Arafat Reported "Close to Despair"

By Lucille Barnes

European Union special Middle East envoy Miguel Moratinos told a closed meeting of European parliamentarians in early November that he is concerned about the health of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported Moratinos, a former Spanish ambassador to Israel, said the 68-year-old Arafat was "suffering from a physical and psychological crisis" but that he has "a successor of the first caliber" and that in the short run his Islamic opposition party, Hamas, is not jeopardizing his rule. The potential successor to whom Moratinos was referring is Arafat's unofficial deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, who conducted unsuccessful negotiations in Washington in November with Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy. A Western political leader who met with Arafat at the time of the Moratinos report reported Arafat "sounded close to despair...He said, 'my people keep asking me, what is the price of peace? We have got nothing from the Israelis, and our lives are just getting worse. What can I tell them?'"

James Baker, U.S. secretary of state in the administration of President George Bush, is quietly hopeful that a long-delayed U.N. referendum may soon be held to enable people of the Western Sahara to decide between independence and accession to Morocco. Baker was appointed a special U.N. mediator to deal with the problem, which has remained unsolved since a sudden Spanish withdrawal from the area in 1976. The dispute currently centers on who should be qualified to vote in the referendum, since those claiming eligibility include not only members of indigenous nomadic tribes, but also those who came more recently to the area as soldiers, settlers, refugees and released prisoners.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reported Nov. 5 that "a consensus is developing" between the administration of President Bill Clinton and Congress that U.S. troops will remain in Bosnia after the mandate of the current NATO-led force of 32,000 troops, including 8,000 Americans, expires in June 1998. White House spokesman Michael McCurry was less optimistic after a meeting of Clinton administration leaders, including Albright, with congressional leaders. Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia echoed Albright's comments that "we need to do whatever is necessary to make it work." However, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, one of the most highly respected members of Congress, made it clear that many members of Congress prefer that U.S. troops be withdrawn on schedule.

American and British families of the 259 victims of the 1988 explosion of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, are divided over whether to accept a proposal to try two Libyans, Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Frimah, accused of causing the explosion, in a neutral venue, presumably The Hague in the Netherlands, under Scottish law. After so long "we just want something to happen," said Pamela Dix, secretary of the British group. Her sentiments were echoed by Aphrodite Tsairis, spokesperson for a breakawaygroup of American families, who said, "We certainly are willing to explore a trial at The Hague." However, George Williams, president of the majority group of American families, said Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has attached unacceptable conditions to the proposal, including having Libyans or other Arabs among the judges trying the case and also on the jury, and insisting that decisions of both judges andjury be unanimous. Frank Duggan , lawyer for the majority American group, complained that the World Court has no facilities for such a trial. "The Hague is not set up to handle criminal trials," Duggan said. It also "cannot enforce any judgment it reaches."

Meanwhile South African President Nelson Mandela visited Libya twice in October. The first visit was to thank Qaddafi for Libyan support to the African National Congress in its successful struggle against South Africa's apartheid government. Mandela was en route to a British Commonwealth summit, where he advocated lifting United Nations sanctions imposed on Libya and said the Lockerbie case should be handled by an international tribunal, and not the British or U.S. legal systems. After his proposal was rejected by fellow Commonwealth leaders, Mandela flew to Tunisia, from which he drove into Libya to present Qaddafi with South Africa's highest award. In his brief speech Mandela called upon all countries to support peace efforts by the United Nations, "which is doing a magnificent job."

U.S. actor Kirk Douglas plans to buy property in the renovated Jewish Quarter of the Old City in East Jerusalem. Zvi Khaimovitch, chairman of the Association for the Restoration and Development of the Jewish Quarter, told the Tel Aviv newspaper Yediot Ahronot Nov. 2 that 81-year-old Douglas, who is Jewish, already has made large donations to an institute for Talmudic studies in the Jewish Quarter and now will support a project announced in October by Israeli Deputy Housing Minister Meir Porush to build extra floors on existing residential buildings, build two new hotels, reconstruct Jewish holy places and create a new gateway to the Old City by piercing its centuries-old walls. The project, which will cost some $11 million, has been protested by archeologists and architects.

Convicted American spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard, 43, has complained in a tape-recorded conversation released to the press by his Canadian wife, Esther, about Israel's quick action in releasing Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and a large number of his followers from Israeli jails in exchange for members of an Israeli assassination squad caught in Jordan while trying to assassinate Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal. "This Meshal affair shows that the [Israeli] government knows how to get its agents out," Pollard told his wife. "It got them out in a couple of days...They didn't have to rot for years in a foreign prison." Pollard, an American-born former U.S. Navy counter-intelligence specialist who has been serving a life sentence in the U.S. since 1985, also accused Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of betraying an election promise to prod the U.S. to release Pollard. Instead, Pollard claimed, during Netanyahu's visits toWashington he "made sure that my name wasn't even mentioned...a total, utter betrayal."

