Washington Watch Articles From 1998
NETANYAHU’S BIG BANG
In Israel they are calling it the “big bang” and by that they do not mean merely the collapse of the Netanyahu government.
REAL DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE
The Lewinsky affair comes to a head this week with the President’s testimony before a Washington grand jury.
U.S. PUBLIC READY FOR AN ARAB CAMPAIGN
An August 1-3, 1998 poll conducted for the Arab American Institute in Washington show that the attitudes of U.S. voters toward Israel and the Palestinians are now dead even.
JEWISH VOTERS IN THE 1998 ELECTIONS
U.S. electoral politics can be a crass and unprincipled business. A reminder of this fact came last month with the release of a strategy report by Frank Luntz, a leading Republican pollster.
WHAT AN ARAB SUMMIT SHOULD DO
It is well past the time for the Arab states to take a decisive stand to save the Middle East peace process.
A FATEFUL MEETING?
In September 1993 one half of Israel began a peace process with the Palestinian people, the outcome of which, though unstated, was inevitably to be a Palestinian state.
“ISRAEL AT 50”
American perceptions of the Arab-Israeli conflict were shaped by myth and prejudice. As described by one of Zionism’s founders, Chaim Weizmann in a 1930s appeal to supporters in the United States, the parties to the conflict in Palestine were:
ZE’VI SHOULD GO
On the eve of yet another round of peace talks with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited the leader of the Modelet Party to join his coalition government.
THE BATTLE OF LETTERS
The Clinton Administration’s as yet unannounced, but much talked about, proposal to break the impasse in the peace process may only call for an inadequate 13 percent Israeli withdrawal, but it has already created a war in Washington and deep divisions within the U.S. Jewish community.
THE WORLDCREATED BYNENTANYAHU
Twenty-one months ago, fresh on the heels of an electoral victory, the Netanyahu government embarked on an ambitious program to undo the Middle East peace process and reshape Middle East politics.
THE SCANDAL ANDTHE CONSPIRACY
The scandal that has been consuming Washington during the past ten days may well have been fed by a conspiracy. However, it is not the conspiracy widely believed by many in the Arab world and in parts of the Arab American community.
MCCARTHYISM TRIES AGAIN
In a tough-worded editorial entitled “The New McCarthyism”, The New York Times’ Anthony Lewis decried the decision of Washington’s Smithsonian Institution to bend to pressure from right-wing Jewish groups and change their planned lecture series on Israel’s 50-year anniversary.