Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 3, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 17, 1991 Page: 4 of 24
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TEXAS JEWISH POST. THURSDAY, JANUARY 17. 1991 —IN OUR 45TH YEAR!
WASHINGTON WATCH
Jew ish Legislators
Split on VV armaking
Proposals
How did the Jewish
delegation on Capitol Hill
line up in last week's dra-
matic vote on a proposal
to grant President Hush
the power to wage war
against Iraq alter
Tuesday’s United Nations
deadline?
Despite a last-minute
lobbying effort by a num-
ber of Jewish leaders, the
pro-Israel delegation on
the Hill was split; a few
prominent Jewish Demo-
crats deserted the party
and voted with the
President, but a number
of other staunchly pro-
Israel legislators rejected
the war-making measures.
In the Senate, three of
eight Jewish members
voted with the
president—but only one
Democrat, Sen. Joe
Lieberman (D-Conn.).
Sen. Paul Wellstone,
the Minnesota Democrat
who replaced conservative
Rudy Boschwitz this mon-
th, gave the speech with
the most overt Jewish
content. The newcomer
referred to his own Jewish
roots, and urged the body
to ponder the Hebrew
word I'TIKKUN” In
making its decision.
in the House, there
were few surprises. Most
of the Democrats voted
against the victorious
proposal offered by Rep.
Robert H. Michel (R-lll.)
and Rep. Stephen Solarz
(D-N.Y.), which provided
the war making authority
President Bush sought.
Solarz proposal.
But there were impor-
tant exceptions—includ-
ing Rep. Dan Glickman
(D-kans.), Rep. Elliot
Engel (D-N.Y.), Rep.
Howard Berman (D-
Calif.), Rep. Mel Levine
(D-Calif.) and Rep. Tom
Lantos (D-Calif.).
But another Jewish
Democrat from Los
Angeles, Rep. Henry
Waxman, voted against
the proposal.
Rep. Solarz was the
most vc*al Democratic
advocate of the bill
favored by the White
House; his neighbor, the
equally pro-Israel Rep.
Charles Schumer (D-
N.Y ). voted against the
proposal. Rep. Gary
Ackerman, a liberal New
York Democrat, voted for
the Solarz Resolution;
Rep. Ted Weiss, a mem-
ber of the same select
fraternity, voted against.
Rep. Barney Frank,
who referred to the
coalition now arrayed in
Saudi Arabia as
“American troops and in-
ternational cheerleaders,
spoke out strongly against
the war making
proposals.
Rep. Larry Smith,
regarded by many as the
most aggressively pro-
Israel member of
Congress, spoke out
against the Solarz bill—
and indirectly criticized
Jewish groups who were
lobbying on its behalf.
It was a difficult, emo-
tionally charged debate
for most legislators,
Jewish and non-Jewish.
But for Jewish legisla-
tors, there was an added
dimension as they fought
to balance their concerns
about both U.S. and
Israeli security interests
with the political
unknowns of the unprece-
dented vote.
And just below the sur-
face was the almost pal-
pable fear of a major anti-
Semitic backlash if Jewish
leaders were seen as
taking the lead in pressing
for war.
“This was the most
decision I’ve had to make
in my 25 years in public
life,” said Rep. Ben Car-
din, a Baltimore Demo-
crat and a strong defender
of Israel on Capitol Hill.
Cardin voted against the
Solarz-Michael bill.
“I think we see risks,
either way we go,” he
said. “I’m concerned that
if we start shooting, Israel
will be drawn in, and I
don’t know how this
coalition will hold
together then. I’m
worried that if we start
shooting, it may have an
effect on concessions we
might make to hold the
coalition together. I’m
already concerned about
the concessions we may
have already made to
countries like Syria.”
Congressional Mail:
Opposed to War, But
No Backlash
standoff.
“We’ve seen a real
Hood of mail, and most ot
it has been opposed,” said
a lop aide to a Jewish con-
gressman. “But we were a
little surprised that Israel
was an issue in very few of
these letters.”
A recent poll suggested
that up to two-thirds of
the American public
would favor an interna-
tional peace conference
on the Middle East, if that
would prevent a Persian
Gulf conflict.
But last week’s mail
avalanche apparently did
not reflect that sentiment.
Also, congressional of-
fices indicated that fears
of an anti-Semitic
backlash as the nation
moved closer to war were
apparently unfounded—if
congressional mail is any
measure.
And the debate in
Congress, which was
beamed into millions of
American homes, steered
clear of the controversial
question of Israel’s poten-
tial role in the crisis.
“Some people have
been surprised that the
debate has not generated
any kind of backlash
against Israel,” said Mark
Talisman, director of the
Council of Jewish
Federations Washington
Action Office and a
Washington veteran. “We
tend to underestimate the
strong interest in the Hill
have in the security of
Israel.”