California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has taken more than $80,000 in campaign contributions from pro-Israel political action committees (PACs) since 1991, but she also has been a leader in congressional efforts to ban assault weapons, which have been used to murder both California school children and police officers in recent years. Since September she has been sharply critical of Israel after the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms granted to the Israeli government-owned Israel Military Industries permission to export modified versions of the Uzi and Galil assault weapons to the United States. "I was absolutely shocked to see that an official Israeli company would be willing to export tens of thousands of Uzis and Galils to this country," Feinstein wrote in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. "I find it sadly ironic that even as American military equipment and assistance travels to Israel intended to preserve peace and save lives, an Israeli weapons manufacturer is preparing to sell military-style assault weapons in the United States that are designed not to protect, but to kill." Feinstein asked Netanyahu for his "personal intervention to stop this transfer of arms to the streets of America."

Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Horowitz, described by James D. Besser, Washington correspondent for a number of U.S. weekly Jewish newspapers, as "the prime mover behind efforts in the U.S.Congress to impose sanctions on countries that encourage religious persecution," was a speaker at a September Washington, DC convention of "Toward Tradition," a movement founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin to enlist American Jews in conservative causes and to persuade them to work together with the Christian right in the U.S. Another speaker included Rep. Ernest Jim Istook (R-OK), sponsor of a religious freedom amendment to the U.S. constitution which would legalize prayer in U.S.schools and in other public venues, a move strongly opposed by mainstream U.S. Jewish organizations. Still another participant was former Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, a long-time supporter of Israel, who told the audience that "all the principles of a free society are right there in the Hebrew Bible."

Samuel Sheinbein , 17, accused of participating with his friend Aaron Needle, also 17, in the murder of 19-year-old Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr., whose dismembered body was found Sept.18 in an abandoned house in Maryland, continues to cause problems for the Israel lobby in the U.S. With the help of his Israeli-born father, Sol Sheinbein, Samuel escaped to Israel where he claimed asylum under Israeli law which prohibits the extradition of a Jewish citizen of Israel for trial in any other country. The Israeli law prompted two members of the House of Representatives, Reps. Sonny Callahan (R-AL) and Robert Livingston (R-LA), to threaten to withhold from $100 million to $1.2 billion in U.S. aid to Israel. While Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed to be looking for a way to declare that the younger Sheinbein, who has never lived in Israel, is not an Israeli citizen without bringing down the Netanyahu government, which is heavily dependent upon support from right-wing parties and religious parties which strongly support the Israeli citizenship law, lobbyists for Israel worked hard to put through the entire U.S. aid package of some $4 billion without deductions, which would set a precedent of using U.S. aid as a stick as well as a carrot in dealing with U.S.-Israeli policy differences. Netanyahu predicted that it would take up to two years to extradite Sheinbein, if it could be done at all. Meanwhile Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening, who was leading a state trade mission to Israel, urged Netanyahu to speed up the procedure.

U.S. members of Congress who have dealt with Leonard Davis, an official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel's principal Washington, DC lobby, for 25 years, soon will be dealing with him again. Davis, 45, who emigrated in 1982 to Israel,where he became director of AIPAC's Jerusalem office, is returning as deputy chief of mission in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. The appointment reverses the procedure whereby AIPAC has served as a springboard for pro-Israel activists into U.S. government or political party leadership.

Cases in point are London-born Martin Indyk, who came to Washington from Australia via Israel to serve on the AIPAC staff, then founded the AIPAC spin-off think tank, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, with funding from members of the AIPAC board of directors. Indyk's U.S. naturalization was speeded up so that he could go on to become Clinton White House Middle East adviser, and later U.S. ambassador to Israel, and most recently assistant secretary of state for Near Eastaffairs. Former AIPAC president Steve Grossman has become co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a former AIPAC political director, Fran Katz, has become DNC finance director.

Commenting on U.S.-born Davis's appointment as an Israeli diplomat, Stephen Silverfarb of the National Democratic Council (a pro-Israel organization within the Democratic Party) said, "He's somebody who's extremely knowledgeable about the U.S. foreign policy apparatus. He knows the ways of Washington." B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League Washington representative Jess Hordes echoed the approval, saying Davis "will be a strong and informed voice at the embassy." Hordes added, however, that some people will wonder whether the Davis appointment blurs the line between Israeli and American-Jewish institutions such as AIPAC.

