Washington Watch

Bush
As

Babys itter?

Taking the Middle East peace
process to a lower level.

JAMES D. BESSER

Washington Correspondent

T

tr; g.,44

7/13
2001

18

he Bush administration,
frustrated after Secretary of
State Colin Powell's less-
than-successful Mideast
foray, is retreating into a policy of
diplomatic baby sitting -as the U.S.-
brokered, Israeli-Palestinian cease fire
teeters on the brink of complete col-
lapse.
This week, the administration dis-
patched . another mid-level diplomat to
the region even as top officials retreat-
ed from the fray.
Ambassador David Satterfield, a
career diplomat and former envoy to
Lebanon who was recently appointed
deputy assistant secretary of state for
Near Eastern affairs, was scheduled to
begin a round of shuttle diplomacy at
midweek; there were reports incoming
U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer will
take up his post ahead of schedule,
possibly early next week.
But there are no plans to resume
top-level intervention by Powell or
Director of Central Intelligence
George Tenet, who brokered the falter-
ing cease fire.
Administration sources say frustra-
tion with the ongoing violence — and
over what some see as the diplomatic
resources squandered by the Powell
mission — is resulting in a policy
that's more marking time than march-
ing forward.
"You have to say Powell's trip to the
Middle East was very ill-conceived,"
said David Makovsky, a senior fellow
at the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy. "It was unclear what the
game plan was going out there; when
you send your heavy guns like Tenet

and Powell, and the
violence still goes up, you know some-
thing is wrong."
Makovsky said the administration is
divided between officials who want to
disengage from a situation many see as
hopeless and those who say events
require at least a nominal effort to
slow the plunge toward all-out war.
The engagement advocates remain
dominant, he said, largely because "the
stakes are so high." But that engage-
ment has been ratcheted down to a .
lower level. "Now the administration
is just marking time," he said.
"They're hoping that motion will
somehow translate into movement."
Washington sources confirm that
there are no new U.S. initiatives in the
works and little expectation that real
negotiations will begin soon.
"The idea right now is babysitting,"
said an official with a Jewish group.
"You send over a parade of officials,
you issue some statements, but mostly
you wait for things to change, and you
hope the pot doesn't boil over."

Farewell To Liberty Lobby

A group described by the Anti-
Defamation League as "the most sig-
nificant anti-Semitic propaganda
organization in United States" is going
out of business, the victim of a fierce
internal war.
The Washington-based Liberty
Lobby and its weekly newspaper, the
Spotlight, specialized in "exposing" a
wide range of bizarre government con-
spiracies and attacking "Zionist con-
trol" of Congress.
The newspaper was sold from
machines around Capitol Hill; unlike
many extremist groups, "the Liberty
Lobby did have an audience in

gram that partisans on both sides of
the voucher debate say may be the
best case available for the long-await-
ed high court airing of the subject.
The Cleveland program, which
serves some 3,700 students, was
ruled unconstitutional by an appeals
court last year. Ohio has appealed
that ruling, and the Supreme Court
will consider that request when it
reconvenes in October.
Recently, Theodore B. Olson, the
new solicitor general of the Justice
Department, formally urged the
court to take up the Cleveland case,
arguing that it is important for poli-
cy makers to know "whether such
programs are a constitutionally per-
missible option for expanding educa-
tion opportunity for children
enrolled in failing public schools
across America."
Abba Cohen, Washington repre-
Washington," said ADL director
sentative for Agudath Israel of
Abraham Foxman. "A lot of people
America, said that the unusual peti-
were sucked in because of its name,
tion was a way for the Bush adminis-
because of its publications." At its
tration to "make a tangible expres-
peak, Spotlight's circulation was over
sion of support for school choice and
315,000, but it had fallen to under
its constitutionality." Cohen said that
100,000 in recent years.
the statement was particular impor-
No more; this week the organiza-
tant since the Bush voucher plan was
tion's plan for reorganization was
derailed in Congress, in part because
thrown out by a bankruptcy court.
of concerns among lawmakers about
The bankruptcy wasn't a Zionist
the constitutionality of the whole
conspiracy; it was the result of a long
voucher concept.
legal tussle between Willis A. Carto,
A Supreme Court decision in favor
who founded the group in 1955, and
of the Cleveland program, Cohen
the Institute for Historical Review
said, would boost efforts to pass a
(IHR), a group ADL has
voucher bill in
labeled a top purveyor of
Congress.
Holocaust revisionism.
Voucher opponents
Carto was a co-founder of
said they would wel-
that group, but split with
come a definitive ruling
the group in the mid-
on the Cleveland pro-
1990s.
gram.
The last issue of the
"There is wide agree-
Spotlight featured a story
ment that it's about time
on corruption in the
for the court to take a
bankruptcy courts, a leg-
major voucher case,"
islative alert urging read-
said Richard Foltin, leg-
ers to protest Israel's
islative director for the
"cultural war designed to
American Jewish
drive the Christians from
Committee, which
the Holy Land," and a
Colin Powell
opposes vouchers.
warning that the IHR
"From a church-state
was preparing to sell the
point of view, this
Liberty Lobby's mailing
would be a very favorable case."
list to the hated ADL.
Marshall Breger, a Catholic
University
law professor and leading
Backing Voucher Case
voucher proponent, said that the fact
Having failed to get school voucher
that the solicitor general urged the
provisions into the education bill
court to take the case "is an impor-
now making its way through
tant statement that the government
Congress, the White House is now
feels the case is ripe to be argued
turning its attention to the courts.
before the Supreme Court. That may
Last week, the administration offi-
have considerable weight in what the
cially urged the U.S. Supreme Court
court decides to do."
to take up a Cleveland voucher pro-