10 - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 16, 1995

NAIrso"/wolto.l.iil)


Peres toe
form new
Cabinet
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP)-Unitingto
prove that ballots, not bullets, must
determine the government oflsrael, law-
makers across the political spectrum
backed Shimon Pere' as premier yes-
terday.
President Ezer Weizman gave the
Labor Party leader 21 days to form a
new Cabinet after parties representing
I 11 out of the 120 Knesset members -
including most of the right-wing oppo-
sition - recommended him.
Many Israelis are deeply repentant
over the poisonous political atmosphere
that cost Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
his life. Peres accepted yesterday's of-
fer "with a heavy heart, in light of the
circumstances."
"The death of a great prime minister,
the late Yitzhak Rabin, has left the
nation shocked and pained," he said."I
will make every effort to form a gov-
ernment that will broaden peace with
our neighbors and within us."
Meanwhile, police arrested an eighth
student suspected of aiding Rabin's
assassination, and charged two others
for attempting to desecrate the slain
prime minister's grave.
Peres, 72, has been a fixture of Israeli
politics since the 1950s. He now plans
to surround himself with younger lieu-
tenants and try to tap the surprising new
support from young people, who have
turned out by the hundreds of thou-
sands to mourn Rabin.
He is expected to present his Cabinet
to the Knesset by next week.
Despite the initial support, Peres'
Knesset coalition will likely remain
fragile: It has only 63 of the body's 120
meinbers, and his plans to accelerate
the'peace process are already rankling
right-wingers.
Opposition leaders say Peres' slim
majority is inappropriate for making
decisions as critical as giving up strate-
gic and historically significant land.
Those expecting to be promoted in
the new Cabinet include Economics
Minister Yossi Beilin, 47, Peres' clos-
est aide, and Interior Minister Ehud
Barak, 53, a popular former army chief.
Haim Ramon, 47, a leading Labor Party
member, is also expected to get a post.
Peres also met yesterday with Rabbi
Yehuda Amital, who heads a moderate
religious movement but is not a Knesset
member, and Israel Radio said Amital
may be offered a Cabinet position.
Beilin indicated the new government
will continue and even accelerate the
peace process in the 12 months remain-
ing before scheduled Israeli elections.
"It's a whole year. It should not be

U.S. got threats,
did not alter
Saudi security

N

AP PHOTO
Israeli President Ezer Weizman shakes hands with Labor Party leader Shimon Peres after giving him the go-ahead to form a
new Cabinet yesterday at the president's residence.

10 AV
6Ir am for unity
around democracy,
but not for
democracy that
cannot make up its
mind."
---Shimon Peres
Israeli Labor Party leader
just an electoral year," he said. Israel
must "go on with the peace process
with the Palestinians and the Syrians
and not neglect the right wing in Is-
rael."
Israel this week pulled out of the
West Bank town of Jenin - a week
ahead of schedule- as part of Rabin's
agreement to transfer most Palestinian
areas in the West Bank to the Palestin-
ian authority.
Peres has also hinted he would try to
broaden the stalled peace talks with
Syria beyond the security arrangements
that were the focus under Rabin. But he
will face serious opposition to return-
ing the strategic Golan Heights, which
Israel captured from Syria in 1967.
In the Tuesday night broadcast of ABC-
TV's "Nightline," Peres defended his
government's right to make tough deci-
sions and said Israel will use all its means
against right-wing extremist groups whose
incitement is widely blamed for Rabin's
Nov. 4 assassination by a religious radical.
"It's not ignoring the other half when
you use the right of the majority," Peres
said. "I am for unity around democracy,

Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - The United
States received threats against its dip-
lomatic and military personnel in Saudi
Arabia priorto Monday's deadly bomb-
ing but decided not to alter security
arrangements because the desert king-
dom has been among the world's "saf-
est places," U.S. Ambassador Raymond
Mabus said in Riyadh yesterday.
U.S. intelligence has also been aware
for several months that Iranian agents
put U.S. facili-
ties and person-
nel in Saudi
Arabia under
surveillance -- somebod
apparently as
part of a wider
intelligence op-
eration in the you or ket
Middle East and
elsewhere, se- from doinj
nior U.S. offi-
cials in Wash- do daywto
ington said. But
the U.S. reports
did not lead to a U.S. ambassado
heightened state
of alert in Riyadh.
An explosion at the U.S.'run Na-
tional Guard headquarters in the Saudi
capital killed seven, including five
Americans, and injured 60.
The most specific threats were from
the Movement for Islamic Change in
the Arabian Peninsula-Jihad Wing,
which faxed warnings to Western em-
bassies as well as to groups outside the
country.
It vowed to attack U.S. interests with
"all available means" unless the "cru-
saders" left Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. Embassy's Emergency
Action Committee investigated the
threats but was unable to "find anyone
behind the faxes," which were sent in
April and June and called fora Western
pullout by July, Mabus said.
"We take these things seriously and
do what is necessary for security," he
said. "(But) you cannot let somebody
with a fax machine paralyze you or
keep you from doing what you do day-
to-day."
The movement had no known back-
ground and no track record of violence.
Othergroups have made similar threats
against Americans but never followed
through.
Because of the sheer number of
threats against a wide variety of U.S.

innot let
rwith a fax
paralyze
sp YOU
g what you
ulay."
Raymond Mabus
)r to Saudi Arabia

personnel and interests abroad and at
home, not all can be traced or verified,
Pentagon sources said.
One Saudi group now under close
scrutiny is the Committee for the De-
fense of Legitimate Rights, a group of
Muslim jurists and academics whose
leadership is in exile in London.
U.S. investigators are looking into
whether the faxes to the American Em-
bassy in Riyadh from the Movement for
Islamic Change came from the CDLR's

London office.
In interviews
yesterday, the,
two ranking
CDLR officials
in London denied
any such linksT;
noting that they
have been faxing
their own news-
letters to the
Riyadh embassy
for years - at
U.S. request.
The CDLR
charged that the
Saudi govern-

Palestinian schoolchildren hurl stones at Israeli soldiers during clashes in the
occupied West Bank town of Nablus yesterday.

ment or others were framing it because
it does not list its fax number on trans-
missions. Because it is now the largest
opposition group, the House of Saud
views the CDLR as its most serious
challenger.
After the bombing Monday, the
CDLR condemned the attack and other
uses of violence to promote change.
But spokesman Mohammed Masari
said in an interview yesterday that he
considers U.S. troops in the kingdom to
be "a foreign occupying army support-
ing an illegitimate government."
Meanwhile, a growing number of
U.S. officials are hinting that a foreign
power may have been involved.
Echoing early speculation in Wash-
ington, Mabus told reporters that neigh-
boring Iran may have played a role in
the explosion.
"I've got a very open mind as to who
might be involved, but ... we have
some bad neighbors. ... That (Iran) is
one of them," he said.
U.S. officials are quick to add, how-
ever, that there is no concrete evidence
indicating which individuals, groups or,
governments are responsible - and
there may be none for a long time.
To expedite the investigation, Saudi
Arabia pledged an $800,000 reward for
information about the perpetrators.

but not for democracy that cannot make
up its mind."
Despite participants' calls for a more
civil tone in political discourse,
Nightline's broadcast from the Jerusa-
lem Theater revealed how deeply Israe-
lis remain divided over trading war-
won land for peace with the Arabs.
Government officials,opposition lead-
ers, peace activists and West Bank set-
tlers all traded blame for undermining
democracy. Leah Rabin,the late premier's
widow, said shepreferred shaking Yasser
Arafat's hand to that of Israeli opposition
leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu said the government's

crackdown on extreme right-wing
groups smacked of"a sheer witch hunt."
Meanwhile, an eighth suspect in
Rabin's killing was ordered held by a
magistrate's court in the Tel Aviv sub-
urb of Petah Tikva.
Police said Margalit Harshefi, a 20-
year-old law student from the Beit El
settement, was a key figure among
conspirators who allegedly aided
Rabin's confessed killer, Yigal Amir.
Walking into court carrying a small
blue prayer book, Harshefi told the judge
she was not guilty. Her lawyer said she
had a close relationship with Amir, but
not a criminal one.