Wrote Ira Stoll, Washington correspondent for the Jewish newspaper Forward: "That AIPAC is an Israeli foreign agent and should register as such has long been a charge of its critics." Thus, Stoll noted, "an Israeli newspaper quoted one foreign ministry official warning that Mr. Davis's appointment would have the effect of 'Pollardization.'" Stoll added, however, that American Jewish leaders dismissed such concerns as groundless, and predicted that there is little potential for U.S. pressure on Israel "because of Vice President [Al] Gore's desire for Jewish support in his expected presidential bid in the year 2000 and because of strong support for Israel in Congress."

Israel's Justice Ministry has agreed to free Palestinian Imad Sabi, 35, to study in the Netherlands after imprisoning him for two years without charges. The Israeli government had rejected such a gesture a year earlier. The decision to free Sabi, on his promise to refrain from activities that would harm Israeli security and not to return to Israel or the Israeli-occupied West Bank for four years, came after Sabi's writings from jail were published in the Israeli press and on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times.

Turkish prosecutors opened an investigation into a speech by Islamist former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in which he urged support for an Islamist television channel, allegedly calling it the "channel for jihad." Erbakan charged in turn that a taped version of the speech broadcast on a Turkish secularist channel had been cut and spliced to falsify his speech. "It's all montage," Erbakan said in response to reports that his successor, Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, who took office after the Turkish military forced Erbakan to step down in a bloodless coup, had set up a panel to investigate links between Erbakan's Welfare party and the Islamist television channel. Meanwhile the Istanbul daily Hurriyet reported that Erbakan said in late October that "Turkey has to accept Western norms in the fields of democracy and human rights."

Yilmaz made more positive news early in November by meeting on the Greek island of Crete with Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, presumably to discuss some of the serious issues that keep both countries perpetually on the brink of war with each other, and threaten the stability of the NATO alliance to which both countries belong. Among their disagreements, Greece is willing to talk only about the Aegean's continental shelf. Turkey, however, argues that discussions must encompass all topics under dispute, or none at all. The meeting was held on the sidelines of a summit meeting they were attending with leaders of Balkan nations that began Nov. 2. Other participants included Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov and respresentatives of Bulgaria and Romania. Bosnia sent a deputy foreign minister as an observer.

Former Kansas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Robert J. Dole and Democratic Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut spoke after returning from Bosnia at a Washington, DC news conference sponsored by the Coalition for International Justice. The organization called upon U.S.-led NATO forces in Bosnia to take more aggressive action to round up war criminals in Bosnia. The coalition said that by not allowing U.S. soldiers to arrest war crimes suspects, the Clinton administration may have "colluded" in protecting them. "We are encouraged by the recent arrest in Prijedor by British NATO troops and sincerely hope that this represents the beginning of a new, more aggressive policy," the coalition said in an open letter to President Clinton. Said Dole: "We're here today to say this must not be a one-time deal. This must be the beginning of a full-time effort to bring war criminals to justice."

The government of Croatia has launched an investigation of Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, president of Croatia's Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. Cicak recently discussed in the Feral Tribune, one of the few independent publications in Croatia, the 1991 meeting in which Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic are said to have laid the groundwork for the division of Bosnia. That meeting triggered the bloody war in which between 200,000 and 250,000 persons, the majority of them Muslim civilians, were killed. The NewYork Times reported on Sept. 24 that "the investigation of Mr. Cicak may be retribution for statements he made during a trip to Washington in June. When the Clinton administration was rewarding Mr. Tudjman for his supposed tolerance for returning Serbian refugees, Mr. Cicak reminded it that Mr. Tudjman had in fact done little to protect the refugees or arrest their persecutors."

Geneva judge Jacques Delieutraz issued arrest warrants on Nov. 6 for seven Israelis in an alleged plot to kidnap 12-year-old Athina Roussel, granddaughter and sole surviving heir of Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, the deceased husband of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, whose first husband was assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Delieutraz told Reuters news agency that the suspects, several of whom were former Israeli army officers, were "agents" who did the "dirty work" of photographing the teen-age heiress and her security entourage in preparation for her abduction and possibly that of her French father, Thierry Roussel. Athina Roussel has lived with her father in Switzerland since her mother, Christina Onassis, died at age 37 in Buenos Aires in 1988, a year after she divorced Roussel. In Jerusalem, an Israeli police spokewoman said the police had cooperated with Swiss investigators, but Israeli radio reported that Israeli police sources denied that there had been a kidnapping plot.

An American journalist, Michael Hall, was found dead on a Beirut beach Nov. 2. Lebanese police said Hall, a Californian whose body was found by fishermen, died of a fractured skull. They speculated that he had fallen from a road above the beach and said "it is definitely not a crime or an attack." Hall was in Lebanon to negotiate a job with the English-language newspaper Daily Star.