And, Talisman said, the
days of intense debate in-
dicated a good understan-
ding that in any conflict in
the region, Israel will be a
likely target.
As Congress conducted
its remarkable debate over
the president’s war-
making powers in the
Middle East, Capitol Hill
was swamped by an
unusual volume of
mail—most of it running
strongly against U.S. mili-
tary involvement in the
region.
But to the surprise of a
number of Capitol Hill
observers, that mail did
not reflect Saddam
Hussein’s aggressive cam-
paign to link the Gull
ertst* to the Arab-lsraeli
Bus Driver-Terrorist
Gets Media Whitewash
A, <h terrorists have in recent years utilized a number of imaginative new wavs to
5ou^
J On Januarv 4 an Arab bus driver deliberately rammed his vehicle into an Israeli
car on the Asheklon highway, killing one ot the passengers and wounding several
others Photographs ot the wreckage showed cleatly that the Arab bus vceied all the
wav across the highway’s white dividing line before striking the Israeli car. and
nolice investigators who interviewed numerous eyewitness concluded that the cir-
cumstances demonstrated that the driver’s action was intentional.
Immediately after the collision, the Arab driver leaped trom the bus, xhouyng
“Allah is great!” and swinging an iron bar at one ol the wounded passengers in the
car At that point, he was shot dead by an Israeli reserve soldier.
The biographical details about the Arab driver which appeared in the Israeli press
the next dav helped explain his action. According to Yedtot Ahronot, Israel’s largest
daily newspaper the driver, Mohammed al-Katamani, had been a student at Bir /.cit
University a center of pro-PLO agitation in Israel’s administered territories. In
1980 he was arrested lor anti-Israel activity, and he later spent time in East Ger-
many and I ibya. His brother, Imad. escaped last year from the Ketziot prison,
where he had been held because of his role as one of the leaders ol the PLO’s "shock
troop” squads in the town ol Jabalya, in the Gaza Strip. I he squads are responsible
lor organizing anti-Israel riots and murdering fellow-Arabs who fail to toe the
PLO’s line.
Yet none of these details made it into the American press. Yousset Ibrahim,
reporting for the New York rimes, claimed that there were two “entirely dillcrcnt
versions of the episode,” both of which were equally plausible. He gave equal space
to the Israeli version and to the Arab claim that the collision had been an accident
and that al-Katamani had been waving an iron bar because he was “frightened of
the mob approaching him.” Ibrahim did not explain how there was a mob
present, when the car that was hit contained a total of five passengers, one ol whom
was killed and four others injured. As for the details ol al-Katamani’s pro-PLO
background, Ibrahim and the Times were silent.
Some newspapers preferred to either emphasize the death ol the Arab driver, or
simply hush up the entire incident—as so often happens when Israelis arc the vic-
tims. The Philadelphia Inquirer published a four-paragraph news brief headlined
“Israeli troops shoot Arab alter crash.” The driver’s background was not men-
tioned. Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post confined the incident to a single
paragraph at the very end of an eighteen-paragraph story headlined “Palestinian
Deaths Increasing As Israeli Army Stiffens Tactics.” The Poston Globe published a
photo of the wreckage, with a caption that failed to mention that the Arab driver
had apparently acted deliberately. Perhaps the best that can be said about these ac-
counts is that at least they did not describe the bus driver-terrorist as an “unarmed
protester”!
Fair and balanced coverage ol the attack might also have mentioned that this was
not the first time that Arabs had used motor vehicles as terrorist weapons against
Israelis. When Israeli soldiers arrived in the village of Meithalun to arrest terrorist
suspects in March 1988, several villagers tried to run them over with their cars. On
August 18 ol that year, an Arab van tried to run down a young Israeli on Katznclson
Street in the Tel Aviv suburb Givatayim, and nine days later a group ol Arabs were
arrested for trying to run over an Israeli hitchiker on the Geha highway. In April,
continued on pop II
Ad-Hoc Group
Challenges Jewish
Leadership
Turf problems and ex-
cessive competition have
always been the bane of
the organized Jewish
world.
But if a group of young
Jewish leaders has their
way, cooperation will
someday replace fierce
competition as the norm
for Jewish communal ac-
tivity.
This week, the ad-hoc
group was scheduled to
take its first tentative
steps in that direction with
a meeting at the Israeli
consulate in New York.
The gathering is designed
to spawn projects that will
serve as the nucleus of a
new brand of Jewish
leadership.
"What we’re hoping is
«« WASH. WATCH u
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 3, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 17, 1991, newspaper, January 17, 1991; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth834638/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .