News Digest
180 Degrees
Israeli hopes for peace and Arafat's aspirations have turned around.
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
hat a difference a year makes.
A little more than a year ago, U.S.
President Bill Clinton detailed a
Mideast peace plan that included deep
Israeli concessions and reconciliation between
Israelis and Palestinians.
This week, as Clinton visited Israel for the first
time since leaving office, the vision of a "New
Middle East" that developed under his watch
appeared little more than a pipe dream.
During the past 12 months,
Prime Minister Ehud Barak was
tossed out of office in Israel and
has retired from politics.
Palestinian Authority leader Yasser
Arafat remains in power but is under virtual house
arrest in Ramallah, his office ringed by Israeli tanks.
Lately, Israelis see signs that the U.S. administra-
tion that succeeded Clinton's is moving toward the
conclusion that Arafat is indeed "irrelevant," as the
Israeli government recently declared.
If so, it's unclear -what that would mean for a
future Palestinian leadership, and for that regime's
relations with America and Israel.
The evidence of a policy shift by the Bush admin-
istration toward Arafat still is largely circumstantial
and not definitive.
The signals of an American shift include:
• Qatar-based Al Jazeera television reported
Tuesday that the Bush administration's envoy to the
Middle East, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, has asked
to end his mission brokering a cease-fire between
Israel and the Palestinians.
The information came from Western sources, the sta-
tion reported, adding that Zinni asked U.S. National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to- be relieved of his
mission because he cannot trust Arafat and does not feel
his return to the region will result in any progress.
-
ANALYSIS
Tourism Plummets
Tel Aviv/JTA — Tourism to Israel
dropped 54 percent last year compared
to 2000. Of the 1.2 million people who
visited Israel despite the ongoing violence
last year, the largest group of visitors was
the Americans, followed by the British.
Czech Jews
u
1/25
2002
18
Prague/JTA — The Czech Federation
of Jewish Communities voted to rec-
ognize the Conservative stream of
Judaism in its constitution.
Last week's move by the Federation's
incursions into the West Bank cities of Tulkarm on
Monday and Nablus on Tuesday. While the Nablus
action was based on pinpoint intelligence and aimed
at ranking Hamas terrorists — four were shot dead
and a bomb factory destroyed — the incursion into
Tulkarm seemed as much a demonstration of Israel's
dominance as a specific policing measure.
The Tulkarm raid was bound to further weaken
Arafat's prestige in the Palestinian Authority, possi-
bly hastening his fall from power. There was a spate
of reports over the weekend — vigorously denied on
the Palestinian side — that Arafat was considering
resigning or voluntarily going into exile in Tunisia.
• When Israel retaliated for last week's terror attack
on a bat mitzvah party in Hadera by bombing a
Palestinian police station in Tulkarm, President Bush
did not criticize Israel but restated his support for the
Jewish state's right of self defense. The Bush adminis-
tration appears to remain unmoved by the spectacle of
Israeli tanks outside Arafat's office in Ramallah, and by
the sight of them storming into Tulkarm and Nablus.
• The Israel Defense Forces' destruction of the
Voice of Palestine radio in Ramallah was another
step to weaken Arafat by smashing the symbols of
his rule. Despite outspoken reservations in Europe,
the Bush administration again looked on in silence.
For many key figures in the Israeli government and
army, this silence is interpreted as a "green light" to
chip away at Arafat until he topples.
• Even Clinton, the president who invested so
much in bolstering Arafat, added to the veteran
Palestinian leader's alienation this week. In an emo-
tion-laden two-day visit to Israel, Clinton did not
schedule any meeting with Arafat, and reportedly
even declined to speak with him by telephone.
Accepting an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv
University, Clinton accused Arafat of "missing a
golden opportunity" for peace at the Camp David
summit in July 2000, and dismissed the subsequent
intifada violence as "a terrible mistake."
If Arafat eventually does succumb to mounting Israeli
military pressure and declining American support, what
then? Optimists in Israel and Washington believe power
in the Palestinian Authority could pass relatively
smoothly to another member of the present leadership.
But many experts call this scenario wishful think-
ing. More likely, they say, is that power would frag-
ment in the Palestinian territories, strengthening the
radical and fundamentalist factions. El
Bill Clinton with Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin
Pelosoff at the grave of her parents, Yitzhak and Leah
Rabin, in the Herzl cemetery.
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher
said the report was completely unfounded, but added
no new date was set for Zinni's return to the region.
Even before Tuesday's Al Jazeera report, the word
in Washington was that senior members of the Bush
team believed the chances to reduce violence were so
slim that it was not worth sending Zinni back to the
region for a third round of shuttle diplomacy.
Even if it's not accompanied by explicit criticism,
declining to send Zinni would essentially confirm
that the Bush administration "has had it with
Arafat," as Sharon confidants say.
The Palestinians have demanded that Zinni return
to the region as soon as possible. In contrast, Sharon
told visiting American Israel Public Affairs
Committee leaders last weekend that sending Zinni
would show Arafat that he can avoid moving force-
fully against terrorist groups yet still court the
United States as Israel's putative negotiating partner.
• The United States conspicuously avoided criti-
cizing recent Israeli military moves, including deep
governing council will allow
Conservative rabbis to work under the
auspices of the Federation. The
Federation will discuss re-wording its
constitution, which at the moment
recognizes only the Orthodox stream,
at its next council meeting in March.
Gays Served
San Francisco/JTA — San Francisco's
federation has established a gay and
lesbian division.
The Jewish Community Federation of
San Francisco's Gay and Lesbian Alliance
will be an affinity group like the young
adult and women's divisions, according
to the Jewish Bulletin of Northern
California. The new department will pro-
vide outreach, programming and leader-
ship training to lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender Jews living in the Bay Area.
Believed to be the first of its kind,
the division comes several months
after Chicago's federation created the
country's first foundation focusing on
funding Jewish gay and lesbian needs.
Church And Messiah
New York/JTA — The Vatican says
the Old Testament validates the Jewish
waiting for the Messiah.
In a document that appears to show
a shift in Catholic thinking, the
Vatican declared, "The Jewish wait for
the Messiah is not in vain." Jews and
Christians both are waiting for the
Messiah — though Christians are
awaiting the second coming of Jesus,
while Jews believe in a first corning,
the pope's theologian wrote.
Now part of official church doc-
trine, the document also calls on
Catholics to recognize the moral value
of the Old Testament. The document
reportedly was released last month
with little fanfare.