Professor Mack's X-Files
The Clinton-Iraq Connection
Betrayal of Israel for Campaign Money?
A Compendium of Articles
Collected by
Professor Tom Mack
The Editors: Saddam Wins
By The Editors of The New Republic Magazine.
(The New Republic, March 16, 1998) There was champagne in Turtle Bay and there was champagne in Foggy Bottom; but it was in Baghdad, where a new national holiday called the "Day of the Flag" was established to commemorate what Tariq Aziz astutely described as "a great victory," that the libations to success should have been poured. The American campaign against Saddam Hussein has concluded in perhaps the greatest debacle for American foreign policy since the end of the cold war. President Clinton is praising the outcome of Kofi Annan's mission to Iraq as "diplomacy backed by strength and resolve," as if this is what the masterminds in his government intended all along; but in truth American policy toward Iraq in recent weeks has been a spectacle of incoherence and incompetence, of dovishness masquerading as hawkishness, of improvisation driven by polls and protesters, of a strategy divided between its words and its deeds, between the ends that it proposed and the means that it proposed--which is to say, of no strategy, except the hollow enterprise of "crisis resolution." A comedy of errors, a comedy of terrors, and really nocomedy at all.
For the "Memorandum of Understanding between the United Nations and the Republic of Iraq" is air, seven points of air. Consider its first point. "The Government of Iraq further reiterates its undertaking to cooperate fully with the United Nations Special Commission (unscom) and the International Atomic Energy Commission (iaea)." Further, indeed. This reiteration is necessary because that same government of Iraq did not feel bound by its previous reiterations of that same undertaking. Similarly, "The Government of Iraq reconfirms its acceptance of all relevant resolutions of the Security Council," those being the resolutions of 1991. The difficulty with this is fundamental. It is that agreement is premised on the possibility of trust, and in this instance no such possibility exists. A sentence beginning with the words "Saddam Hussein agrees" is like a sentence beginning with the words "John Gotti agrees": the rest of the sentence doesn't matter, since it hasalready been established that we are speaking of a chimera.
In this respect, Kofi Annan's pronouncements about Saddam Hussein were especially bizarre. "We have to remember," he told reporters after briefing the Security Council, "that in the years that the U.N. has been present in Baghdad, many agreements have been signed, but none have been negotiated and approved with Saddam Hussein. And this one was negotiated with the president himself, and the leadership has got the message that he wants cooperation, he wants it done." The leadership? Saddam Hussein is the leadership. Or is the secretary-general suggesting that he has brokered a consensus in Iraqi politics, and finally brought the checks and balances of the Iraqi system into alignment? "The Iraqi leadership," he went on, showed "courage, wisdom, flexibility." Saddam "really wanted to do the right thing." Very poignant. "I think I can do business" with him. In fact, Saddam never even raised his voice. Well, let's have him to Aspen!
And consider the memorandum's third point. "The Government of Iraq undertakes to accord to unscom and iaea immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access in conformity with the resolutions referred to in paragraph 1." This is the provision that provoked the cheer in Turtle Bay and Foggy Bottom. Of course, it is nothing but what unscom has been promised before. (Except that the inspection of the eight "presidential sites" is not at all unrestricted, but subject to "specific detailed procedures which will be developed given the special nature of the presidential sites.") Moreover, "in the performance of its mandate under the Security Council resolutions, unscom undertakes to respect the legitimate concerns of Iraq relating to national security, sovereignty, and dignity." Such fine words.
But they are a corruption of language. Legitimacy
and the regime of Saddam Hussein: Would the secretary-general and
the secretary of state like to explain their understanding of
that indelicate subject? So let us be clear. unscom is not a
violation of the national security of Iraq. (That security is
threatened only when unscom is impeded by the government of
Iraq.) But unscom is indeed a violation of the sovereignty of
Iraq, insofar as the sovereignty of Iraq provides cover for its
government to develop genocidal weapons and the ability to rain
them (again) on innocents. Saddam can restore the sovereignty of
his state, and its prosperity, quite easily. He has merely to
surrender his anthrax. As for the "dignity" of Saddam
and his state, it is
undignified even to entertain the notion.
It is in the fourth point of the memorandum that the bargain is struck. It is there that unscom is subordinated to a new structure of supervision called the "Special Group." It "shall comprise senior diplomats appointed by the Secretary General and experts drawn from unscom and iaea. The Group shall be y a Commissioner appointed by the Secretary General." Why is this new entity necessary? What is troublesome about the unscom teams as they are presently constituted? Their indifference to the wishes of the Iraqi government, obviously. The "Special Group" is really a way of introducing Iraqi influence into the process of inspection, in the persons of "senior diplomats" from France or Russia or China or other countries soft on Saddam. It is a politicization of the search for the truth. Congratulations!
But it would be unfair to stick only Kofi Annan with this sellout. It has the blessing of Bill Clinton and, worse, the sponsorship of Madeleine Albright. This is the same Madeleine Albright who, only a few days before in Nashville, explaining why the United States must resort to the use of force in Iraq, exclaimed that "I don't think the world has seen in a long time, except maybe Hitler, someone as evil as Saddam Hussein. If the world had been firmer with Hitler earlier, then chances are we might not have had to send Americans to Europe in the Second World War." But here she is, defying what her own history has taught her, and conciliating this almost unprecedentedly evil plan.
This is an insult to the intelligence of Americans, and it confirms the impression produced by all the president's national security advisers, at the fiasco at Ohio State and at their other appearances, that they have been animated throughout this mess not by principles but by talking points, and by an increasing discomfort with their own bombs. Perhaps Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger believe that there was a miracle at the brunch in Baghdad, that Annan persuaded Saddam to be no longer such a nasty man, and to see that it is a terrible, terrible thing to thrill to weapons of mass destruction. Al Gore and William Cohen appear to be arguing against such fantasies. As for the dispositions of Bill Clinton, recall the fateful words of the president-elect of January 14, 1993: "I always tell everybody, `I'm a Baptist, I believe in deathbed conversions.' If he [Saddam] wants a different relationship with the United States and the United Nations, all he has to do is change his behavior." (And then, in the same breath, Clinton criticized his predecessor's policy on the inspection of Iraq: "It's one of these deals where the Bush administration, in an attempt to be somewhat reasonable, gave him such a cushion about who gets to look in the buildings, and none of this seemed to have any effect.")
