Clinton In The Lion's Den
When presidents travel, they usually play it safe. Not this time. This is the Middle East, and President Clinton may end up wishing he'd stayed Washington, where the worst humiliation he faces is mere impeachment.
There has been no president as pro-Israeli as Bill Clinton in decades. He has a deep, heart-felt respect and affection for the country and its people.
But politicians and pundits here from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on down have let drop comments bordering on the boorish, suggesting Mr. Clinton could just as well stay home. The reason is that on this trip, the president is committing a grievous sin in the eyes of Israel's current leaders and their voters: He's treating the Palestinians with respect and affection, too.
By landing Air Force One at Gaza International Airport, Netanyahu said President Clinton would be "sticking a thumb in the eye" of the Israeli people. Let's leave aside for the moment the question of why it's Netanyahu's business where the president of the United States lands and what he does when he gets there.
 Benjamin Netanyahu |
As a reporter who has worked in Israel for over six roller-coaster years, I can tell you from long experience and repeated observation that a good way to get most Israelis very angry at you is to suggest that Palestinians have the same rights, dreams and feelings as they do. And that is exactly what President Clinton is suggesting with this trip.
It starts with the schedule. Professional noisemakers in the Parliament and the press accuse the president of a shocking crime: He's giving equal time to visiting the two sides. For many Israelis, that's proof right there, he's biased against them.
And it gets much worse - the image of the president landing at Gaza, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat giving him a full-scale ceremonial welcome of the kind one head of state gives to another, has Netanyahu and his core voters seeing redder than the red carpet, since the Mr. Clinton's participation in such a ceremony looks to them a lot like implicit recognition of Palestinian statehood.
The original reason for the president's visit to Gaza was to attend a gathering of Palestinian officials to "re-affirm" the cancellation two-and-a-half years ago of clauses calling for Israel's destruction in the PLO's founding document, the so-called "Covenant." A new vote on the Covenant was one of Netanyahu's key demands at the peace talks in October in Maryland.
Never mind that the Palestinians have declared the Covenant dead more often than Spain's dictator General Franco in the classic running joke on Saturday Night Live. Never mind that Benjamin Netanyahu's own personal decade-and-a-half-long crusade against the Covenant is all that's kept it from being forgotten by the Palesinians themselves long ago.
The Covenant has been very helpful to Netanyahu over the years in his efforts to convince the public that Palestinians are irredeemably bent on driving Israel into the sea. It's final, absolute, ultimate, this-time-for-sure annulment can only be a Good Thing. But it is as certain as anything can be in the Middle East, that even after the president's visit to Gaza, Israeli hardliners will continue to insist the Palestinians haven't really canceled the Covenant at all, and still aim at destroying Israel. Government officials are already calling President Clinton a dupe, for taking part in what they call a circus and a charade.
 Yasser Arafat |
On a lighter note, some politicians and editorial writers are also frothing over the fact that Mr. Clinton has included a visit to Bethlehem in his schedule. Someone not familiar with the logic of the Middle East might be forgiven for asking what could be more natural at Christmas-time than visiting Bethlehem. But Bethlehem is in the West Bank, it's under Palestinian control, and that's enough reason, by local logic, that the president shouldn't set foot in the place.
Not that all the land mines are on the Israeli side. Palestinian society, like much of the Arab world, is deeply divided and ambivalent about the U.S. On the one hand, the U.S. is seen as the land of opportunity by Arabs as much as anyone, and there are parts of the West Bank where you're greeted in perfect American everywhere you go, because everybody you meet has an uncle with a laundromat in East Lansing or a cousin with a convenience store in Brooklyn.
But America is also the country that backs, funds and arms Israel. For many Arabs, Mr. Clinton is Commander-in-Chief of the Evil Empire, itself an anti-Islamic embodiment of all the ills of the modern Western world, like AIDS, drugs and pornography. For those inclined to this way of thinking, the president's moral lapses appear to provide plenty of confirmation. Islamic radicals argue, especially among the poor and the uneducated, that "Godless America" is their enemy. Extremist groups have condemned the visit, and condemned Arafat for hosting it.
By and large, though, this visit is such a prize for Yasser Arafat that he's extremely unlikely to embarrass his guest, or allow any other Palestinian to do so either. This degree of U.S. recognition of Arafat and the nationalist cause he embodies, is a result of Arafat's willingness to compromise, to be conciliatory and to do his bit against Islamic extremist violence. Mr. Clinton's visit adds up to a big payoff.
Netanyahu and Israel's hardliners are right in their perception that Clinton's visit is a major coup for Arafat and a major symbolic boost for the drive for Palestinian statehood. What they seem to have faied to notice is that it's no accident. The president's decision to make this trip a diplomatic triumph for the Palestinians looks very much like an end-run around Netanyahu's intransigence in negotiations, his foot-dragging in carrying out his promises and his high-handed treatment of both Arafat and the president himself.
If seeing the president of the United States on the red carpet in Gaza is a blow to Israelis' self-esteem, they arguably have only their own leaders to blame.
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