World
Mideast Passions
Protestors bring Mideast passion to quiet Texas town.
RON KAMPEAS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Crawford, Texas
ro- and anti-Israel protesters
brought a crowded corner of
the Middle East home to
Crawford for a day. More than 2,000
demonstrators gathered in the central
Texas town Monday as President
Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon met down a dirt road at
Bush's ranch to discuss Israel's plans
to pull out from 25 settlements in
the Gaza Strip and northern West
Bank this summer. That was far more
than Crawford's resident population
of 705.
Both sides were protesting the
visit, but the overwhelming majority
were Baptists, who believe the
removal of settlers violates biblical
precepts. The Baptists, who brought
in leaders of Israel's settler movement
to speak, wore orange T-shirts and
caps emblazoned with the slogan
"Israel belongs to the Jews."
Gadi Eshel, a leader of a pro-settler
faction in Sharon's Likud Party, said
the planned evacuation was a "com-
plete blasphemy," earning a resounding
"Amen!" from members of the crowd,
many of whom were waving Israeli
flags.
Morton Klein, president of the
Zionist Organization of America — the
settlers' principal U.S. backer — spoke
to the protesters by phone. "We will
resolve this in a way that God wants
it solved, not the way Ariel Sharon
wants it solved," he said.
Down the road, a dozen pro-
Palestinian demonstrators raised a
Palestinian flag at the Peace House,
established by dovish groups to press
various anti-war causes shortly after
Bush's 2000 election. Not that the
locals seem to mind the intrusion —
or even to notice it. While dozens of
reporters crowded into the front part
of Crawford Middle School, the kids
had an "outside" day, spending much
of it on the track in back of the
school — not an uncommon occur-
rence, considering the frequency of
world leaders' visits to Crawford.
This wasn't the first visit by an
Israeli prime minister to a Texas
ranch: Levi Eshkol and President
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Lyndon Johnson forged the U.S.-
Israel strategic partnership at LBJ's
ranch in January 1968. That agree-
ment paved the way for massive mili-
tary aid to Israel, which proved cru-
cial in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The friendship between Eshkol
and Johnson was so close that
Sharon corrected himself when he
summed up his own relationship
with Bush in a meeting Monday
with Israeli reporters.
"These are the closest relations
ever — well, the closest since
Eshkol-Johnson," he said.
That match seemed an attraction
of opposites: The large, loud, rough-
hewn Johnson and the mild, small
Eshkol, the product of an Eastern
European religious education.
In the current case, the differences
are not so broad. Sharon, who owns
the largest private ranch in Israel, is a
hands-on farmer, and made his entry
into politics in the 1970s on the basis
of a campaign for farmers' rights, not
his storied military career.
During the Crawford visit, Sharon
invited Bush on a reciprocal visit to
his Negev ranch, and Bush accepted.
"I know you love the land," Bush
said at their joint press appearance.
"The prime minister was telling me
he's really a farmer at heart, and I look
forward to sharing with my friend
what life is like here in central Texas."
Sharon said later that an all-ter-
rain-vehicle tour of Bush's ranch was
a highlight of the trip.
"We saw beautiful things," he said.
"A river, a natural forest."
Sharon, who breeds cattle, also
examined Bush's herd of Black
Angus. There was no word, however,
on whether the kosher pecan-smoked
beef tenderloin that was served for
lunch was of local provenance.
There is a Jewish community of
about 400 people in town, and two
synagogues, Reform and Conservative.
Rabbi Gordon Fuller of Congregation
Agudath Jacob, the Conservative shul,
said the heavily Christian town —
Baylor is the largest Baptist university
in the world, and a church seems to
dot every corner -- prods local Jews to
take pride in their own identity.
"Kids here know who they are," he
said.
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