Bigots and Buffoons at State Department Briefings: A U.S. Obstacle to Peace

By Eugene Bird

If Hollywood ever does a feature film on the peace process, or a documentary for that matter, it can cast the small and outrageously pro-Israel corps of reporters covering the State Department as a mixed bag of bigoted and muddle-headed villains and buffoons. Although most represent American wire services, newspapers and television stations, they bring "attitudes" to State Department briefings that reflect the politics and prejudices of Tel Aviv, not Washington.

After the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the intentions of the new government of Israel and its possible new approaches toward negotiations with Syria were the subject of a series of questions directed at Department of State spokesman Nicholas Burns, who fended them off as best he could.

The correspondents were of course legitimately interested in tripping up the spokesman and getting him to say something startling about the Syrian-Israeli track. They started one day in early November with a typical exchange, probing for tidbits of news, but at the same time seeking to make their own interested (and erroneous) point that Syria was totally responsible for the previous breakdown of the talks.

One such exchange:

Questioner: Mr. Charaa [Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Charaa] says, you know, peace, yes, peace for peace...with full withdrawal we want peace.

Burns: We certainly welcome, Barry [Shweid of the Associated Press], the tone and we welcome the content of the statements that have been made by both the Syrian government and the Israeli government about their desire to move forward in negotiations on the Syrian-Israeli track.

Q: Well, the Syrian statement, as far as content is concerned, says there must be full Israeli withdrawal. I wonder if you welcome and endorse that. And also speaks...I don't know if I have heard this in a while, but what the heck, you know, pile it on if you can...speaks of something about Palestinian legitimate rights as another precondition. I only knew of full withdrawal until I saw that. Do you welcome the notion that peace is possible only with full withdrawal? And do you have any idea what he is talking about, about Palestinian rights, and do you welcome that?

Burns: Barry, I am usually very careful in describing our policy in the Middle East for obvious reasons, the content, as well as the tone and substantive content of remarks from both governments is that they wanted to advance the peace process, that they were inclined to deal with each other in the peace process.

"You don't see a Hezbollah attack as part of some grand Syrian strategy? That's too medieval for you?"

That is substantive and that is good. I specifically did not endorse any of the specific comments that were made about the relative...the various positions of the two parties and I am not in a position to do that You would not expect me to do that...

[Later] We have said many times that we would very much like to have the parties agree to forge an agreement on the Syrian-Israeli track some time in 1996.

The secretary was called about 4 a.m. by [Ambassador Dennis] Ross this morning about the Katyusha rocket attacks into northern Israel. Shortly after their phone call, the secretary called Syrian Foreign Minister Charaa and had a good conversation with him....This is clearly an effort to undermine the peace process...

Q: Could Hezbollah have done this without Syria's approval? Or acquiescence? Does Hezbollah operate without Syria's...every time Hezbollah attacks, you ask Syria to do something about that. Hezbollah operates with the acquiescence of Syria, doesn't it?

Burns: Hezbollah has made its opposition to the peace process very clear, on its own, Barry. We believe that Syria, while it does not control Hezbollah, certainly has the influence over Hezbollah...The Syrians have replied that they would do all they could to ensure that restraint is exercised...

Q: But you don't see a Hezbollah attack as part of some grand Syrian strategy? Sort of a warning that unless you give up the Golan Heights, you can expect to have continued attacks? That's too medieval for you?

Burns: It probably is a little too Byzantine for me.

Q: "Byzantine" would be the right word...But if Syria has influence over Hezbollah, isn't Syria partly culpable for the Hezbollah attack, for not using its influence?

Burns: ...We have been directly in contact with the senior levels of the Syrian government this morning and Syria has pledged to do all it can to call on the parties to exercise restraint. That's where I want to leave this today.

Q: In your formula for Middle East peace, which weighs more...the positive words or the negative actions of Syria?

Burns: Sid [Balman of United Press International], ultimately the actions of all parties concerned are most important in moving forward towards peace....We'll be working with both governments for progress.

An Absolute Lack of Reference

What is fascinating in this and similar exchanges at the Department is the absolute lack of reference to Israeli responsibility for the flare-ups along the "north bank"—the piece of southern Lebanon occupied by Israel for more than a dozen years. Hezbollah was the radical organization created by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the harsh, even brutal treatment of the civilian population by the IDF in the Shi'i-populated Lebanese south.

Hezbollah attacks into Israel in the past two years have almost always been preceded by an incident, reported days later, involving Israeli firings across the line into areas of south Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah. In 1993, Secretary of State Warren Christopher brokered a deal using Damascus and Beirut as his go-betweens with Hezbollah, restricting all military actions by either side to the zone itself. Israel and Hezbollah agreed to restrict their fight to the zone. No more firings into Lebanese villages and no more rockets into Israel.

The right question to Nick Burns would have been: "The Christopher-brokered cease-fire of 1993 was violated by Israel by firing into the villages after a successful attack into the zone, permitted under the agreement. Is the U.S. holding Israel partly responsible for starting these incidents? Are we asking them to show restraint and not violate the 1993 agreement?"

Hezbollah, according to Lebanese and some Israeli sources, has kept its part of the bargain. It has attacked, more or less successfully, outposts inside the Israeli zone, manned by the South Lebanon Army which is recruited and paid for by the Israel Defense Forces (read here the U.S. taxpayer, in part). The IDF maintains armor and heavy artillery inside Israel and also some artillery pieces inside the zone which promptly start shelling Shi'i villages whenever the level of action becomes intolerable. It is suspected that military commanders of the IDF do not always restrain themselves to response but no one knows for sure. The Israelis rarely allow Western correspondents into the zone and access from Lebanon to the area is still dangerous for Westerners, according to the U.S. government.

