Martin Indyk Doesn't Forget

By Lucille Barnes

"Without Barbie, I would not be standing before you tonight, as a spokesperson for the Clinton administration," White House Director of Near East and South Asian Affairs Martin Indyk told a Washington Institute for Near East Policy audience on May 18. The occasion was the ascension of former American Israel Public Affairs Committee board member Barbara Weinberg from president to chairperson of the Washington Institute, which she and Indyk, then an employee of AIPAC, Israel's Washington, DC lobby, founded together. Although Indyk's speech was described as a major statement of Clinton administration Middle East policy, the Washington Institute subsequently refused to release the text as delivered, issuing instead a summary of its "high points." Indyk's grateful remarks about Weinberg, who provided the institute's initial funding, were not included.

Clinton's Political Adviser

Indyk's White House colleague, political adviser Rahm Emmanuel, whose office is just steps from President Bill Clinton's, also got his start in AIPAC ranks more than a decade ago as a student volunteer imported to southern Illinois to work against then-Republican Representative Paul Findley, who, during his 22 years in the House of Representatives, had offended Israel's supporters by suggesting the U.S. look again at a number of Arab leaders, including PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. Emmanuel earned his present White House position as the principal fundraiser for Clinton's presidential campaign. He may have earned his clout with some Democratic Party contributors in an unusual manner. Former American Jewish Congress official Mark Bruzonsky of the dovish Jewish Committee on the Middle East reported in his weekly column in the daily Saudi Gazette of Jeddah that the chief White House political strategist is a former captain in the Israeli army.

Yitzhak Rabin's Successor?

Service in the Israeli military is a time honored way to enter Israeli politics too, although it took American-style party elections to pass leadership of Israel's rightwing nationalist Likud Party from former Jewish underground terrorist and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to the new generation, represented by former Israeli U.N. Ambassador and sound-bite specialist Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin apparently is hoping to head off his Labor party rival, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, by grooming Israel's current chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, to be Rabin's successor as head of the Israeli Labor Party.

Barak's predecessor as chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Amran Mitzna, retired in March and immediately won a Labor Party nomination to be its candidate for mayor of Haifa in November elections. Israel's new president, Ezer Weizman, was a former Israeli air force chief, and Weizman's predecessor as president, Chaim Herzog, also was a career military officer.

Chief of Staff Barak was much in evidence during U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher's February visit to Israel. What Christopher may not have known then is that it was Barak who originally advised Rabin to deport some 400 Palestinian Muslims from the Israeli-occupied territories last December 17, dealing a critical blow to the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace talks. Just before that, Barak tried to conceal the fact that he had been present last November at a "training accident" in which five Israeli soldiers were killed by a misfired rocket during what was rumored to be a "dress rehearsal" for an assassination which was to have been carried out in a neighboring country.

Aloni Steps Aside

Israeli Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni, head of Israel's secular and dovish Meretz Party, agreed to help save Rabin's government by handing over the education portfolio to Amnon Rubinstein, also of Meretz, to appease Shas, the only religious party in the cabinet, which objects to Aloni's outspoken remarks. Aloni would pick up the communications portfolio held by Moshe Shahal of the Labor Party. While Shas leaders pondered the offer, which wouldn't really satisfy their urge to get their hands on more Ministry of Education funds for the religious schools they operate in Israel, Rabin went shopping for another party, preferably from the right wing, to join his cabinet. Without such an addition, Rabin's government would be dependent upon votes from Arab Knesset members if Shas withdraws.

"Jews for Jews"

Televangelist Pat Robertson as a candidate in the Republican presidential primaries of 1988 evoked a mixed reaction from Israel's supporters. The Israeli government was happy to accept his outspoken support for its policies, based apparently on his Old Testament-centered Christian fundamentalism. American Jews, however, were unhappy with his positions for prayer in public schools and against abortion rights.

Robertson is back in the American Jewish weekly press this month because of Raphael Farber, Israel's commissioner for North American tourism. In an article in the New York Jewish weekly Forward, Farber called Robertson "a great friend" for sending thousands of his Christian fundamentalist followers to Israel every year.

Leaders of both the Reform and Orthodox Jewish movements in America criticized Farber's characterization of Robertson, whose evangelical organization has ties to Jews for Jesus. In the Forward article, Farber said American Jews were wrong to think that Jews for Jesus is a threat to Jewish continuity. "The problem is that Jews are going to vanish here in 20 years because of intermarriage," Farber declared.

Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and a former president of the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, responded that "Raphael Farber owes the American Jewish community an apology. In effect, he is saying 'forget about American Jews, they are doomed anyhow, what's important is Israel.' How would he like it if American Jewish leaders were to say to the public, 'Why shouldn't we deal with the Arabs, they're only against Israel, and not against American Jews?"'

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, executive director of the Orthodox Union, accused Farber of "myopia" in his statements. "Is that what we created Israel for?" he asked. "To get tourists?" Philip Abramowitz, an authority on Christian evangelism employed by New York's Jewish Community Relations Council, told Forward Farber had promised him in a 1989 letter "not to take any steps to actively promote tourism to Israel among Messianic bodies." Abramowitz added that Israeli officials had promised American Jewish leaders they "would refrain from dealing with Jews for Jesus or supporting Hebrew Christians in general." Said Abramowitz, "what has happened is that we've been disappointed that things weren't followed through." He said Jewish anti-missionary groups are "continuing to pursue this matter with the Israelis."