The success of "crisis resolution" depends upon a proper definition of the crisis at hand. And the crisis at hand, properly defined, is not Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. It is Saddam himself. For weapons of mass destruction are not primarily a legal problem and a technical problem. They are primarily a political problem and a strategic problem. They threaten states and societies not simply because they exist, but because they exist in the possession of persons and powers who are prepared to use them. The weapons of mass destruction are in Iraq because Saddam Hussein is in Iraq. It really is that simple. For this reason, the Annan-Albright solution is no solution at all.
So a blessing on unscom and its cowboys. They have done splendid work, and the more they work, the better. But it is a matter of time before Saddam shatters this latest initialed illusion, and refuses some blunt and undaunted inspector access to a cranny of his property in which vials and canisters may be stashed. Indeed, the Clinton administration does not seem to grasp that the stimulation of crisis is itself an instrument of policy for Saddam. Every few months he yanks the West's chain, and enhances his legend in the Arab world, and allows Primakov and Chirac to gain a little more ground in their agitation to lift the sanctions and to restore the flow of trade. Every few months he tests our will, every few months we fail the test. tler, then this agreement is Munich. And if Saddam is not Hitler, then why the frenzy? Of course Saddam is not Hitler, and this agreement is not Munich. But he is monster enough, and this agreement is monstrous enough. The Annan-Albright accomplishment may allow the discovery and the destruction of a bit more of Saddam's arsenal; but by codifying the destruction of his arsenal as the objective of American policy, it is a petty accomplishment. For the objective of American policy must be the destruction of the regime in Baghdad. This objective will almost certainly require the use of covert and overt force. To be sure, it is not an objective that can be accomplished this week. (It might have been accomplished this week, if the Clinton administration had not abandoned the Iraqi opposition to its fate in 1996.) But who says that Saddam is strong at home? There is growing evidence of the dictator's political weakness. It is only abroad, it seems, that he finds respect. (Copyright 1998, The New Republic)
The Clinton-Gore Campaign's Iraq
Connection
Paris' Al Watan Al Arabi 10/24/97: "The
increasingly ferocious campaign being launched by the Republicans
against Democratic President Bill Clinton on various levels is
not only targeting the Democratic president alone, but is also
targeting what the Republicans are now calling the "ethics
and morality of the Democrats." It seems this campaign is
paving the way for the congressional elections next year and is
also in preparation for the presidential election in the year It
is becoming increasingly obvious that the presidential democratic
candidate will be none other than Vice President Al Gore. The
most recent episode in this ongoing campaign is the affair of the
videotapes which the White House is now saying it recently
"discovered by accident." There are more than 100
videotapes of White House social functions, or what are known as
coffee sessions or gatherings organized in the White House. The
Republicans accuse the President's aides of exploiting these
functions to collect political donations and contributions for
the Democrats, which is illegal by American law. The Republicans
were furious recently. A long time after Attorney General Janet
Reno began an investigation on whether the President or the vice
president collected political contributions in a federal
building, which is banned by American law, the White House
announced that it had discovered these videotapes too late for
Reno to include in the investigation. There are also reports that
the White House did not announce the discovery of these
videotapes deliberately in order to prevent Janet Reno from
including them in her investigation. Other reports say that the
White House no longer respects the U.S. attorney general. It is
also being said that Clinton wanted her to resign near the end of
his first term and to nominate another in her place, but she did
not do so. These videotapes have exposed a lot of what used to go
on night and day in the corridors, large halls, and gardens of
the White House to collect funds.
However, what took everybody by surprise and
caused a great deal of political confusion in the American
political scene recently was the revelation that these
videotapes included Arab, Palestinian, Lebanese, and even Iraqi
personalities some of whom are accused of being close to Iraqi
President Saddam Husayn. The reports say that President Clinton
met with these figures inside and outside the White House. This
aroused suspicions and queries on whether these figures sought to
bring about a change in America's policy on Iraq, a policy that
was put in place by Republican president George Bush and that
calls for the isolation and siege of Iraq until the fall of
President Saddam Husayn's regime, which President Bush considered
"outside the world community" and one that could not be
rehabilitated at any cost. The situation has not yet reached the
level of talking about an Iraqi lobby in the United States to
pressure President Clinton to change his policies on Iraq.
However, the mere discovery of Iraqi businessmen -- no matter how
bona fide they are -- in the White House, and their meeting
privately with President Clinton to discuss such matters has
raised a lot of questions in American political circles about the
ability of foreign parties to influence decisions made in the
White House. This affair has gained special notoriety in light of
the continuous scandals about the ability of foreign quarters --
Indonesian, Chinese, and Taiwanese -- to buy political influence
in the White House of President Clinton's Administration.
The most recent of these foreign quarters was Lebanese, as the affair of Lebanese businessman Roger Tamraz has shown. The first Arab personality in the recent videotapes is American-Palestinian businessman Abu-al-Huda al-Faruqi who is seen in the videotapes conversing with American President Bill Clinton in the White House. However, this did not raise a lot of questions because the man is an American citizen and has no relationships, except that he is on good terms with King Husayn and Palestinian President Yassir Arafat. It also turned out later that al-Faruqi was accompanied by several bona fide Arab-American businessmen who wanted to discuss issues related to the Middle East with the American President in return for the Palestinian businessman paying $100,000 for a 20- minute meeting with the President. And this is exactly what happened. Although the picture of Palestinian businessman al-Faruqi did not raise a lot of questions, the meetings with President Clinton of two Iraqi businessmen have raised a political storm in Washington that has not abated yet. The recent investigations have revealed that meetings were held with two prominent Iraqi figures. One of these Iraqi figures is "accused" of being on good terms with the Iraqi leadership, and of having business dealings with one of the Iraqi president's two sons. The businessman denies these charges.
As for the second Iraqi businessman, a special 20-minute working meeting was arranged for him with President Clinton, with the hope that he would contribute $1 million to the American president. However, the White House eventually discovered that the man could not pay a single dollar to the president's fund-raising campaign or to the fund-raising campaign of any Democratic Party official. The White House discovered that the Iraqi businessman had not proclaimed his readiness to contribute anything to any other cause to which he could legally contribute. The reports say that despite the objections of the White House, a fund-raiser for the Democrats succeeded in arranging a meeting with President Clinton last year with Iraqi-American businessman Samir Danu, a successful businessman in Detroit and a major contributor to the Democrats. The story goes as follows:
President Clinton was scheduled to hold a private meeting with the Iraqi businessman Danu and a limited number of contributors to the Democrats in Detroit just before his appearance at a public function in Detroit the same evening. However, White House staff decided the last minute to cancel the meeting between the US President and the businessman of Iraqi descent after the Democratic national committee received a "tip" that the man was active in "political circles close to the Iraqi regime" and that he is always active in seeking an end to the sanctions imposed against Iraq. Moreover, he had business relations with one of the Iraqi president's two sons. Mark Tuman, a political fund-raiser for the Democrats, who insisted that he does not believe Danu has relations with the regime in Iraq, says he learned about the cancellation of the meeting between Danu and the President minutes before the scheduled time. He says he immediately complained to the White House staff, and added that "Danu was outraged and threatened to withdraw from the public event during which Clinton collected $400,000, the largest part of which was donated by Danu and some members of his family. This meant that the function would have failed at least from the financial aspect.
