip. "The visit should have been a glo- rious occasion, marking not only Israel's 50th anniversary but also an extraordinary relationship between the world's only remaining superpow- er and the diminutive but vigorous Jewish democratic state," he wrote. "But instead of marking a celebra- tion, or serving as an occasion for Israel to express its gratitude to the American people for the constancy of their support, and to a president rec- ognized universally as 'the best friend Israel ever had in the White House,' this visit will take place in a con- tentious and ugly atmosphere that dramatizes, above all, the deteriora- tion in the relationship." Many longtime Jewish activists have begun to focus on how this deterioration, coupled with the grow- ing Araf-Clinton relationship, will affect Israel. "Ultimately, I think it will be troublesome," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "I have that queasy feeling" that the improved American-Palestinian relationship "may be done at the expense of the special relationship with Israel." In fact, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee already has begun to lay the groundwork to lobby Congress to serve as a counterweight against the Clinton administration on critical final-status issues, including statehood. While Israel may lose some short- term battles, some Middle East ana- lysts believe the Jewish state's special alliance with the United States is not in jeopardy. The U.S.-Israel relationship is "something quite extraordinary and unique in the annals of diplomacy," said Daniel Pipes, editor of the Middle East Quarterly. In fact, this week's trip is Clinton's fourth to Israel since becoming presi- dent. He is the only president to visit Israel more than once while in office. the White House pointed out. "America's relations with Arabs have gone up and down, and have not fundamentally affected the U.S.- Israel relationship," Pipes said. "I'm concerned about the short- term tactical relationship but not the long-term strategic" one, said Pipes, who is predicting a confrontation between the United States and Israel on the peace process. 7