Ehud Barak won a triumphal reception in Washington by making peace his message. Man On A Mission JAMES D. BESSER Washington Correspondent Washington A self-confident Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak dazzled administration Mideast poli- c-ymakers during his inau- gural official visit to Washington this week. And he brought a distinct mes- sage to American Jewish groups, reshuf- fling the deck so that pro-peace ones were elevated to the top rung — in his eyes — of the ladder of importance. Without a single word of public criticism, Barak served notice on mainstream American Jewish groups that he believes that many of them have been too quick to use American politics to interfere with Israeli policy. The results of the prime minister's six-day visit included a host of new strategic cooperation agreements between Washington and Jerusalem, a new understanding of the diminished U.S. role in the soon-to-be-revived negotiations and a decision by Barak and President Bill Clinton to meet regularly to build on this week's momentum. The latter is a striking contrast to the freeze that kept Barak's predecessor, Binyamin Netanyahu, out of the White House. And Barak's message to American Jewish leaders was clear. "In part, what he was saying to us is that we shouldn't be holier than the pope on security," said Seymour Reich, a former chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "He made it clear that negotiations will be tough, and we shouldn't do anything to upset them." At one point, in response to a ques- tion by a Jewish leader about a pro- posed settlement in Har Homa in East Jerusalem, Barak said that he has to negotiate with the Palestinians, not the Presidents Conference. And he warned Jewish leaders not to "frighten 7/23 1999 22 Detroit Jewish News Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton at a press conference in Washington Monday. me" with stories about who is more devoted to Jerusalem. Administration officials were impressed and surprised by Barak's wide-ranging peace plans, which he laid out in detail for officials here, and by his determination to conclude a series of agreements in 15 months on what he termed "two and a half Syria and Syrian-controlled fronts" Lebanon, and the Palestinians. A Sunday night White House din- ner for Barak and 400 guests was a virtual love fest, although shadowed — by the disappearance of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law in an airplane off Martha's Vineyard. The dinner featured a rwo-and-a- half hour receiving line and a guest list top-heavy with prominent New York Jews, a political nod to First Lady Hillary Clinton, who is vying to be a U.S. senator from New York. By almost any measure, Barak's visit was a public relations and diplomatic triumph. "Even before he came, the trip was destined to be a success," said Joel Singer, an Israeli lawyer now working in Washington and one of the archi- tects of the original Oslo agreement. "The administration gave him the red carpet treatment, and the decision was made in Israel for the prime minister to bend over backward and not bring any surprises or poke the administra- tion in the eye, as Netanyahu did." The visit dramatically changed the atmospherics of U.S.-Israel rela- tions, Singer added, which is a criti- cal element in ending the current impasse in peace talks.