Israel's New Best Friend

By Steven Menashi | Monday, April 1, 2002

After the early December suicide bombings that left 25 Israelis dead and more than 200 injured, Washington refrained from its customary call for restraint on both sides. Instead, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer merely explained, '[T]he President's point of view is that Israel is a sovereign government. Israel has the right to defend herself.' Still, Fleischer declined, in response to reporters' questioning, to label Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority a 'terrorist-harboring regime.'

The strongest words to that effect came from the junior senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who compared Arafat's regime to the Taliban: 'The United States...had to root out the Taliban because of the comfort and support that they gave to the al-Qaeda terrorist network,' she told reporters. 'The same message must be sent to the Palestinian Authority and to Chairman Arafat: Anyone who harbors or turns a blind eye to terror in their midst will be held accountable.' The latest terrorism, said Clinton, 'rests squarely on the shoulders of Yasser Arafat.'

Recently, Senator Clinton has emerged as an ardent champion of Israeli interests—a surprising development for a politician who, as First Lady, called for the creation of a Palestinian state with Arafat at the helm. Before any White House official had publicly announced support for such a state, in 1998, the First Lady announced, 'I think it will be in the long-term interests of the Middle East for Palestine to be a state.' That same year, she attended a meeting of the Palestine National Council, where she lauded Arafat's leadership and again declared that establishing a Palestinian state was necessary to Middle East peace.

Clinton's early support for Palestinian statehood rankled the Israeli government as well as supporters of Israel at home, so on her next trip to the West Bank the following year she choose not to meet with Arafat, just his wife. But her meeting with the Palestinian First Lady was even more disastrous. Hillary listened attentively as Suha Arafat bizarrely accused Israel of poisoning Palestinians with toxic gas—causing cancer among children and miscarriages among women—and as other Palestinian Authority officials called for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. After the remarks, Clinton embraced Mrs. Arafat and kissed her on the cheek. She did not reply to the anti-Israel harangue until, after outcry by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and American Jewish leaders, Clinton lamely offered, 'I do not believe any kind of inflammatory rhetoric or baseless charges are good for the peace process.'

At the time, Clinton supporters worried that the First Lady's record on Israel would cost her the Senate race in New York, where 12 percent of voters are Jewish. But Clinton effected a dramatic shift in her position. As a Senate candidate, she called for moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which she called 'the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel,' and announced, in July 2000, 'I'd like to see that move be made before the end of the year.' She blamed Arafat for the failure of the Camp David peace talks: 'It's clear that Prime Minister Barak came committed to reaching a deal that would guarantee peace and security for Israel and the entire region,' Clinton told CBS Radio, 'and I'm sorry that Chairman Arafat didn't show the same commitment.'

Hillary even raised concern about 'due process issues' and 'a great breach of trust' in the government's 1987 sentencing of Jonathan Pollard, the U.S. Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel. She defended Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. She called for a withdrawal of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority should Arafat resort to violence or unilateral action. And she slammed Arafat for 'teaching hatred' to Palestinian children through 'racist' public school textbooks.

As Senator, she persisted: 'From history books and maps to simple grammar exercises and language lessons, Palestinian children are being inculcated with hate for Israel,' she said last June. In August she began a campaign to grant membership in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Movements to Israel's relief organization, Magen David Adom (the group is currently denied membership because they use a red Star of David symbol rather than a red cross or crescent). 'Israel must no longer be treated as a second-class citizen,' Clinton said. She has also urged the State Department to publicize rewards for the capture of Palestinian terrorists and she condemned the 'gratuitously anti-Israel, anti-Jewish language' at the United Nations's World Conference Against Racism.

In May, Hillary had another confrontation with Suha Arafat, who said in a magazine interview 'I hate Israel' and 'peace with them [Israelis] is a lie.' This time, Clinton quickly condemned the remarks as 'offensive and very disgusting.'

Most significantly, Clinton has defended an Israeli military response to terrorism—even before terrorism became the primary concern of the United States. At a March 2001 press conference, Clinton said, 'It is imperative that the United States support Israel in its struggle to defend itself and its citizens from attack.' She defended Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's refusal to meet with Arafat in the wake of renewed violence. With other senators, she urged President Bush to reevaluate U.S.-Palestinian relations, to classify Arafat's special forces as foreign terrorist organizations, and to hold Arafat personally responsible for Palestinian violence against Israelis. 'We must remember that the aggressive steps of the last months that Arafat has permitted and ordered are his and his alone to take responsibility for and to undo,' she said at the time.

Even more dramatic, the New York Post revealed in April that Clinton donated more than $1,200 to buy bulletproof vests and helmets for Israelis working in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

After September 11, Senator Clinton has become even more strident: 'Yasser Arafat needs to understand that in America we have a zero tolerance policy toward terrorism,' she said December 1, 2001. 'As President Bush said, you are either with us or you are with the terrorists.'

Some have questioned Clinton's sincerity. 'No one believes that Mrs. Clinton is not, in her heart of hearts, sympathetic with the Palestinians,' the New York Observer opined during her Senate campaign. 'I would believe what she said before,' said Najat Arafat Khelil, national president of the Palestinian American Congress. 'Now she's pandering and she's looking for votes.'

Pandering or not, Hillary Clinton has metamorphosed from the most prominent advocate of Palestinian statehood to a reliable Israeli hawk—at least for as long as she represents New York in the Senate.

Israel's New Best Friend

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