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Security Pact?

Defense idea resurfaces amid land-for-peace talks.

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JAMES D. BESSER

Washington Correspondent

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Washington Watch

n old idea, a formal U.S.-
Israel security pact, got a
new spin this week.
Over the weekend,
Martin Indyk, the U.S. ambassador in
Tel Aviv, suggested that a formal pact
could provide Israel an extra margin
of security after land-for-peace deals
with Syria and the Palestinians. Indyk
has pushed the idea of a defense pact
since the early 1980s, when he
worked for the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-
Israel lobby.
Israeli officials — worried that a
broad agreement could limit their abil-
ity to respond swiftly to new threats —
are playing hard to get. But with
Washington pressing hard to break the
multitrack peace process stalemate,
political and diplomatic factors could
give the proposal new impetus.
Israeli officials say they appreciate
the thought — but that a formal mili-
tary pact is unlikely to pass _master
with Prime Minister Ehud Barad: '
"There have been talks about What
could be components of a defense
agreement, but not in the context of a
broad overall agreement," said an Israeli
official. "Obviously, agreements with
Syria and the Palestinians will change
our defense needs, but a full defense
treaty is probably not the answer."
Jewish defense experts blasted the
proposal.
"It's a terrible idea," said Shoshana
Bryen, special projects director for the
Jewish Institute for National Security
-Affairs (JINSA). "A genuine security
agreement implies certain things —
including that the two countries agree
on who the enemy is. In the case of
the United States and Israel, that's not
necessarily the case."
ton to
A pact that obligates.
come to Israel's,aiclitilie evez, of a
nonconventional attackamean§ .Ikuel
would have to give up one of celle fun-
damental tenets of its defense policy:
the principle of preemption,"- she said.
And it would turn Israel into !client
state in terms of defense," sh 'CI.
"I can only assume both the
Administration and Barak are testing
Israeli opinion to see how it would
respond to such an agreement, and

.

whether it will provide the margin
they need for the referendum" on a
deal with Syria, said Henry Siegman,
director of the Mideast program at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
But Israel "loses more than it gains
from that kind of an agreement
because of the constraints it puts on
Israeli initiatives," he said.
Daniel Pipes, a Mideast scholar
who has been critical of the Clinton
administration's Mideast efforts,
agreed that hints of a defense pact are
designed mostly to spur the stalled .
negotiations. More likely than a full
treaty, he said, is a series of specific
agreements that would bolster Israel's
status as a "major non-NATO ally" —
a special category created specifically
for the Jewish state in the early 1980s.

Movement on Auschwitz

Negotiations over the future of the
Auschwitz-Birkenau site in Poland —
a flash point in last year's furor sur-
rounding the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Council — are about to
enter a new stage.
If all goes according to plan, a
coalition of Jewish groups will sign a
preliminary agreement with Warsaw in
the next few months that will lay out
broad principles for protecting the site
as a place of Jewish remembrance.
Then, the coalition will essentially
dissolve; taking its place will be an
international commission under the
auspices 'of the Polish government.
Ralph Grunewald, associate nation-
al director of the American Jewish
Committee who is doing most of the
actual negotiating, said the prelimi-
nary agreement will focus on three
-areas: linking the Auschwitz and
Birkenau camps so more visitors will
visit the site where most Jews died,
protecting the protective perimeter
and prohibiting religious symbols
inside the camp — although the ques-
tion of the 26-foot "Papal Cross" will
-
not be addressed.
When the agreement is signed, the
Jewish coalition consisting of more
than a dozen groups, including the
Holocaust Council, Yad Vashem, the
American Jewish Committee, the Anti-
Defamation League and the American
Gathering of Jewish Holocaust
Survivors, will turn over planning for
the protection of the site to a 22-mem-

ber international commission under
the direction of former Foreign
Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski.
Bartoszewski was one of the leaders
of a Christian group during World War
11 that provided food, counterfeited doc-
uments and other assistance to Jews. He
was also an inmate at Auschwitz.

. Holocaust Head

It's official: after weeks of delay, the
White House has formally announced
the appointment of Rabbi Irving
"Yitz" Greenberg as chairman of the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council,
the panel that oversees the Holocaust
Museum on Washington's Mall.
The new chair is an Orthodox-
rabbi, a Harvard Ph.D. and a founder
of National Jewish Center for Learning
and Leadership (CLAL). Greenberg
also headed the first presidential
Commission on the Holocaust — the
predecessor to the current council.
Greenberg, who will take up his
duties next month, replaces Miles
Lerman, who presided over the
Museum's spectacular growth — and
over periodic controversies — during
his six-year tenure.

Speaking Up

The Orthodox Union and its Institute
for Public Affairs are jumping into
presidential politics — in a thoroughly
nonpartisan way, of course.
This week the group began running
ads in states with critical March 7 pri-
maries. The object: to lay down OU
positions on key issues, including aid
to Israel and the Workplace Religious
Freedom Act.
The OU supports vouchers that par-
ents can use in "public, private or
parochial schools" — a position taken
by the Republican presidential candi-
dates, and opposed by both Democrats.
The group wanted to get the mes-
sage out before the March 7 primaries
"because these are „ real3.7 • the only ones
where you couldrkue the Jewish-vote
will have a potential_ impact,7
Nathan Dianient, the_IPAdirector.
Primaries will falte,place in New York,
California, Ohi4d-Mary4nd
and the IPA ads will appear in Jewish
newspapers in ali four states.
"The Orthdc16X Union: has,every
right to communicate its views on var-
ious social policy issues," said National
Jewish Democratic Council Director
Ira N. Forman: But, he said, "the clear
majority of American Jews — and the
organizations that represent them —
oppose the OU's positions on
Charitable Choice, school vouchers
and Educational Savings Accounts." ❑

