SPECIAL COMMENTARY
Don't Blame Bill
Philadelphia
The assumption on the part of
wring a brief stopover in
many people, especially friends of the
Philadelphia this week,
Jewish state, is that the concessions
President Bill Clinton told
Israel will make during the conclave
an audience at a political
will be due to intolerable coercion on
fundraiser that he had been
the part of an American
spending most of his free time
delegation that is desperate
studying up on the geography
for a successful conclusion
of Jerusalem and the "West
to the summit.
Bank."
The implication of his
Precedents For Pressure
remarks seemed to be that he
Everyone knows that the
is fully prepared to go all out
lame-duck president is des-
to secure a deal between Israel
perate for another foreign-
and the Palestinian Authority
policy triumph as part of
at the Camp David summit
his historic legacy. Clinton
JONATHAN S. is also well known to be
he has convened. And if the
location of an Israeli settle-
TOBIN
one who covets the Nobel
ment or strategic site were to
Special to
Peace Prize, an award that
stand in the way of that suc-
might be his should Camp
the Jewish News
cess, then he was not about to
David II succeed.
be put at a disadvantage due to igno-
Clinton does think that Barak owes
rance of the facts on the ground.
him for his election victory last year
These remarks played directly into
and the political connections between
the question that will be uppermost in
the two, of which Clinton political
the minds of many American Jews
operative James Carville is the symbol,
from the moment Israeli Prime Minis-
are far-reaching. The president has
ter Ehud Barak arrives this week at
good reason to feel that Barak will do
Camp David until the end of the
what he wants once he gets him alone
summit with Palestinian Authority
in a room with Arafat.
leader Yasser Arafat and Clinton: Can
The precedent of previous summits
Barak resist the pressure that Clinton
also points to U.S. pressure as being
will place upon the Israeli leader to
the linchpin of success. That was the
make a deal?
case in 1978, when President Jimmy
Carter ganged up with Egyptian Presi-
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor
dent Anwar Sadat to strong-arm Israeli
of the Jewish Exponent in Philadel-
Prime Minister Menachem Begin into
phia. He can be reached via e-mail at
giving up more than expected.
j to bin.@j ewi shexp o nent. co m
The 1998 summit at the Wye plan-
D
should be made is that the voters will
not only be asked about vouchers;
they will be asked in November's elec-
tion to change the Michigan constitu-
tion. Only after the change to the
constitution will the voters find out
what Pandora's box has been opened.
By then, it will be too late.
Sherrie English
Bloomfield Hills
`Palestinians':
A Misnomer
"Palestinians, Palestinians, PalestinIans
("The Strife Within," June 30, page
25) repeatedly identifies Arabs as
"Palestinians."
That's anti-Israel propaganda that
claims Jews in Israel are occupying the
homeland of the "Palestinian people."
But it was only after 1967 when Arab
states had once again failed to annihi-
late Israel that the Arabs who do not
accept the right of Israel to exist
assumed the "Palestinian people" des-
ignation. Discarded was the slogan
"One Arab People" — for how could
they claim to be liberating their home-
land by slaughtering Jews — if Syria,
Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya and
all the rest of the Arab states are also
their homelands.
Those Palestinian Liberation
Orgnaization members who blew up
airplanes and synagogues, murdered
Christian pilgrims at Israel's airport,
smashed infants' heads on rocks in
Nahariya, shot mothers and their
babies in the nurseries in Kiryat She-
mona, cut the throats of school chil-
dren in Ma'alot, massacred Israeli
Olympic athletes, executed American
diplomats in Khartoum (directed by
Arafat by radio from Lebanon) — all
tation in Maryland with Arafat, Clin-
ton and then-prime minister
Binyamin Netanyahu was another case
of an Israeli leader being taken to the
cleaners by an overbearing American
diplomatic effort.
Like the famous "Dry Bones" car-
toon of 1978, in which artist Yaakov
Kirschen depicted Begin as a little boy
who was being sent to camp, Barak is
expected to be yet another Israeli who
will return home from a summer out-'
ing with a lot less than he took.
Yet, as much as it pains me to come
to the defense of a man whose record
on Israel is overrated and whose poli-
cies I generally oppose (and not to
mention that he is personally a dis-
honorable scoundrel), putting the
blame for Israel's giveaways solely on
Bill Clinton will be unfair.
If Israel bends on the points that
Ehud Barak has said are his "red
lines," then it will be Barak's fault, not
Clinton's.
Before leaving for Camp David on
the heels of the collapse of his govern-
ment and the humiliation of barely
surviving a no-confidence vote, Barak
told the Israeli people he would not
give in on the following points: no
division of Israel's capital, Jerusalem;
no return to the June 4, 1967 borders;
no foreign army west of the Jordan;
no acceptance by Israel of legal or
moral responsibility for Arab refugees.
Washed Away "Red lines"
positions, but the reason his govern-
ment fell is that no one — not even
Barak's foreign minister, David Levy
— believes Barak when he says he will
stick to his guns.
Why? Because Barak's negotiators
in the preliminary talks with the Pales-
tinians have been leaking reliable
information to the press that some of
those "red lines" already have been
washed away.
•
Jerusalem is a certain point of com-
promise. Left-wing scholars and pun-
dits in the Barak camp already have
made it clear that Arafat will get "civil-
ian control" of many Arab neighbor-
hoods, effectively dividing the city.
Barak has also already signaled that
he is prepared to hand over full and
permanent control of more than 90
percent of the territories to Arafat and
to accept some 1948 Arab refugees —
both,previously unthinkable decisions
for an Israeli prime minister.
Arafat's "police" force is already a
sizable armed force that has the ability
to inflict serious casualties on Israel (as
they did during the riots Arafat incit-
ed over the trumped-up Jerusalem
tunnel controversy in 1996).
All of these positions are a drastic
shift from traditional Israeli security
policies and are a lot more than the
late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin,
who signed the Oslo accords in 1993,
ever dreamed of relinquishing.
Why is Barak going to Camp
-
These are popular and reasonable
BLAME on page 40
these, horrible, horrible crimes —
have now been excused and rewarded
with Jewish land. The U.S. arranged
for Israel to release all convicted Arab
criminals, Arab terrorists who, since
the 1993 Oslo "peace" to 1998 have
murdered 318 Israelis, are free in Gaza
-- and some are the Palestinian
police. The 40,000 Israeli vehicles
stolen annually, as well as the stolen
livestocks, computers and agricultural
equipment, are taken to the Arab safe
havens in Gaza and the West Bank,
where Israelis .police are forbidden.
The Palestinian Liberation Organi-
zation is a despotic hate group, mass
killers of tens of thousands of inno-
cent men, women and children —
created to destroy the Jewish state.
Israel has just to lose one war and that
is the end of the Jewish state.
Can Israel again — only nine
miles wide, open and unprotected
against terrorist raids and invasion
— survive?
Why eject Jews from their homes?
That will lead to war and that could
be the end of Israel and its people.
Why punish the victims? Punish the
aggressors. Let those Arabs go back
to Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, etc.,
where they can live among Arabs
only as they are anxious to do in
Israel.
There is ample room for them in
those Arab states and ample Jewish
property expropriated from the hun-
dreds of thousands of Jews who were
expelled when Israel was established.
Stop Israel's self-destruction and
suicide.
Hymie Cutler
director,
Michigan Committee for a Safe Israel
Detroit
7/14
2000
39