Manfred and Anne Lehmann Foundation

Clinton's Merciless Pressure on Israel: Give up the Golan or Else

Bill Clinton, standing accused of having no foreign policy of his own and surrendering the State Department to Jimmy Carter -- the appeaser of dictators -- has for a long time bet on Israel to give him a cheap foreign policy "victory," after his failures in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Norther Korea, China, Japan, etc.

He seems to have forgotten that he used to pose as "Israel's best friend" and that Israel is America's only dependable ally in the Middle East. Instead he has been exerting fierce, merciless pressure on Israel to give in to Syria's demand of total withdrawal from the strategically vital Golan Heights.

The holdovers from the Bush-Baker days, Miller, Kurtzer and Ross, as well as Martin Indyk, ambassador-designate to Israel -- all of whom are Jews -- are doing the dirty work for Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Clinton by putting the brutal alternatives before Israel: Either you give in to Syria's Assad, or you will lose the military strategic :"edge," which you were promised, with the United States withholding from Israel the advanced military technology she needs for her survival!

In other words, Clinton wants Israel to commit suicide in order to placate the Syrian tyrant.

This all came out in a Knesset debate last week, when Deputy Minister of Defense Motty Gur, once glorified as the Herp of the Six Day War for capturing Jerusalem, publicly confessed the following, as reported in the Jerusalem Post:

"Gur implied that territorial concessions are unavoidable due to U.S. pressure and Israel's need for U.S. military technology. The key to winning a war these days is technology, not territory, he said. `We don't want to reach a situation where we have to choose between the United States and the Golan, between certain weapon systems and part of the Golan. We don't want to reach a situation where we are facing an ultimatum.'"

The implications of this public confession are horrendous: The United states is no longer a dependable ally. The weakness of the Rabin-Peres government has convinced Clinton that Israel can be pushed around at will and that Israel does not have the stamina and spine of Serbia, Somalia and the other states that stand up staunchly to American pressure. What a sad state of affairs and what a downfall of Jewish pride and principle!

Sadat Laughed at Those Who Trusted Assad

As hard as it is to believe it, Assad has again conned an American president, as he has done to every president since Jimmy Carter. I can now elaborate on Sadat's views on Assad, which I mentioned last week. Here are full quotations on Assad and the PLO from Sadat's posthumous book, Those I Have Known (pp 100 and 101):

"The PLO people would sit with me and approve issues and resolutions, but as soon as I announced them, they would evasively deny they had anything to do with them. Carter received the same treatment from the Syrians. They baffled and bewildered him, wearing him out. First they agreed with Carter on a certain point, but I knew that this was just a political maneuver to which the Syrians are addicted. Everything came to a standstill as a result of Syria's insistence on its demands. When we agreed with their demands, they changed their minds and went back on their word. Carter did not know how to handle the Syrians, for these were his first dealings with them. He imagined they would be as good as their word and was taken aback when he found that the word of a Syrian was in fact a thousand and one words, and that what they agreed to one day they rejected the next, returning to it the day after. Carter's bewilderment grew. He found himself at a loss. He had been stunned by Assad's maneuvering and the complications had left him at a loss."

As it is well known, Assad has not changed at all over the last 17 years since Sadat made this devastating characterization. Now it is Clinton's turn to say, "I do not know how to handle Assad, for these are my first dealings with him." Under these circumstances, how can Clinton put brutal pressure on Israel to give in to a man whose word is worthless and who does not have the slightest intention to make peace?

Call to Action

It is now incumbent on all pro-Israeli organizations -- both Jewish and non-Jewish -- to protest to the president about his unfair and unjustified strategy of forcing Israel to do things that are against America's interests and that are opposed by the overwhelming majority of Israelis, our allies. Where is AIPAC? Where is the Conference of Presidents, who in years past would have long ago been in Washington raising the roof over such a danger to the Jewish State? Is it not the first call of duty for these organizations -- funded by tens of millions of dollars from supporters of Israel and Zionism -- to make urgent representations to the president and the Secretary of State? At the annual AIPAC Conference, which I attended last year, it was Christopher who assured us, to ear-splitting applause, that Israel would always have a "military edge!" Has he already forgotten that pledge? With 1996 around the corner, there are serious political factors to be taken into consideration by the Democratic administration, which was helped by an 85 percent majority of the Jewish voters in 1992. They should not take a repeat of such support for granted! It is up to us all to express that sentiment as strongly as possible. Now is not the time to sit on one's hands!

Would Americans Tolerate a U.S. Government Creating a Climate that Resulted in the Murder of 3,500 Americans?

Israel has a population of 5 million. America's population is 50 times larger -- 250 million. Therefore, the murder of 70 Jews in Israel in one year is equivalent to 3,500 Americans murdered in the United States in one year. If the U.S. government would take actions that resulted in the murder of 3,500 of her citizens, would the American people tolerate such a government, or would they rise up to demand its prompt removal?

As you will see from the full-page ad in the last issue of the Algemeiner Journal -- which also appeared in the New York Times -- the acts of the Rabin government since September 13 have been thoroughly flawed and have led to a 100 percent increase in the number of terror acts, not to peace. When will the Israelis dislodge such a government?

Battle of the Ads

The Rabin government had it all planned out: American Jews would wake up this past September 13 and find jubilant full-page ads in the daily press celebrating the "peace" anniversary of the signing of the

Israeli-PLO accord and lauding Rabin and Peres to the sky for convincing the PLO to end terrorism. But there were no ads. What happened?

Three ads were in fact in the offing. One was planned by the American Zionist Movement, headed by Seymour Reich, the highly respected former chairman of the Conference of Presidents. He circulated the text of an ad to all member parties of the AZM. It was evidently an effort to achieve consensus, but he must have asked the pro-PLO, anti-Zionist Americans for Peace Now to submit a sample text, because one passage of the ad read, "The Palestinians also have made a fearful choice choosing coexistence over confrontation."

