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Jewish World Review Oct. 30, 2000 / 1 Mar-Cheshvan, 5761
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
A LEADING U.S. NEWSPAPER recently carried a
commentary titled "The Men Who Undid The
Mideast Peace," which placed the blame
squarely on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's predecessor.
A more accurate version might well have read "The Woman Who Undid The
Mideast Peace." It would have placed the blame squarely on the person who
persuaded her close friend Sandy Berger and her husband, Bill Clinton, to push
Barak into concessions that have triggered the Palestinians' new jihad against
Israel.
Make no mistake. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a staunch supporter of the
Palestine Liberation Front since her "romantic radical" undergraduate days at
Wellesley. Those radicals — most of them the indulged sons and daughters of
America's upper class — viewed Arafat, a committed terrorist who has
transformed the Palestinian territory into a thugocracy, as a "freedom fighter."
Some of those radicals, of course, grew up as they entered adulthood. Clinton,
unfortunately, did not. She was the first major voice in the Clinton
administration to call for a Palestinian state and, according to White House
sources, she was the leading behind-the-scenes force for openly backing Barak
over Netanyahu — an unprecedented interference in the internal politics of a
friendly democracy.
It was Clinton who gazed admiring as Suha Arafat committed a blood libel
against the people of the Israel by accusing the Israeli government of employing
toxic gas against Palestinian women and children. Far from denouncing such
outrageous rhetoric, Clinton embraced Arafat's wife and kissed her cheek.
White House sources also say the first lady was the first to suggest that the
president dispatch political strategists James Carville and Stan Greenburg to
Israel to aid Barak's election bid.
They also acknowledge that it was she who suggested the administration
pressure Barak to cede 90 percent of Israel's hard-won "buffer zones" on the
West Bank and to agree to making Jerusalem a divided city.
Worse, far worse, the administration acted on her advice in persuading Barak
to assent to an open-door "right-of-return" policy for the sons and daughters of
Palestinians living in Israel prior to 1948. That terribly naive concession has the
potential to double Israel's population within a decade — giving the Palestinians
the demographic upper hand in any election.
Would they then vote for measures to guarantee Jews equitable status or would
they vote to confiscate their lands and expel them?
To ask the question is to answer it. An unlimited "right-to-return" concession
would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish religious state, and Clinton surely
knows that.
Is it any wonder that she was booed vigorously at a recent rally of Jewish
Democrats and is studiously avoiding any uncontrolled public gatherings where
her presence would evoke a similar response?
That includes, of course, the World Series, where Clinton, a longstanding
Yankees' fan, cannot afford to show up at either Shea Stadium or the "House
that Ruth Built."
No wonder polls currently show her holding only a slim lead among the Empire
State's crucial bloc of Jewish voters — a group of yellow-dog Democrats that
normally should be in her camp by a landslide margin.
In fact, if her longtime pal Bob Shrum hadn't persuaded Al Gore to leapfrog
Joe Lieberman over several front-running vice-presidential candidates, she
could well be tied or trailing.
Rick Lazio, the youthful congressman from Long Island, still trails Clinton in
some statewide polls, but he is starting to pick up steam as he campaigns in
traditionally Republican upstate New York.
It would not beggar anyone's imagination to see Lazio squeak by on Election
Day. If that happens, part of his boost over the top will come from upstate
Republicans returning to the fold. But equally significant aid may well be coming
from Jewish New Yorkers increasingly aware of the identity of the woman who
undid the peace process by pushing for such an untenable peace in the first
The woman who undid
Birds of a feather?:
Hillary Clinton and Suha Arafat
the Mideast peace
By James Lafferty
James Lafferty is former Communications Director to House Majority Whip
Tom DeLay (R-Texas). He served as Press Secretary to the Joint Economic
Committee of Congress in the early '80s and later was an appointee in both
the Reagan and Bush Administrations.
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