Despite the White House's objections, the meeting did take place in a theater in Detroit at the insistence of Danu. The White House says that Clinton's aides allowed the meeting with Danu to proceed although the order to cancel was "in force in principle." The White House adds that the injunction not to meet with Danu will remain in force until the conclusion of the investigation of reports which have referred to a relationship between Danu and the Iraqi regime.
Danu is an Iraqi immigrant who has been living in the United States for decades and who has gained American citizenship. As some White House records indicate, he is well-known in "foreign policy circles as one who defends the ending of the sanctions regime against Iraq." The White House and the Democratic national committee say that the accusations against Danu were made by another Iraqi who introduced himself as Tony Haddad, who is another Iraqi- American businessman from Detroit. According to White House records, when Haddad was queried about the matter he said that he had heard the rumor circulating among the [Iraqi American] community but "I cannot vouch for its truth." Although the White House did not follow up the matter then, Tuman says that he asked Danu about these accusations, but the latter denied them categorically. Therefore, it was decided to proceed with the meeting. The Republicans are now charging that despite Danu's background, the White House aides decided to proceed with the meeting lest a $400,000-function for the Democrats be canceled."
The second affair is even stranger than Danu's, ending more dramatically and in a manner that embarrassed the White House and President Clinton's two top aides. It is the affair of the second Iraqi businessman who, the Republicans claim, held several private meetings with President Clinton and discussed several foreign policy topics, particularly the peace process and the Iraqi issue. The story goes as follows:
Shortly after President Clinton selected Truman Arnold, the oil tycoon from Texas, to be in charge of the Democrats' campaign to raise $40 million in 1995 in preparation for the presidential election campaign of 1996, Arnold contacted Erskine Powells [Ed. note: This should be Erskine Bowles], the White House deputy chief of staff, and told him about an Iraqi American businessman who is prepared to pay $1 million in return for "only five minutes with the President." As a result, congressional reports say, a quick investigation began "not into the man's political background, but into whether he could actually pay the $1 million he had promised Arnold." The investigation revealed that Iraqi American businessman Nimr Kirdar heads the huge InvestCorp for financial investments based in Bahrain. It also revealed that he is "backed by several prominent Gulf businessmen" and that InvestCorp had financed several major buying operations in the United States which amounted to more than $5 billion, such as saving Gucci, the famous fashion design company, Tiffany and Co., and Sax Fifth Avenue. Fortune, the American magazine, said in March 1995, that Kirdar "can tap lakes of Middle East and Gulf money and has an impressive profit making record."
As soon as the results of this quick investigation into the financial assets of this man became available, Powells [Bowles] arranged for the Iraqi what recent White House records describe as "an unusual contact with the President: a photo opportunity with the President in the Oval Office and an exclusive 20-minute special meeting with the President devoted to the Middle East issue." Reports say that some White House staff reacted to the $1-million Arab's visit to the White House by saying "he should be allowed to stay 10 full nights in the bedroom of former president Abraham Lincoln in the White House." This is the room where, according to reports, Clinton has allowed contributors of
more than $100,000 to stay with their wives for at least one night. This scandal has led to many sarcastic political jokes about President Clinton, such as he has turned the White House into an "expensive motel for businessmen." The recent congressional reports that are researching White House records to investigate President Clinton's political fund-raising infractions indicate that Kirdar's meeting in the White House was arranged following the persistent contacts of a former White House aide called Mark Middleton, a former special assistant to the President who has become a central figure in the investigation being conducted by the U.S. Congress into the financial violations of Clinton and the Democrats. Middleton is a lawyer from Arkansas, the President's state, who had been appointed as a special assistant to the President after he succeeded in 1992 to raise $5 million for Clinton's first presidential campaign.
The congressional reports add that after leaving the White House, Middleton became an "international business agent" and that he sought to arrange a meeting for Kirdar with Clinton and he tried to gather foreign assistance to the Democrats when he was on business trips outside the United States in search of personal business deals. The reports also add that Powells, the then deputy chief of staff at the White House who has since been appointed chief of staff, was the first to hear from Texan millionaire Arnold that Clinton should receive "the prominent Iraqi businessman Kirdar who owns reputable financial institutions and who can turn out to be a possible financial backer of the President." Another Arab businessman, Roger Tamraz, was not allowed to meet in private with the President to discuss the project of transporting oil from Azerbaijan through Turkey, although he had paid $300,000 for the Democratic national committee and was ready, as he testified in Congress last month, to donate $600,000 more to the Democrats. Tamraz was barred from the White House at the recommendation of a National Security Council female employee because of his past and because he allegedly exploited his relationship with the White House to outbid other companies. Tamraz had been allowed to enter the White House several times and had attended several coffee sessions as well as a private film show in the White House movie theater. However, the White House staff refused to allow him to see the President "in private".
It seems that the message which Arnold conveyed to the White House about Iraqi businessman Kirdar's readiness to contribute $1 million broke many regulations and removed many obstacles from the way of the Iraqi businessman. The reports give a "sensational and dramatic" account of the manner in which a meeting with the President was arranged for the Iraqi businessman. Kirdar recounts that the whole affair began when he received a telephone call in 1994 from a man called Middleton who told him that he is a special assistant to the President and that he is inviting him to a private luncheon with the President in the White House. Kirdar recounts that when he went to Washington for the luncheon with the President in October that year, and when he entered the White House, he was met by Middleton who told him "You are a man we should get to know." Middleton also told Kirdar that he may have a private meeting for 20 minutes with the President. The reports indicate that Kirdar -- who was not actually seeking a meeting with Clinton and who spent most of his time outside the United States -- did not know Middleton. "Actually," Kirdar says, "I used to wonder what this man wanted from me and thought that perhaps there is something behind it. Up till this very moment, nobody has asked me for anything." When Middleton left the White House in 1995 and established his own trade consultancy firm, he did not forget Kirdar. The reports reveal that he contacted Arnold, who had become the financial chairman of the national committee of the Democratic party, and told him that he knew "an Iraqi American businessman who is ready to donate $1 million to the President." The White House records show that the first record of Kirdar's private meeting with the President came in the form of a message that Arnold left on Powells' answering machine in the White House. The message says: "I would like you to be the first to know. Kirdar wants only five minutes in private with the President. We think he can easily donate $1 million. He is an Iraqi but he is clean. He has been living here for 30 years." The White House records show that this message was followed by eight others from Middleton to Powells [Bowles] in which the former persistently asked for help in arranging for a meeting between Kirdar and President Clinton. The records also indicate that on April 28, Middleton called wondering whether the necessary time was allocated for Kirdar to see the President "today or tomorrow."