Vote shows more power for Louisiana blacks

Los Angeles Times
BATON ROUGE, La. - If history
were his guide, Cleo Fields would not
be here right now, not in the guest of
honor's seat at a Rotary Club luncheon,
and certainly not as a candidate for
governor of Louisiana.
Physically, he's all wrong for the
part, nothing like the flamboyant swash-
bucklers and corpulent good ol' boys
who have earned this state its piquant
political reputation. At 32, with large
tortoise-shell glasses dwarfing his
youthful face, Fields appears painfully
thin and ascetic, shunning lunch as his
hosts wolf down a buffet of gumbo,
sweet potatoes and fried catfish.
Ideologically, the two-term congress-
man also seems out of step, pushing a
liberal Democratic agenda at a time when
the Deep South is becoming increasingly
conservative and Republican. His pro-gun,
anti-abortion opponent, state Sen. Mike
Foster, defected to the GOP just a few
months ago and is considered the heavy
favorite in Saturday's runoff election.
Finally, there is the hurdle of race, a
factor that neither candidate has overtly

lm not running to be the African
American governor; I'm running to be
the best governor Louisiana's ever
had.w"
- Cleo Fields
Candidate for governor of Louisiana

exploited but that is doubtful to be lost
on voters. Fields is trying to become the
state's first black governor since Re-
construction, a feat that would require
winning all of the black vote and close
to 30 percent of the white vote- some-
thing no black candidate in Louisiana
has ever accomplished.
"I'm not running to be the African
American governor; I'm running to be
the best governor Louisiana's everhad,"
Fields told the Rotarians gathered at
Boudreaux's, a once-grand dining hall
that still features statuettes of black-
faced men in loincloths.
His audience, mostly middle-of-the-

road, white businessmen, listened po-
litely and responded with a hearty round
of applause, though many conceded
privately that he was unlikely to win
their votes. "He says some of the right
things," explained one silver-haired at-
torney. "But, uh, to be realistic ..."
It would be easy to view Fields' cam-
paign as an exercise in futility, a side-
show to Foster's own remarkable, come-
from-behind romp in last month's
crowded primary field. The 65-year-
old millionaire, who runs a sugar mill
and construction company in the heart
of Cajun country, is expected to make a
little history himself next weekend, be-
coming only the second Republican

elected governor in the last century.
But in the long run, it may be Fields'
candidacy itself that heralds a more
dramatic transformation of Louisiana
politics, which has long been domi-
nated by white Democrats in the popu-
list tradition of Huey P. Long.
The mere fact that Fields is even at this
luncheon, making the routine appearances
of a typical campaign, is itself historic:
For the first time, a black candidate has
become a player in statewide politics -
instead of merely delivering his
community's votes to a white kingmaker.
"That's his consolation prize," saida
John Maginnis, a Baton Rouge analyst
who publishes the Louisiana Political
Fax Weekly. "Now, he's the dominant
black politician in the state, which also
makes him probably the most impor-
tant Democrat in the state."
Fields represents a heavily gerryman-
dered congressional district, which was
drawn like a cursive Z across Louisiana
to create a black majority. Although he
helped shape those boundaries, Fields
now promotes a more colorblind vision
of himself as a candidate for all Louisi-
ana citizens.

Israel & Judaism
experience them together!
r
,,,..--- -

Utah rep. files for divorce
amid financial questions

Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON-Joseph Waldholtz
was by his wife's side throughout her
27-hour labor last August as freshman
Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz (R-Utah)
struggled to become
only the second
member of Con- p
gress in history to
have a child while
in office.

ton was spellboundby the guessing game
of "Where's Waldholtz?"
Federal authorities late yesterday is-
sued a warrant for the 32-year-old
Waldholtz's arrest as a material witness
in a grand jury investigation into "pos-
sible bank fraud schemes" in Washing-
ton and Salt Lake City.
According to an FBI affidavit ac-
companying the warrant, Waldholtz
allegedly employed a check-kiting

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