President Clinton had already finished addressing an international conference of Jewish delegates Wednesday when he returned to the podium with a stunning announcement.
After months of difficult negotiations, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization had just reached agreement on the implementation of the accord on self-rule that they had signed at the White House last September, the president said.
Delegates of the World Jewish Congress were momentarily speechless at the news, which had broken during the course of Clinton’s speech to the group in the Old Executive Office Building. But after a brief gap of silence, the group erupted into thunderous applause.
Clinton called the agreement “a milestone,” and then stepped down from the podium to shake hands with delighted delegates.
“This was an extraordinary end to a conference with the announcement of near peace in the Middle East,” said Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress.
Steinberg called Clinton’s speech outstanding.
The address by Clinton and one by Vice President Al Gore capped a WJC conference that also included meetings with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and members of Congress.
The biannual gathering of the group’s governing board attracted delegates from Jewish communities around the world, including those in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and Sarajevo, the beleaguered capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In his speech, Clinton discussed a range of topics, including the situation in Bosnia, ethnic hatred, the Middle East peace process and religious freedom.
The president congratulated Gore for speaking out against anti-Semitism and bigotry around the world. “People must realize and move beyond antiquated beliefs” of hatred and racism, he said.
Clinton said his administration has worked “very hard to build a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
He then outlined three of the administration’s goals with respect to that peace: minimizing the risks being taken by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, helping with implementation of the sel rule accord and encouraging progress in Israel’s negotiations with the other Arab parties.
The president also repeated his call for the abolition of the Arab economic boycott of Israel, which he said must “end now.”
“Israel must be a partner of these (Middle East) nations and no longer a pariah,” he said.
HEARING ON GLOBAL ANTI-SEMITISM
On the subject of Bosnia, Clinton said the United States would “begin to invigorate negotiations to bring about an end to the bloodshed and aggression” in the war-torn country.
He spoke as NATO announced that it would launch air strikes against Serbian-controlled targets unless Serbian insurgent forces lifted the 2-year-old siege of Sarajevo by Feb. 20.
Ethnic hatred was, in fact, one of the main topics discussed at the WJC conference.
On Tuesday, WJC leaders went to Capitol Hill and testified about the danger of global anti-Semitism.
In prepared remarks, WJC President Edgar Bronfman spoke of “the growth and spread of intolerance, racism and hatred of foreigners, and, as a central feature of that, the resurgence of the longest hatred of all: anti-Semitism.”
In 1993, there was “no slackening of anti-Semitic pressures in certain key trouble spots,” he said.
However, Bronfman also noted that “whatever the level of anti-Semitism, what Jews are experiencing is not remotely comparable to the discrimination, violence and abuse which are a daily occurrence for other minority groups throughout the world.”
Tuesday’s hearings before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its subcommittee on human rights were believed to be the first-ever House hearings on global anti-Semitism featuring firsthand international testimony.
WJC leaders from Europe, the former Soviet Union, South America and South Africa testified about anti-Semitism in their regions.
“What we wanted to bring out was the fact that instead of just reading about manifestations of anti-Semitism,” the committee “should hear from the representatives of Jewish communities,” Executive Director Steinberg said after the hearing.
The testimony revealed that “Jews are a barometer of the democratic process in any country,” he said. “Where Jews are not faring well,” human rights are also not going well.
Among the incidents specifically discussed at the hearing were the rise of Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the recent attack on Argentina’s chief rabbi in Buenos Aires and the recent erecting of a statue in Romania to wartime dictator Ion Antonescu.
Meanwhile, Steinberg said that the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), had pledged his support in efforts to regain Jewish properties seized by Nazi and Communist governments in Europe.
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