On July 20, Middleton called again saying that Kirdar is about to leave the country [as published] on a visit to Washington. "I would like to know if the necessary time was allocated for Kirdar to see the President during this visit," the message said. According to White House records, Powells contacted the National Security Council and requested a background check on Kirdar and whether a meeting can be arranged for him with the President. The oral response which came back after a short while was that there is nothing to prevent a private meeting for the Iraqi American businessman with the US President. At 1820 the evening of July 26, 1995, Middleton admitted the Iraqi businessman Kirdar to the Oval Office where Clinton was sitting at his desk having diet Coca Cola. The records indicate that since Middleton described the meeting as a "social occasion," none of President Clinton's aides was present at the meeting. The records also show that the major part of the meeting dealt with a discussion of the Middle East peace process, according to Kirdar and White House officials. The White House photographer took some pictures of the two in the Oval Office and prints of these pictures were later sent to Kirdar who hangs them in his company offices in New York and London, next to pictures taken with former president George Bush, former British prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and Jordan's monarch King Husayn. Two months later, Middleton asked Powells again to invite Kirdar to a party in the White House that was being arranged after the signing of the Oslo 2 agreement by Yitzhaq Rabin and Yasir 'Arafat on September 2, 1995. The message that Middleton left for Powells said: "We believe he should be present at this party. Can you make sure that his name is added to the list of guests to this big ceremony?" It is said that Kirdar had not asked to be invited to this party. At any rate, he did not receive an invitation to attend. Kirdar says: "From the outset, I felt there was something fishy. I was confused. I had not requested any of these meetings. Actually, at the beginning, I thought President Clinton wanted to meet with me to talk about world issues that I know a lot about in view of my business dealings in the region, particularly the Middle East issue and the Gulf." Kirdar adds: "I was not asked for any financial contribution, neither to Clinton nor to anybody else. It never crossed my mind that Middleton was preparing me to become one of the major donors to Clinton or to any of the organizations Clinton is interested in. Kirdar concluded: "Actually, I am stunned by what happened. I am deeply disappointed to discover that that was Middleton's motive. He is very naive. Had he known me and known what I represent, he would not have resorted to all these devious ways. He would not have got anything from me anyway."
Actually, what took the American officials by
surprise - the American officials who arranged the luncheon and
the private meeting with Clinton and who tried to arrange an
invitation to the reception at the White House after the signing
of the second Palestinian peace agreement in 1995 -- was the
revelation that Kirdar was not prepared to give Clinton a single
dollar, and would not have been able to do so even if he wanted.
All those who checked, researched and debated Kirdar's background
before allowing him to meet the President failed to discover that
the man is not an American citizen. Yes, although he resides in
the United States and travels between the United States and a
number of Arab and world capitals, he has not received American
citizenship and therefore, he cannot, by law, make any political
contributions to President Clinton nor to either of the two
political parties and their candidates. Moreover, after the
discovery of the man's citizenship affair -- a discovery that
came too late -- he did not express any readiness to make any
contribution to any cause supported by Clinton or to any
institution that Clinton prefers or supports. It is rumored that
after discovering Kirdar's foreign citizenship, Middleton thought
of asking the Iraqi businessman to make a donation to President
Clinton's private institution after the President leaves office
to enable him to build a library and a center bearing his name,
like former American presidents. However, Middleton did not ask
and Kirdar did not pay."
Al Gore's Arab Moneyman
The story of a suspended ambassadorial nomination.
by Kenneth R. Timmerman
Clinton-Gore hubris knows no bounds. In the thick of the campaign finance hearings on Capitol Hill, the White House has nominated a controversial DNC fund-raiser, Edward M. Gabriel, to become United States Ambassador to Morocco, a key country to the Middle East peace process.
Gabriel's name was formally submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 8, before the FBI had completed its background investigation into Gabriel's finances, business connections, or personal life. Perhaps the White House was hoping Jesse Helms and his staff would be contrite for blocking ex-Massachusetts governor William Weld from becoming ambassador to Mexico, or that Gabriel's tobacco-lobbyist wife, Kathleen "Buffy" Linehan (who works for Phillip Morris), would suffice to woo tobacco-stater Helms.
As it turned out, the moment was ill-timed, and the candidate ill-starred. A scant ten days later, as we reported on The American Spectator's web site on September 18, the White House was forced to turn over Gabriel's file to the Justice Department for further investigation of allegations tying him to murky Arab campaign donations to the DNC and the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign.
A few hours before Lebanese financier Roger Tamraz was to testify before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, committee staffers received a mysterious call from someone claiming to be Tamraz who alleged that Tamraz had been solicited by Gabriel to donate $50,000 to the DNC through the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based non-profit group. Gabriel called the allegation "science fiction," and in his public testimony later that day, Tamraz said he had not made the phone call and didn't know Gabriel. Nevertheless Jesse Helms announced he was postponing Gabriel's confirmation hearing "indefinitely."
Two things are certain about this curious case:
Ed Gabriel has powerful enemies, and he made them by hitching his
wagon to 
two highly controversial Arab-American
lobbyists in Washington: James Zogby and Abdulrahman Alamoudi. In
the "bad old days" when the State Department and
Congress still considered the PLO a terrorist organization, both
men were staunch backers of Yasir Arafat. More recently, Zogby
has called on Arab states to reinvigorate the secondary boycott
against Israel, which aims to deter U.S. companies by threatening
to ban them from contracts in the Arab world if they do business
with Israel.
Meanwhile, Alamoudi, who heads the American Muslim Council that was invited to the White House by Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Muslim Eid holidays, has been raising funds for "charitable" organizations whose branches in Gaza and the West Bank were closed down in late September by none other than Arafat. The PLO chairman accused them of supporting the military wing of Hamas, the radical Islamic group that has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings in Israel.