That line was enough to create a mass exodus from the ad: One party after the other pulled out from the ad, which had such a preposterous statement, defying the sad facts of the continued terrorism and the doubling of the number of Jews murdered. Some "coexistence!" The add has until today not appeared.

The next ad was planned by the Conference of Presidents. The Rabin government set high hopes on this one. But September 13 came and went, and no ad appeared. Finally one week after the fateful date of September 13, an ad did appear, but it was a much watered-down version of anything Rabin and Peres could have hoped for. It merely "recalled" the development of the past year and suggested "patience and understanding" for what the Rabin government is trying to achieve. The ad condemned "the outrages" of terrorism in Israel, Argentina, Panama and England. It had praise for the Jordan agreement, and the diplomatic ties with Morocco. But it said nothing about the PLO.

Beilin in Jerusalem and Rabinovitch in Washington were reported to be raving mad at the Conference: Why had they missed the anniversary date of September 13 by one week? Why had the ad only appeared on page B6, in the less prominent Metropolitan Section? Why had they not praised the PLO agreement?

Well, the incident demonstrated more than any phony opinion polls that American Jews are far from ready to back Rabin and Peres and their PLO policies. And all the brainwashing tried by sleek, professional public relations experts has not helped. Even the shiny, blue publicity booklets mailed to thousands along with a cookbook of Israeli dishes fizzled.

The third Yizkor ad, the one you saw on Page 3 of this section of the Algemeiner Journal last week, is the one which truly "hit the spot" and made the impact of a blockbuster. It appeared on Friday before the last days of the holidays -- just before Yizkor is said the world over.

It gave the graphic proof that what Rabin and Peres have achieved is anything but peace. The photographs of most of the close to 70 Israelis murdered since September 13 told the stark, tragic story of a failed policy. And the enumeration of each and every article in the dreaded PLO Covenant was convincing proof that unless each and everyone of these murderous articles are rescinded, the PLO will continue to stand committed to the killing of Jews, the eradication of Israel, the dismantling of Zionism and the deportation of Jews from Israel. In short, the PLO is simply not a peace partner.

It also shows that Jordan is to be gobbled up by Arafat and his henchmen. Truly, as the prophet Isaiah says -- as quoted in the ad -- "Peace with violent men, says my Lord, is impossible" (Isaiah 57:21).

I had a meeting in Washington with a radical leftist journalist, who had to admit to me that the Yizkor ad -- for which I was responsible together with Dr. Frager and Mr. Mermelstein -- was extremely impressive and effective. It must have hurt him to say so, but when he compared the Yizkor ad with the Conference of Presidents ad, he admitted that we had won the "Battle of the Ads."

I hope that all my readers will make contributions, as requested on this ad, partly for the families of the terror victims and partly to pay for further similar ads. The battle for the preservation of Zionism and the Jewish State must go on!

Shimon Peres Says Labor has Mandate to Withdraw from Golan

Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, surrounded by his top officials and advisors, faced a largely skeptical audience last Sunday at the New York headquarters of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Peres tiptoed through some tough questions thrown at him by the audience concerning Israel's peace initiatives with the PLO, while concentrating in prepared remarks on less controversial subjects, such as the forthcoming economic conference in Casablanca and the recent loosening of the Arab boycott.

Peres blamed poverty and hopelessness among Palestinians in the "autonomous" areas -- especially in Gaza -- for the rash of Arab terrorist attacks in Israel in the past months, which have resulted in over 60 Jewish deaths but refused to blame either PLO chief Yasser Arafat or hostile Moslem clergy. His remedy for the Palestinian problem is to encourage the world to invest billions of dollars in the Palestine Liberation Organization to raise the Arab standard of living.

During the question period the skepticism and doubts of the audience -- which included representatives of various organizations, members of the Presidents' Conference and members of the media -- became apparent. Peres dismissed most of the questions by denying their underlying assumptions.

Typical of Peres' responses were his answers to several questions about the status of the Golan Heights. He said that he was "unaware" of any pressure being put on Israel by America to give up the Golan.

Israeli Deputy Minister of Defense Mordechai Gur recently told the Knesset that Israel does not want to be "facing an ultimatum" from the United States of having to choose "between certain weapons systems and part of the Golan."

Peres said simply on Sunday, "Gur never said this."

Peres also denied press accounts that he asked German Chancellor Helmut Kohl during their recent meeting to commit to sending German troops to the Golan. Peres asserted that he and Kohl only spoke in general terms of German troops doing peacekeeping duty around the world.

When asked whether there will be a public referendum before the Israeli government makes a final decision on giving up the Golan, Peres said that the Labor election platform gave Labor a mandate to compromise on the heights. This answer is apparently at odds with the position of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, who has publicly committed to a referendum on the Golan if negotiators agree to relinquish a "substantial" part of it to Syria.

When asked if he thought that the PLO would abrogate its Covenant, which calls for the destruction of Israel, Peres said that PLO chairman Yasser Arafat had already stated that the Covenant is inoperative and that, in any event, Arafat cannot get a two-thirds majority of PLO members to abrogate the treaty.

On the subject of the mass terrorist bombing of the Jewish Community Center building in Buenos Aires, in which 105 Jews were killed, Peres said that a recent story published in the Israeli daily, Maariv, was incorrect in reporting that the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, knows that the explosives for the attack were supplied by Syria.

In answering other questions, Peres said the following: 1) the government is and remains opposed to a Palestinian State; 2) the government is determined that Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel under Jewish sovereignty; 3) no settlements will be given up.

 

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