Behind the Headlines: Advances and Ambiguities Mark Clinton’s Policy Onjerusalem

The Clinton administration appears to have quietly changed previous American policy toward Jerusalem.

In a series of small but precedent-shattering moves, the administration has indicated that it has moved closer to the Israeli position that Jerusalem is one united city and the country’s eternal capital.

It has done so while publicly denying any shift has occurred.

For its efforts, the Clinton administration has been condemned in the Arab world for accommodating Israel – and been condemned by many in the Jewish community for not moving far enough.

In meetings with Jewish leaders last month, Clinton seemed to become the first sitting U.S. president to endorse Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, by saying he stood by his remarks on the topic from two years before.

Then, he had told Jewish leaders that “I recognize Jerusalem as an undivided city, the eternal capital of Israel, and I believe in the principle of moving our embassy to Jerusalem.”

But then he was on the campaign trail, and for a presidential candidate, he was breaking no new ground.

“Every candidate has told us that,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“This is the first time a president once elected had said it,” said Hoenlein.

A month earlier, the American ambassador to Israel broke long-standing tradition and crossed the unmarked 1967 border to address a group of visiting Jewish leaders. American officials had in the past demanded that groups meet them in the western part of Jerusalem, fearing that conducting official business in east Jerusalem would convey assent to Israel’s annexation of the area after the 1967 Six-Day War.

In March, for the first time in nearly a decade, the United States demanded a paragraph-by-paragraph vote on a U.N. Security Council resolution, in order to abstain from a paragraph referring to Jerusalem as “occupied” territory.

The United States had several times in the past approved similar resolutions. This time, Ambassador Madeleine Albright said the resolution would have merited an outright veto had the offensive language been in the operative part of the resolution, rather than in the preamble.

The operative portion of the resolution, which the United States supported, condemned the February 25 massacre in Hebron and called for an international presence in that West Bank city.

Neither Clinton’s assurances to American Jewish leaders, nor the Security Council abstention, nor the ambassador’s talk in east Jerusalem, changes the fact that the American embassy remains in Tel Aviv.

That public denial of Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital is an outgrowth of international refusal to accept Israel’s 1948 conquest of western Jerusalem, which the United Nations had voted should be internationalized.

Nor has the bottom line been modified: America believes the issue should be settled by negotiations, and that while America supports “a united Jerusalem, it doesn’t say – under Jewish sovereignty,” as Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, explained.

Since 1948, negotiations over Jerusalem have seemed an unlikely prospect, and a safe place to assign a diplomatic hot potato which aroused strong emotions among both Jews and Arabs.

But now, say Foxman and other American Jewish leaders, the question of Jerusalem is taking on renewed importance since the city is formally on the agenda for “final-status” negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, as agreed to in the declaration of principles signed by the two sides last fall.

Those final-status issues are scheduled to begin in the third year after Israeli withdrawal from Jericho and the Gaza Strip is concluded.

And in this context, the details of American policy “make a big difference,” said Hoenlein.

“It makes a big difference in terms of what the demands of the Arabs will be, what their expectations are. It has a big effect on the Arab perception of the pressure they think they can bring to bear,” said Hoenlein.

The Arab world was quick to see the nuances of the American abstention from the Security Council resolution and the statements to Jewish leaders as policy shifts.

After Israel Radio reported that Clinton had endorsed Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal, undivided capital in one of his meetings with Jewish leaders, the Cairo paper Al-Ahram Al-Masati spoke out in alarm.

“If this statement is true,” wrote the paper, “then it means there has been a radical change in the U.S. stand on the Jerusalem issue and it also represents a real catastrophe for all the Arab and Islamic countries and the (Palestine Liberation Organization) too.”

The lower house of Jordan’s parliament passed a measure March 22 condemning the U.S. abstention from the Security Council vote, saying it signaled a “clear change in the American stand.”

And King Hussein of Jordan pointedly attacked PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat for insisting that Jerusalem be in the Security Council resolution and provoking the American abstention.

At the same time, the stealth policy shift by the United States – if it is indeed that – may also illustrate something about the diplomatic sensitivities concerning Jerusalem in general.

Because the administration has been stoutly denying there has been any change in its policy on Jerusalem.

When the American ambassador traveled to the Hyatt Hotel in east Jerusalem to address the Conference of Presidents in February, he explicitly denied that his precedent-shattering cross-town trip denoted a change in policy.

And while American Jewish leaders applauded Clinton and Vice President Al Gore for reaffirming their commitment to Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal undivided capital, both Clinton and Gore refrained from using the words eternal, undivided or capital in their March meetings with Jewish leaders.

The meetings failed to provide a “sound bite” in which the American leader could be directly quoted as saying that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

Both publicly and privately, Clinton would only say that “my position has not changed on that issue.”

Asked whether there was a contradiction between Clinton simultaneously affirming his campaign position that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, and the classic State Department position that Jerusalem’s status should be determined by negotiations, Richard LeBaron, a State Department spokesman, responded: “We don’t find it useful to make statements publicly about that.”

This ambiguity has itself long been American policy, according to former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, who served in the Reagan administration.

“Washington recognizes how volatile the issue is,” Murphy told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They try not to get drawn into talks about what is the American position.”

“Ever since I followed the issue it was stated that the status of Jerusalem was to be settled in negotiations. Period. It was determined that to take one side or another was not going to be helpful for negotiations,” said Murphy, who is now a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Murphy said he did not believe that Clinton’s statements to Jewish groups last month constituted a policy change.

“If you ask Clinton, `Do you believe the status of Jerusalem should be settled in negotiations?” he would say yes. There’s no contradiction between saying that and saying it is the capital of Israel. You get caught up in follow-up questions, such as, `can Jerusalem be a co-capital'” of both Israel and a Palestinian entity, said Murphy.

George Gruen, a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute, believes that Clinton has “in a sense been more supportive of the Israeli position.”

But Gruen added that Clinton “has left open that big loophole that the final status should be negotiated. If the Israelis make concessions on Jerusalem, I don’t think the Americans will go to arms against them.”

Gruen sketched out American policy regarding Jerusalem in a study he wrote for the American Jewish Committee last year titled “Jerusalem and the Peace Process.”

The United States, wrote Gruen, “has consistently maintained that the city of Jerusalem should remain physically unified, but that its final status must be determined by negotiation and should not be prejudiced through unilateral action on any side.”

However, continued Gruen, “there has been far less consistency in American statements on such controversial issues as sovereignty over the city, whether or not Israel has the right to construct housing and move Jews into East Jerusalem, the role of East Jerusalem Palestinians in elections for an interim self-governing authority, and their participation as delegates in the peace negotiations.”

For Foxman of the ADL, the president’s words matter, even if they do not reflect any change in policy.

“At this point, the issue is posturing,” he said. “What all sides want to do is to build as much momentum on their sides. “There is more atmospherics than reality, because we haven’t come to the end of days when it will be determined. You build a layer and another layer,” said Foxman, “so the record is built.”

“This is what this is all about. We know it’s ambiguous, but it’s an ambiguity we can live with,” he said.