Zogby, Gabriel, and Alamoudi sat together on the steering committee of Arab Americans for Clinton/Gore '96 and frequently appear at functions organized by Zogby's Arab American Institute. Given these connections, one could easily suspect the pro-Israeli lobby of seeking to sabotage Gabriel's nomination. Not only has Gabriel supported radical Arab causes, but if confirmed would serve in a moderate Arab country whose ruler, King Hassan II, has long been an "honest broker" between Israel and its Arab neighbors and protected Morocco's Jewish community.
TAS was itself tipped off to Gabriel by an anonymous source who called several days before Gabriel's nomination became public knowledge. Claiming to be a former DNC employee, the caller made detailed allegations about Gabriel's activities as a fundraiser for Clinton-Gore and ties to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and Vice President Al Gore, his biggest backer at the White House. None of the pro-Israeli organizations and lobbyists we contacted was aware of Gabriel's pending nomination, nor did any have him on their radar screen.
In subsequent conversations, the anonymous "former DNC employee" alleged that Gabriel served as a conduit for campaign contributions to the DNC from Arab businessmen in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria. The source claimed the funds were solicited by Gabriel, and occasionally by Zogby, and were deposited into accounts controlled by Zogby's Arab American Institute, which then paid out the moneys to Arab Americans who could legally contribute to the campaign. "These are people who have no resources, who are not on the board of any organization," the source said about these nominal donors. "They sent in checks of $1,000, $5,000, occasionally $10,000, but never more. We're talking about several hundred thousand dollars in soft and hard money."
According to FEC records, Gabriel, Zogby, and board members of such groups as the Arab American Institute contributed more than $180,000 to Democratic campaigns during the 1995-1996 cycle. (Other AAI members contributed to Arab-American Republican candidates.) But if our source is correct, this is just the money that appears on the surface.
In telephone interviews Zogby admitted to having solicited money for his institute from Arab businessmen, but denied serving as a conduit for donations to the DNC. "Our PAC does not support Democratic causes. It supports Arab-American candidates, both Democrats and Republicans," he said. In a letter to the September 20 Washington Times, he called allegations that he was funneling foreign Arab money into the Clinton-Gore campaign "anti-Arab bigotry." "There are Arab businessmen who have contributed to the institute -- that's true," he told TAS. "But there was no money-for-favors. That's an unfair allegation, because it's just not true. I go to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Lebanon, the West Bank regularly. And there are people over there who have contributed. But I haven't gone there specifically to solicit contributions."
But Zogby clearly seems to be hiding something. Three times we went to his offices to request a copy of his institute's tax forms -- as a nonprofit group it is required by law to make them available on its premises - and each time Zogby refused to show them to us. Zogby claims his institute operates on a $700,000 annual budget, but the "former DNC employee" who called us said AAI distributed between $1 and $2 million in 1996. Without the tax forms, which Zogby has illegally withheld, there is no way to determine who is telling the truth. At least three congressional Committees are now investigating Gabriel and Zogby and the possibility of an "Arabgate" at the DNC.
It turns out that Gabriel and Zogby's most determined enemies are not American Jews, but Lebanese-Americans bitterly opposed to Syria's illegal occupation of Lebanon and the U.S.'s acceptance of this state of affairs. Last July the State Department, ollowing a major lobbying effort on behalf of the Syrian-controlled Lebanese government of billionaire Rafic Hariri, lifted its ban on travel to Lebanon. Gabriel and Zogby played central roles in this effort. The lifting means U.S. business is now free to invest in projects controlled by Hariri and his Saudi and Syrian partners.
Gabriel used his position as a founder and executive committee member of a Hariri-supported nonprofit, the pro-Syrian American Task Force for Lebanon (ATFL), to lobby Congress and the administration to have the travel ban lifted. In this activity he was aided by Zogby, who serves with Gabriel on the ATFL board, just as Gabriel served on the governing board of Zogby's Arab American Institute.
As George Cody, executive director of the ATFL and one of Gabriel's biggest supporters, told TAS: "Ed Gabriel has been very instrumental on the travel ban. He has raised this at every opportunity, including during meetings with Vice President Gore and with President Clinton." Cody went even further: "Gabriel is being supported in this nomination [as ambassador to Morocco] by Gore. He has an excellent relationship with the VP and with the president." Though Cody personally recalled paying three visits to the White House with Zogby and Gabriel, other sources tell TAS that Gabriel logged in to visit the vice president at the White House no fewer than seventeen times. Neither the vice president's office nor the White House Counsel's office would respond to questions about Gabriel, his ties to Gore, his fundraising activities, or his business and lobbying activities, despite repeated requests. Nor would they authorize Gabriel to comment before his nomination hearing.
Gabriel's ATFL has received two grants from the Clinton administration: $100,000 from the Agency for International Development in 1993 to host a conference on Lebanon, and another $25,000 in 1995 to conduct a symposium on Lebanon's capital markets -- a topic of great interest to Hariri, who has single-handedly floated several hundred million dollars in Lebanese government bonds on the international market to support his construction projects.
What may finally do in Gabriel's nomination, however, could have little to do with Lebanon. For one thing, there are his ties to Al Gore. Zogby and Cody both acknowledge that Gore was the driving force behind Gabriel's nomination, and that Gabriel was a regular White House visitor as both DNC fundraiser and board member of Arab-American organizations. Said one White House source, "Zogby came in here and pounded on the table in front of the vice president, and said you've got to appoint this guy." When we asked Zogby whether he'd lobbied Gore on Gabriel's behalf, Zogby called Gabriel "as qualified as anybody else I've seen." Although Gabriel is Lebanese American, he does not speak Arabic, or any other foreign language, and has no foreign affairs experience.
Also under scrutiny are Gabriel's links to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, who's already the subject of a Justice Department preliminary probe that could lead to the appointment of an independent counsel. Gabriel, a long-time friend of O'Leary's, invited her to be guest of honor at a $100,000 DNC fundraiser that he held at his Washington home in the summer of 1996. On the résumé distributed by the White House, Gabriel is listed as an "energy consultant." But the background bio that's being circulated by the ATFL in support of his nomination states he worked as an "adviser to Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary."
The most explosive of Ed Gabriel's many explosive contacts may be with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. In late 1993 or early 1994, TAS has learned, a Gabriel associate named Tracy Chamoun, along with Lebanese businessman Charles Chidiac, approached Iraq's U.N. ambassador Nizar Hamdoon with an indelicate proposition. According to one of the participants, as well as other sources with knowledge of the meeting, the pair told Hamdoon they were so plugged into the Clinton administration they could "guarantee" a lifting of the U.N. oil embargo on Iraq. Chamoun's lobbying partner in this effort, the sources said, was to be Edward M. Gabriel himself. The asking price for this very special service: $5 million! The Iraqi ambassador reportedly laughed off Chamoun's presumptuousness and dismissed the offer out of hand. Conveniently for Gabriel, Chamoun's husband told us she was out of the country and could not be reached for several weeks -- perhaps not until after Gabriel's confirmation hearing? That is, if Jesse Helms ever puts it on the calendar.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is the publisher of Iran
Brief and a frequent contributor to The American
Spectator.
Clinton's Cave-In To Saddam
by William Safire
(New York Times 11/23/97) "Penetrating the inspection team."
WASHINGTON: As Bill Clinton continues to pretend that no concession has been made to Iraq, Saddam Hussein has arranged with Russia's Yevgeny Primakov to remove the element of surprise from the U.N. Special Commission's searches for long- concealed germ-warfare facilities.
The key is in Primakov's statement, swallowed whole by Clinton officials, that he negotiated an agreement to make inspections "more effective." In Orwelless, that means penetrating the U.N. team with Russian spies.
Mr. Primakov, lest we forget, is the world's most experienced spymaster. As a K.G.B. agent in his youth, he learned Arabic, improved his image by changing his name from Finkelstein to the Ukrainian word for "step-son and aligned himself with a ruthless Arab rising star. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, it was the K.G.B.'s Primakov who worked frantically in Moscow and Baghdad to prevent the U.S. intervention.
When Boris Yeltsin appointed him Foreign Minister to replace a pro-Westerner, Primakov moved quickly to help his friend Saddam anticipate inspections that might interrupt secret Iraqi work on terror weapons.
However, the Russians on the U.N. team -- in New York and in the field in Iraq -- had been recruited by officials who wanted only inspectors who took seriously the U.N. mission to enforce Iraq's agreement to destroy weapons. These included Russian Army veterans familiar with germ war.
Here's news the White House does not know: When Primakov threatened the livelihood of Russians who did not cooperate in sharing information, U.N. officials put the most vulnerable on the U.N. payroll. Frustrated, Russia's spymaster-diplomat has recently had consular underlings threaten to pull certain of their nationals' passports.
Espionage adage: When penetration fails, accuse the other side of trying to penetrate. As U.N. inspections focused on the toxicological work of Iraq's "Dr. Germs," Rihab Taha, Saddam Hussein accused the U.S. nationals on the inspection team of being C.I.A. spies.
Saddam knew he could not permanently bar inspections without inviting a substantial military strike. But by kicking over the traces, and complaining about U.S. spying, Saddam and Primakov hoped to reconstitute the U.N. team that was giving them trouble.
It's working. Clinton fell for it. In a meeting reminiscent of Molotov and von Ribbentrop, Primakov and Tariq Aziz agreed to "more effective" inspection. Our U.N. delegate hastily declared Saddam had "blinked," our national security adviser insisted "no concession was made" and Clinton hailed his own "achievement."
Forget about our concession to increase Iraqi oil sales by 50 percent. Our much more dangerous appeasement -- to be denied by the White House until the last dog dies -- is to allow Primakov to reshuffle The inspection deck.
Expect Russians not prepared to tip off Moscow to sensitive inspections to be "rotated." Expect the naming of a new executive committee to "make more effective" the commission's plans, and to reveal the names of team leaders on specific missions. Expect Rachel Davies, a tough-minded Brit at Unscom's Information Assessment Services in New York, to be replaced or find her office "reinforced,"
As Primakov's penetration proceeds, Mr. Clinton will continue to strike his resolute pose. Television cameras will show our carrier force churning about. Rattled State Department aides will keep hinting, in effect, that if only the Israelis would hand over East Jerusalem, the Arab world would join an anti-Saddam coalition overnight.
But spymaster Primakov is good at penetration; Saddam has an unlimited budget to buy secrets; the U.N. has no counterintelligence capacity. As a result, the compromising of inspections is a clear danger.
Because few violations would then be found, Russia and France would toss Clinton a multilateral. Expect him to declare peace in our time and accede to the fraying of sanctions.
"We must not let our children be
exposed" to germ-war terror, intones Mr. Clinton. But unless
Primakov's subversion of inspection is stopped, even this
generation will be so exposed. And this President, "adamant
for drift" in Churchill's phrase, will be remembered as the
man who let it happen.
Munich on the Tigris
By Charles Krauthammer
The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 19, 1997; Madeleine Albright is feeding the
beast. Just "a little carrot," explains a member of her
traveling party, describing her opening negotiating offer to ease
sanctions in order to get Saddam to be nice and let U.N.
inspectors back into his country. Back in Washington, Secretary
of Defense Cohen says, "There should be no such trading for
any carrots in order to get his compliance." Apparently he
had not been advised that his administration had just cravenly
caved to Saddam's intimidation.
Now, before the obfuscations begin, before the president goes on television declaring yet another victory over Saddam, let's go over the extent of this debacle.
For six years Saddam has been trying to thwart U.N. inspections of his weapons of mass destruction. We know that he is hiding chemicals and biologics and even missiles. But every time the inspectors have come to the Security Council and complained that they have been stopped, we have let it pass for fear of upsetting our "coalition partners," i.e., the French and the Russians who can't wait to end the inspections, end the embargo and start making money trading for Saddam's oil.
Then Saddam, sensing our weakness, goes for the gold. He bans Americans from the inspection teams, knowing it will provoke a crisis. The Clinton administration grandly says: No negotiations. Within hours, the U.N. secretary general has sent a team to negotiate with Saddam.
Naturally, it comes back empty-handed. What do we do? Author one of the most pathetic resolutions in the history of the U.N.: banning the foreign travel of those few Iraqi officials who actually stopped the inspectors at the sites (officials who, working in Iraq's most sensitive military program, aren't permitted by Saddam to travel anyway). To get our "allies" (France, Russia and Egypt) to agree even to this, we drop the phrase threatening "serious consequences."
Saddam treats this declaration of irresolution -- which Albright comically describes as a "brick wall" against Saddam -- with the contempt it deserves: He expels the American inspectors.
What does Albright do now? She goes around the world "consulting" with our allies. Terrified that American timidity will leave them vulnerable, the pygmy countries of the Persian Gulf -- countries so weak that, as was once said of Czechoslovakia, they barely interfere in their own internal affairs -- advise her to feed the beast. They offer zero support for our half-hearted threats to use military power.
