Better late
than never?


By Evan Gahr

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- ON HER TRIP to Israel this week, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton gave Yasser Arafat the cold shoulder--even though, as the Forward reported, the State Department expressly recommended that she meet with him.

Of course, Mrs. Clinton snubbed Mr. Arafat more than 10 years after she sent money his way when she headed a New York City-based foundation. To this day, Mrs. Clinton has yet to give an honest accounting of her role in funneling the PLO money. Perhaps she can find a few moments among her packed scheduled in Israel to come clean.

Don't hold your breath.

Today, Mrs. Clinton, who recently voiced support for Jerusalem as Israel's capital, likes to pretend she is the reincarnation of Golda Meir. But let's remember her background. How did Mrs. Clinton behave long before she had reason to ingratiate herself with the Jewish voters who can help elect her New York senator?

In 1987 and 1988, Mrs. Clinton, never one to stay home and bake cookies, served as chairman of the New World Foundation on Manhattan's posh Upper East Side. Under Mrs. Clinton, the Foundation funded virtually every left-liberal group imaginable, such as the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and the conspiracy-mongering Christic Institute. (Call it Hillary's trickle down economics for the radical chic set.)

Anyway, the New World Foundation also gave $15,000 to the Somerville, Mass.-based Grassroots International. This unabashedly anti-Israel outfit was funding two PLO groups on the West Bank: the Union of Palestinian Working Women's Committees and the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, both affiliated with the communist Palestinian People's Party, a PLO constituent member. Despite the ostensibly humanitarian goals of these groups, it's well to note that money is fungible. Even money given for legitimate humanitarian efforts frees other money for terrorism.

Moreover, the grant was pre-Oslo, before the PLO supposedly renounced terrorism and adopted a "moderate" stance. That shouldn't surprise anyone. Mrs. Clinton has long traveled in the kind of circles that view America and Israel with equal contempt. Just as many of her comrades posited a moral equivalence between the Soviet Union and the United States, they put Israel and the PLO on the same level. In any event, when the PLO grant came to light in 1992, Mrs. Clinton and her spokeswoman offered "explanations" that were positively, well, Clintonesque in their distortions and evasions. Mrs. Clinton's press secretary told the Forward that she did not vote on the grant. From the organization's chairman, that's a pretty unbelievable argument.

In a subsequent interview with reporters for Jewish newspapers, Mrs. Clinton subsequently claimed that the grant was made for a "specific project in South Africa anti-apartheid work . If the money was diverted, I knew nothing about it." Not exactly. The New World Foundation's

donation was a general purpose grant. Contrary to Mrs. Clinton's spin there was no need to divert any money. Moreover, the New World Foundation knew of its beneficiaries' Middle East endeavors, according to both organizations. Grassroots has said the New World Foundation was "entirely aware of who we support. We never hide the fact that we work with Palestinian organizations on the West Bank."

Still, Mrs. Clinton would do well to answer some obvious questions. Was the grant a good idea or bad idea? These are hardly complex or trick questions. Given her history it's hardly surprising that Mrs. Clinton last year called for a Palestinian state last year and put the United States on the side of Mr. Arafat and at odds with Israel on a matter intended for future negotiation. In early 1996, according to a Wall Street Journal article, she even allowed a pro-Hamas group to "draw up the Muslim guest list" for her reception marking the end of Ramadan.

Recently, of course, Mrs. Clinton has endeavored to distance herself from her pro-PLO past. This July, the Forward broke the story that Mrs. Clinton, in a carefully worded letter, told an Orthodox Jewish group that she favors moving the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

This is more than the transparent posturing of an election hungry politician. In the Clinton administration, black is white and white is black. Now, it's Mrs. Clinton's turn to say one thing and do another. Today, Mrs. Clinton keeps Mr. Arafat at a distance in a just one of many ruses intended to maintain her faux pro-Israel pose. But if the snub bothers Mr. Arafat he can cry all the way to the bank.

JWR contributor Evan Gahr writes for The American Enterprise magazine and The American Spectator. Comment on this article by clicking here.

©1999, Evan Gahr