Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

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(12/05/2003)

Jewish groups on both sides of virtual accords lobby Washington about whether to meet with drafters.

James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent

The fierce controversy surrounding the unofficial "Geneva Accords" - unveiled with an international flourish in that city on Monday - shifted to Washington this week as peace activists worked to generate congressional support for that and other nongovernmental initiatives.

But some pro-Israel leaders, upset about the flurry of quasi-diplomacy, mounted a strong counteroffensive. Their first goal: to head off the expected meetings between top Bush administration officials and the principal authors of the Geneva plan.

At press time that effort seemed to be faltering in the face of an administration backlash against outspoken Israeli opposition to any meeting.

This week Israeli officials lashed out against the Geneva agreement and other nongovernmental peace efforts and urged U.S. officials to shun the Geneva authors, former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian Authority's former information minister, who were due in town late on Wednesday.

That prompted a sharp response from Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said at a Tunis news conference, "I do not know why I or anyone else in the U.S. government should deny ourselves the opportunity to hear from others who are committed to peace and who have ideas. I am the American secretary of state. I have an obligation to listen to individuals who have interesting ideas. This in no way undercuts our strong support for the state of Israel."

Washington sources say high-level meetings with Beilin and Rabbo are likely, despite the controversy.

But some Jewish leaders insisted such a meeting would undercut U.S. diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I've reached out to the State Department that it would be counterproductive for the Secretary to meet with them," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League."

Foxman called Geneva "a bizarre charade," and a "slap in the face of Israel's democracy and an encouragement for Palestinian intransigence."

But he said he would not object to official meetings with former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian activist. The two are promoting another initiative, a peace petition signed by both Israelis and Palestinians.

"These are grassroots efforts; they're not political," Foxman said. "But Beilin is all political; for him, it's about regime change."

But Henry Siegman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that meetings between administration officials and the peace initiative activists could "open up a debate in Israel that hasn't been taking place. That's why Sharon and his people are so opposed, and that's why a meeting in Washington is important."

Siegman said that a high-level meeting would also signal to Israelis that "the narrative they've been sold - that there's nobody to talk to on the other side - simply isn't true."

Congress Weighs In On Geneva

Also this week, Jewish peace groups were swarming over Capitol Hill, but with varying messages - some endorsing Geneva as a working framework for resuming negotiations, others supporting that and other unofficial peace plans simply as a spur to new debate over the best route to peace.

One focus of their lobbying: a new resolution by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) that "applauds the courage and vision of Israelis and Palestinians who are working together to conceive pragmatic, serious plans for achieving peace."

The nonbinding resolution also calls on the president to "embrace all serious efforts to move away from violent military stalemate toward achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace."

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), Rep. Amo Houghton (R-Corning) and others introduced similar legislation in the House.

Several Jewish peace groups rallied to support those resolutions.

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, a Chicago-based Jewish peace group, endorsed what it called the "historic" Geneva agreement and distributed copies to every member of Congress. The group also promised a "full-scale grassroots campaign to mobilize American Jewish public opinion in order to influence the White House to support the Accord."

Cherie Brown, a member of the group's board, said that the local chapter passed out copies of the agreement at a downtown Washington restaurant - along with Swiss chocolate - to mark the participation of the Swiss government in the Geneva negotiations.

The Israel Policy Forum was more restrained. The mainstream pro-peace process group was circulating a letter to the resolution's sponsors praising their expressions of support for "creative approaches" to peacemaking, but refraining from endorsing any specific initiative.

"Our view is that any discussions about a peace process are helpful, especially when they're focused on a two-state solution," said Jack Bendheim, the group's chairman. "But we're not endorsing any specific proposal; we would only endorse a peace proposal put out by the government of Israel." Bendheim said his group has not taken a position on whether or not the administration should meet with Beilin and Rabbo. But Americans for Peace Now, which pressed for support for the Feinstein/Capps resolution, argued that the Geneva accord is a complement to the administration's Mideast road map, not an alternative. "Geneva offers a model for the completion of the process that the road map begins," said APN assistant director Lewis Roth. Official U.S. endorsement of the Geneva plan would be "a painless way for the administration to send a strong message to the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority that they have to do better," he said. But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, while issuing no public statements about the Geneva plan or the pending congressional resolutions, advised its activists that "endorsing such back-channel ideas as a viable alternative to the road map and the vision laid out by President Bush last spring creates the illusion that what is holding up the peace process is a deficit of ideas. Moreover, it distracts attention away from the real steps necessary to move the process forward: direct bilateral negotiations." Medicare Debate: Just The Start Officially, the battle over a Medicare reform proposal that will dramatically reshape the popular entitlement program ended with last week's final passage of a bill that provides a long-awaited prescription drug benefit for the elderly, but which critics charge is a vast giveaway to big drug and insurance companies. But Jewish activists and a leading Jewish lawmaker say that the huge measure is just the beginning of a debate that will go on for years. "This is not the last word on the subject," said Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a veteran member of the Jewish delegation in the House. "When seniors begin to learn what's actually in this bill, they're going to be outraged." The initial phase of the overhaul plan does not begin for two years, Cardin said. In that time, he said, strong voter displeasure could force even a GOP-led Congress to take a second look at some of the new law's provisions. "The compromise that was crafted needs much improvement," said Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, one of few Jewish groups that registered an opinion in the Medicare debate. "We'll urge that the parts that are detrimental or ineffective be changed during that period." Both JCPA and the United Jewish Communities Washington Action Office expressed concerns about a payment structure for the new prescription drug benefit that could leave some senior citizens with very limited coverage, and the inclusion of "demonstration projects" in some cities requiring traditional Medicare to compete with private plans. Jewish groups are also concerned about provisions imposing a means test on some benefits, which they say could be a first step in undercutting Medicare as a universal entitlement. "Our assessment is mixed," said Stephan Kline, legislative director of the UJC Washington office. "We commend Congress for passing a bill that does provide a prescription drug benefit; that's a good starting point." The plan could also help some lower-income Jews who are still above the official poverty level, he said. "But there are things in there that are problematic," he said. Hadassah, the Jewish women's group that is heavily involved in health care issues, was blunter. "Although the legislation provides a prescription drug benefit for the first time, the benefit is severely diluted by large gaps in coverage and misguided efforts to privatize Medicare that will undermine the future of the program," the groups said in a statement