After this spectacular failure with our "allies," the administration crumbles. It is now asking the French and the Russians to "intercede" with Saddam -- treating him as the aggrieved party in need of a friendly face -- to find a negotiated solution.
Who is the agent of peace? Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, ex-KGB, known for his anti-Americanism, a man whose principal aim in the region has been to undermine our position in the Gulf and the Middle East.
His mission? "To convey to Saddam the steeliness of the will of the international community to resolve this problem," explains State Department spokesman James Rubin, thus retiring, with two years to spare, the prize for most fatuous diplomatic statement of the decade.
Primakov put it slightly differently. His diplomatic initiative, he said, is intended to show the Iraqis "the light at the end of the tunnel," precisely the phrase the Iraqi foreign minister uses as code for the ultimate and complete lifting of sanctions.
The administration is painting a rosy picture of the coming deal as a mere tweaking of our "humanitarian" exception to the embargo. Don't buy it. The tweaking consists of loopholes so big you can drive a truck through them, literally. Even worse, this embargo-busting trade would no longer be regularly reviewed by the Security Council. Everyone understands what this is: a step-by-step lifting of sanctions.
But isn't U.S. policy one of no relief until Saddam has destroyed his weapons? And certainly no reward for hiding his poisons, expelling inspectors and egregiously violating the Gulf War agreements? Ah, but that was yesterday.
Saddam violates the agreements, defies the world, and suffers what? Airborne attacks on his biological or chemical weapons factories? Damage to the Republican Guards that protect these facilities and Saddam's regime? Loss of any military or political -- by God, even diplomatic -- assets?
Well, no. Madeleine Albright is feeding him carrots. There is a word for this kind of response. Appeasement -- lacking, of course, the scale of the ignominy at Munich, but matching nicely the style.
What irony that Madeleine Albright, who loves to date the beginning of her political education to the consciousness of what Munich did to her native Czechoslovakia, is following a policy of craven carrot-giving to buy off a thug until the next crisis. What shame that her assistant secretary of state for the region, Martin Indyk, author of the policy of dually containing Iran and Iraq, is presiding over this policy of supine acquiescence.
But the buck does not stop there. We all wondered what would happen when Bill Clinton faced his first real foreign policy crisis. Now we know. Retreat.
George Bush said of the invasion of Kuwait: "This will not stand." Has there ever been a president less believable than Bill Clinton claiming to take a stand -- about this or anything?
©1997 The Washington Post Company
"Target Saddam Hussein"
By Robert Satloff
Tuesday, December 2, 1997; Page A27
The Washington Post From Paris to Cairo, from Moscow to Riyadh, virtually all of America's Gulf War allies have refused to support the idea of military force to compel Saddam Hussein's compliance with U.N. resolutions. Is this because:
They do not want to be associated with an adventure that may tarnish their ability to cash in on the commercial appeal of Iraq's vast oil resources?
They know from experience that the Clinton administration is likely to opt for a limited strike that might cause some marginal damage but won't seriously threaten Saddam's regime?
They believe that acting against Saddam in the absence of progress in the Arab-Israeli peace process would be morally inconsistent and politically costly?
If you chose (3), go directly to the White House. As President Clinton said the other day in discussing the difficulties in building "a community of shared values" in confronting Saddam, "we will never, ever do that until there is peace between Israel and her neighbors." The absence of peace, he said, "undermines our ability to seek a unified solution."
Sadly, this line of thinking is wrong. Blaming the peace process impasse (diplo-speak for blaming Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu) for the weakening of the anti-Saddam coalition sidesteps the crass greed that motivates some, such as the French and the Russians, while it avoids facing up to America's own inadequacies that have turned off many others in the Arab world. One thing is certain -- for both Western and Arab allies -- the state of the peace process has almost never been a determinant of their willingness to follow America's lead vis-a-vis Iraq.
As far as the former are concerned, the French and Russians stopped being coalition members in any meaningful sense at the very height of the Oslo process. It was in June 1993, three months before the Yitzhak
Rabin-Yasser Arafat handshake on the White House lawn, that the U.N. Security Council last found Iraq in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions. Not once during the halcyon days of the peace process -- from September 1993 to the Rabin assassination two years later -- did the French or Russians support any stiffening of U.N. spine on Iraq.
The Arab coalition partners have also been straying for quite some time.
Some examples:
Soon after the Gulf War, the United States asked the Saudis to provide Jordan with oil at cut-rate prices to match Saddam's offer and thereby free King Hussein to take a more active anti-Saddam posture. In spite of Jordan's emerging peace with Israel, the Saudis refused because they wanted to punish King Hussein for his wartime sympathies with Iraq.
In 1995, when Saddam's son-in-law defected to Amman, U.S. officials toured Egypt and the gulf to seek support for an emboldened Iraqi opposition effort. Again, the Arab allies refused the U.S. request, largely because of inter-Arab jealousies and the fear that Washington's muscle was not truly behind the idea.
Just last year, shortly after Netanyahu's election in Israel but before the Jerusalem tunnel episode -- i.e., during his brief honeymoon period with peace partners Egypt and Jordan -- the United States launched a cruise missile strike on Iraq in response to Saddam's invasion of the Kurdish-held city of Irbil. Virtually all our old Gulf War allies criticized the attack.
Perhaps the best example of the lack of linkage between the peace process and the gulf dates to the original Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. At the time, there was no peace process, the uncompromising Yitzhak Shamir was Israel's prime minister, and no Israeli leader -- Labor or Likud -- would even contemplate shaking hands with Yasser Arafat. Nevertheless, all but a few Arab leaders supported the U.S.-led coalition.
If Washington is truly interested in building a coalition against Saddam, then it shouldn't obfuscate the central issue -- the fate of Saddam Hussein -- by mixing it with Arab-Israeli politics. With the Europeans, America still has a chance to win the day. After all, these ever-pragmatic allies may come to recognize the fact that Saddam himself is the main obstacle to exploiting the riches of Iraq. But the Arab complaint against the administration's diminishing resolve is more serious.
When the president first took office, his senior aides routinely dismissed Saddam as irredeemable, and the administration supported initiatives to indict Saddam as a war criminal, to back the Iraqi opposition movement and to fund at least two covert operations (in Jordan and northern Iraq) targeted against Saddam himself. All that is history. Today, the principal source of pressure against Saddam is the sanctions regime and the related U.N. inspection system, both of which rely on the lowest-common-denominator decision-making of international consensus.
