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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 9 -15 November 2000 Issue No.507 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 9 -15 November 2000 Issue No.507
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Who is the most Zionist of all?
By Hoda Tawfiq
When First Lady Hillary Rodhman Clinton decided to enter the New York Senate race, she must have known that she was in for a battle for Jewish voters. What she could not have known was that the Al-Aqsa Intifada would form the backdrop to this year's election, and that the need to prove one's pro-Israeli stance would become the most dominant factor of the race.
The world was watching on Tuesday -- not only New York's closely-followed election, but also for how Americans would respond to the fast-disintegrating Middle East peace process. United States President Bill Clinton, still clinging to his dream of making peace in the Middle East the crowning moment of his tenure, is hoping for a fresh start when he meets with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat today and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday. But the real winner in this race was neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans. It was the Jewish lobby.
Powerful pro-Israeli and Jewish organisations have long shaped United States policy toward the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people, primarily by influencing political and cultural sentiment. But both Democrats and Republicans were loath to allow the Middle East crisis to play a critical role in the presidential election, with both candidates privately indicating that they would rather avoid being bombarded with tough questions about the burning issue. And in fact, the difference between both camps is minimal with regard to the peace process, with Republican candidate George W Bush supporting the Clinton administration's Middle East policy.
But in New York, where Jewish voters constitute 12 per cent of the electorate, the Middle East dominated the Senate race between Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidate Rick Lazio. And because of the powerful -- and wealthy -- Jewish community, the battleground was not a discussion of who was to blame for the current violence in the occupied territories, but a matter of who could blame the Palestinians more. Unwavering loyalty to Israel was taken as a given; the theatrics were about who could put on the best show.
"There is no question mark next to me. There's an exclamation point," Mrs Clinton said. "I am an emphatic, unwavering supporter of Israel." Lazio countered by criticising Hillary's views on the Middle East crisis. But the ultimate result was that both became nothing more than mouthpieces of New York's Zionist movement.
The tragedy of all this is that being committed to Israel is to be an enemy of the Palestinians -- and the Arab and Muslim community in general. Sympathy for the Palestinians has been equated with support for resistance movements like the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hizbullah -- both branded as "terrorists."
Mrs Clinton has been stung by revelations that her campaign received donations from individuals supporting Muslim organisations that have alegedly a hand in the killing of Israeli citizens and American marines. Mrs Clinton was quick to deliver, using her strongest language yet to condemn the violence in the occupied territories. She stressed that she holds Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "responsible for any continuation of the violence in the Middle East." She also called on Arafat to re-incarcerate any released Hamas "terrorists."
Arab and Muslim organisations have been fighting hard to counter the image of Palestinian casualties as simply terrorist blood, saying that Palestinian civilians have the right to defend themselves against military attacks. Demonstrators gathered in front of the White House daily, urging the US to call on Israel to stop butchering Palestinians. Leaders of eight prominent Muslim American organisations have put the blame on Lazio for introducing racism and bigotry into the senate race, saying he made "deceitful accusations" about Muslims. But the sad reality was that Mrs Clinton immediately adopted Zionist counter-theories. It is an abrupt turn from the position she once strongly believed in -- the right of Palestinians to self-determination in their own lands. In an act of remarkable defiance, Mrs Clinton returned the $50,000 in contributions from Muslim organisations, saying that she hadn't known they worked with "terrorist organisations."
"The notion of returning money to people because of their ethnicity, because of their religion, is nothing short of irresponsible," railed John Zogby, president of the polling agency Zogby International. "It is not one of the prouder moments in American electoral politics, and that is from this objective Arab American pollster." He added that Mrs Clinton's tactics were "about as disgusting a thing as can possibly happen in this day and age."
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