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Is The Boycott Back?
Arab states revive old bias; terror bill _pushed through;
faith-based abandonment.
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
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Enid
10/19
2001
22
l ewish leaders are still assessing
the implications of last week's
decision by 19 Arab states to
renew their economic boycott
against Israel.
So far, the signals are mixed.
While the decision to blacklist some
American, Asian and European com-
panies that do business in Israel is
alarming, Jewish leaders say, the effort
may be more talk than economic
action — at least for now.
"At this point, I see it more as rheto-
ric than actual fact," said Jess Hordes,
Washington director for the Anti-
Defamation League and the longtime
coordinator of Jewish anti-boycott
efforts.
But even that rhetoric is "disturbing
as a barometer of how things have
changed," he said.
Last week's Damascus meeting
involved the Central Office for the
Boycott, the group that coordinated
the Arab boycott until it fell apart in
the early 1990s. Officials described
their action as more of a political mes-
sage than a new economic squeeze.
Still, participants voted in favor of
renewing the primary boycott, which
applies to Israeli companies seeking to
sell their products in Arab markets.
That, the Arab participants said,
could cost the Israeli economy more
than $3 billion per year.
Participants also decided to boycott
a handful of American, European and
Asian companies that do business with
Israel, and to continue their efforts to
end the last vestiges of economic
cooperation with the Jewish state.
But Hordes said that "while there
are some in the Arab world who are
trying very hard to reactivate the boy-
cott, it appears unlikely they will be
successful." One tip off, according to
Hordes: participants at last week's
meeting "declined to name the compa-
nies that are targets. It will be very
hard to have an effective boycott that
way." And Egypt and Jordan did not
participate, he said, making an all-out
boycott push unlikely.
Hordes said the chances that critical
states such as Saudi Arabia will revive
Wasserman
Linda
Dobrusin
the secondary boycott — which black-
listed companies that did business
with Israel — are "less than 50-50,
because they know that in the end,
they will just be hurting themselves."
But Jewish groups and the Bush
administration will closely monitor
how last week's decisions in Damascus
play out across the Arab world.
Terror Debate
Jewish groups responded cautiously to
the hasty passage of an anti-terrorism
bill that civil liberties groups say will
leave the Constitution in shreds.
Late last week, the House rejected a
compromise formula that would have
scaled back provisions allowing unlim-
ited detention of foreigners suspected
of terror connections and greater sur-
veillance authority for law enforce-
ment agencies.
Many Democrats complained about
the way the substitute bill was
rammed through the House, but in
the end most voted for it.
The bill expands the definition of
terrorism and updates surveillance
authority to include new modes of
communication, such as e-mail. It also
increases state and federal authority to
investigate domestic groups that sup-
port foreign terrorist entities. And it
eliminates the statute of limitations for
prosecuting terrorists.
In one concession to critics, several
controversial provisions of the House bill
— the Senate passed its version a day
earlier — will "sunset" after five years.
The Senate bill contains provisions
dealing with money laundering; the
House wants to deal with the subject
in separate legislation.
Still, differences between the two
bills are relatively minor, and Capitol
Hill observers expect the House-
Senate conference committee to move
quickly, perhaps sending a finished bill
to President Bush as early as this week.
The Anti-Defamation League
praised the quick Congressional
action.
"This legislation is an important
step forward in strengthening our abil-
ity to identify, locate, track and prose-
cute terrorists and their supporters
here and abroad," the group's leaders
said in a statement. "With appropriate
oversight, our nation's security agen-
cies should be given the latitude neces-
sary, to prevent terrorist activity."
Richard Foltin, legislative director of
the American Jewish Committee,
acknowledged that the national emer-
gency that began on Sept. 11 has
changed the political calculus for anti-
terror legislation.
"We welcome the action by the
House and Senate to move quickly to
address vital national security con-
cerns," he said. "We have to under-
stand this is taking place in the con-
text of a war by the United States
against an implacable and ruthless
foe."
Still, he said, groups like the AJC
"will be watching the implementation"
of the legislation to ensure that civil
liberties are protected.
The Religious Action Center of
Reform Judaism supported some pro-
visions of the bill, but in a letter to
House leaders last week expressed con-
cern about the detention and wiretap-
ping provisions.
And the Reform group took note of
the harsh tone that characterized the
urgent debate. "We have been deeply
troubled by the suggestion by some
that those who are raising questions
about the legislation are in some way
unpatriotic or un-American, wrote
Rabbi David Saperstein, the RAC
director. "In our mind, there is little
which better reflects the unique
strengths of our country than the abil-
ity to insist on a full debate on any-
thing which impinges on fundamental
liberties, even in an hour as challeng-
ing as this."
Leaders of the American Civil
Liberties Union were less restrained,
saying they were "bitterly disappoint-
ed" by the bill."
Faith-Based Dies
The White House, eager to preserve
the mood of bipartisan cooperation,
appears ready to jettison big chunks of
its faith-based initiative — President
George W. Bush's top domestic priori-
ty until the Sept. 11 terror attacks
reshuffled the political deck in
Washington.