Arab members of the Gulf War coalition -- many of whom remain attractive targets for Saddam's ambitions -- read the writing on the wall. With the United Nations as the only arrow in the anti-Saddam quiver, no wonder that countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are covering their bets by distancing themselves from U.S. policy.
For Arab leaders, the peace process stalemate is, at best, an excuse. The truth is that many aren't buying U.S. policy because it only treats the symptoms of the gulf crisis (the U.N. inspection team, sanctions, the coalition) rather than the cause (Saddam Hussein himself). If the administration decided to pursue a new policy using all available political, military, economic and clandestine means to compel Saddam's compliance or precipitate his demise -- whichever came first -- most Arab leaders would fall in line and do their part.
But instead of rethinking policy, the administration is trying to shift the blame. In practice, this throws the spotlight onto Netanyahu and the need for Israeli concessions as the key to kickstarting a stalled negotiation with the Palestinians.
This is not to suggest that the president -- who has rightly earned the title of the most Israel-friendly chief executive in history -- should relegate the peace process to the back burner. It remains a vitally important issue, and America retains an intense interest in preventing its collapse. But 20 years after Anwar Sadat's journey to Jerusalem, one must remember that the peace process takes time. Confronting Saddam Hussein -- whose access to weapons of mass destruction was characterized by President Clinton as posing a threat to "all the children of the world" -- can't wait.
The writer is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Israel will not be the Czechoslovakia of the United States
by Rabbi Eliezer Waldman
Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivat Kiryat Arba
2 Kislev 5758
One of the great world powers in the nineteen thirties, Great Britain, demonstrated the kind of "peace" which is achieved by appeasement. When challenged by the arch terrorist of the world, Adolph Hitler, Chamberlain chose "peace in our time" over war. He gave "peace a chance" by willingly sacrificing his loyal ally, Czechoslovakia, to the evil lusts of this beast of terror, instead of having the courage to stop Hitler in his tracks.
What some may have thought to be the "peace of the brave" turned out to be a devastating World War of unprecedented proportions as a direct result of Chamberlain's cowardice and foolhardiness. I am sorry to say that this obscene and tragic historical blunder is being repeated today. Intellectual leaders of the Western World should have learned the lesson of the kind of peace which results from bowing to terror.
This same absurd premise, that peace can be achieved by appeasing terror, which proved so disastrous sixty years ago, is being resurrected by the leaders of the Western World today. The Butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, with unprecedented chutzpah, has been brazenly humiliating the only superpower of the democratic world, the United States of America. As a result of George Bush's failure to destroy the Iraqi dictator, Saddam has sensed a weakness of resolve on the part of the blundering American giant.
Playing the game better than his opponents, Saddam refused to permit the American contingent of the UN inspection team to participate in searching for his arsenals. In reaction the entire UN team left Iraq. The American's were especially humiliated by being forced to make the long and difficult trip by land rather than by air. After hearing a few meaningless threats, Saddam "backed down" and permitted the UN team to return. But the renewed investigation is clearly a sham where the inspection team is refused access to "sensitive" areas.
In reaction to Saddam's defiant mocking of the authority of the United States, Clinton has embarked on his own attempt at bravado. He sent an armada of aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf to demonstrate strength, while, in fact, proving just the opposite. The United States is afraid to risk isolating itself from the oil rich Arab countries, by directly intervening to prevent Saddam Hussein from endangering the entire world. Thus the American giant seeks to enlist the neighboring Arab states as allies in this struggle. These Arab states are, in fact, dictatorships who are staunch supporters of another arch terrorist, Arafat, who is currently seeking to take Israel from the Jewish people.
In order to enlist this coalition, America feels that it has to pressure Israel into yielding to the terror of Arafat. If Israel, as a result of American pressure, will appease Arafat by giving up parts of her homeland, then, perhaps, the Arab states will be willing to back up America's attempt to check Saddam Hussein. Thus, while unwilling to take risks of courage in fighting terror, even when that refusal may well affect the lives of the entire world population, the United States is well prepared to demand that Israel take suicidal risks by yielding to terror in return for a very unreliable American "alliance".
Of course this is the theater of the absurd. Instead of doing the most logical thing, enlisting the support of Israel, who is most threatened by Arafat and Saddam, and who is most capable of neutralizing them both, as its only true and reliable ally in the battle against terror and assuring the peace of the free world, America is actually weakening her strongest ally. By any definition of logic Israel should be recognized as the best defensive ally the United States has in this part of the world. Rather than dismantling this unparalleled asset to America's interests, the United States should be supporting and strengthening Israel rather than bullying her into "taking risks for peace".
Does the United States need another sacrifice like Czechoslovakia to learn its lesson? If it does, she'll have to find another pawn. Israel will not be the Czechoslovakia of the United States. We have served as the scapegoat for all the ills and evils of the world for two thousand years of our Exile. Our Exile has come to an end, and the time has come for the nations of the world to accept the fact that we will no longer be their scapegoat. We have become, once again, an independent nation which has the capacity to defend itself against all its enemies, and the conviction and faith in its basic rights to its homeland upon which it will never back down.
I want to believe that this analysis of the
situation is shared by our Prime Minister and the Israeli
government, in spite of the fact that official expressions of
Israeli policy don't exactly reflect this inner truth as yet. I
am therefore calling upon our leaders to allow themselves to be
guided by their Jewish conscience, and have the courage to reveal
our true strength. If we will not uphold our self respect and
convictions, not to yield to our enemies nor be intimidated by
our friends, the hypocrisy and cowardly appeasing the evil of
terror will only continue, thus endangering our very existence. 
Even if standing our ground means standing up against the entire world, we must assert our faith and fortitude to take this responsibility upon ourselves. A Jewish leadership drawing its strength from Avraham Avinu, certainly will not shirk the responsibility of declaring clearly our authentic rights before the world. We must declare that Judea and Samaria are the heart of Israel and every Jew has the right to live in all parts of our homeland. We should sense, at every step of our renewed national life, that we are treading in the path of Avraham Avinu who was commanded by the G-d of Israel "Lech lecha,- go forward". This hour of confusion and indecision can and should be turned into a moment of clarity and resolution with regards to our basic interests.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, the art of diplomacy, hiding the truth, must be replaced by the gift of genuine leadership and responsibility, clearly enunciating the truth. Meetings with President Clinton will not solve the problem without you taking a courageous stand to define a clear policy asserting our basic rights. Only such leadership will achieve the Jewish destiny of bringing blessing to our people and the entire world.