If Department of State correspondents do not ask the right questions about Lebanon and Syria, the wrong message is sent to the American public and even to U.S. policy-makers. The latter begin to blame the Syrians for lack of progress on the talks with Israel, even though the Syrians repeatedly articulate an offer of "full peace for full withdrawal." But they never receive an Israeli counter-offer, or even a response from Israel. Similarly, the news as it emanates from biased media correspondents at the State Department blames the Lebanese and Syrians for not restraining the 500 estimated Hezbollah fighters, but no hint emerges of possible provocations by local Israeli commanders, or even of obvious violations of U.S.-brokered agreements authorized by the Israeli chief of staff.

Where Goes the New GOI?

The short-hand name for any government in State Department telegraphese is "GO," standing for "Government of...." Diplomatic cablese for the Government of Israel, therefore, is "GOI" (which also can mean government of India, Indonesia, Italy—you get it from the context).

Two years ago, while on a political pilgrimage to the Middle East, our Council for the National Interest group had a one-hour interview with Shimon Peres. It was a moment in which the Madrid peace process had slowed to a crawl, but after listening to the optimistic Israeli foreign minister, I remarked to others that "this man could make peace." An Israeli journalist friend responded, "No, you don't understand. In Israel, only a general can make peace."

The surprise in the new GOI headed by Shimon Peres is the naming of a general to be foreign minister. He is Israel's recently retired chief of staff, Gen. Ehud Barak, who was serving as interior minister in the Rabin government and who was widely regarded as a Labor Party comer and, like Haim Ramon, a possible future Israeli prime minister.

Foreign Minister Barak attracted world-wide notice shortly after his appointment at an European Union economic meeting in Barcelona with the Syrian foreign minister present. In public, they confined themselves to elliptical promises to go ahead with the peace process, though the Syrian also noted clearly that the price of peace remains the return of the Golan—and settlement of Palestinian claims.

However, only days before in Israel, Barak had made a speech to an army audience indicating that the Golan was just too important for Israeli security ever to give up. The new foreign minister sounded more hawkish than either Rabin or Peres.

Meanwhile, Washington remains filled with rumors that Peres intends to make an offer both to Syria and to the Palestinians that they cannot refuse. The syndicated Roland Evans and Robert Novak column reported that Peres asked for a briefing from the Americans after the Rabin funeral because, even though he had been foreign minister in the Rabin cabinet, the prime minister had kept him out of the loop in the Syrian negotiations. The same source claims that Peres now is ready to offer a deal on the Golan to President Assad and that Assad is ready to negotiate.

And both Arab and Israeli sources claim that Prime Minister Peres is going to offer the Palestinians the entire West Bank in exchange for Jerusalem. That presumably means "Greater Jerusalem," vastly expanded since 1967 to include the ring of Jewish settlements just being completed around the city.

Whatever the substance or sources of such speculation, at present Peres is busy negotiating a broader Jewish coalition to free himself of the charge that he can only rule with the support of the five Arab deputies in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset. He is talking with at least one religious party and with the Tsomet Party, whose head, Rafael Eitan, is about as hard-line as one can find in the secular wing of Israeli politics. (Eitan once told me that he had been trained by his father to use an American revolver when he was six years old "to protect myself from the Arab laborers if need be.")

Peres still is a master at coalition building, but what will he have to promise for another 15 votes in the Knesset? And will such coalition-building commitments get in the way of peace? Very likely.

The weeks following the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin provided mixed signals both in terms of trying to restore a Jewish consensus inside Israel and restarting the stalled Syrian track. The one certainty is that the Peres government will work hard, both directly and through its U.S. lobby, to maintain congressional and Clinton administration backing for its policies, whatever they may be.

Pollard: Back on the U.S. Agenda

Shimon Peres will not put the all-important American connection at risk even if President Bill Clinton again turns down the request of an Israeli prime minister for the release of convicted spy for Israel Jonathan Jay Pollard from prison.

Nevertheless, almost the very first act of the interim Israeli government after the Rabin assassination was the decision by Foreign Minister Ehud Barak to reverse an earlier decision and grant Pollard Israeli citizenship even though the former U.S. Navy counter-intelligence specialist is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

Peres confirmed at his first press conference as prime minister that he would be asking the president for release of Pollard, as did Rabin before him. The U.S. Department of Justice reacted by stating that granting Pollard citizenship in the country that paid for his spying and benefited from it would not affect his requests for parole (for which he was eligible in November) or commutation of his sentence. Because Clinton already has a lock on the "Jewish vote" in the 1996 elections, but may be feeling defensive about the number of Jewish appointments to the Supreme Court (two of nine members), the White House and other policy-making positions in the Clinton administration, observers are betting that Clinton will not release Pollard before the elections.

Peres, on the other hand, would be strengthened among Israeli voters before his own November 1996 election if he were seen to have secured a Pollard release after Rabin's failure to do so—and obviously Clinton would like to see Peres's Labor Party, and not the hard-line Likud, win in Israel. Torn between these conflicting demands, it seems likely that unless he feels very certain of his own re-election, Clinton will not release Pollard before America's November election.

Eugene Bird is president of the Council for the National Interest and diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report.