Orthodox Jewish leaders complained directly to President Bush on Wednesday about Secretary of State James Baker’s recent statement that there is no greater obstacle to peace than Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
A delegation from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America told Bush during a 15-minute White House meeting that other issues are far greater obstacles to peace.
They include the continued Arab economic boycott against Israel as well there being no Arab country besides Egypt willing to negotiate directly with Israel.
Mandell Ganchrow, chairman of the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs, also cited “the continued fratricide of Arabs in Judea and Samaria, which does not allow an indigenous Palestinian group to come forward, to come to the bargaining table with the Israeli authorities.”
“All of these are far greater obstacles to peace than a few prefabricated housing units that may hold a few Jews,” Ganchrow said.
A day earlier, in a speech to 65 delegates attending the O.U.’s National Leadership Conference, Democratic Party Chairman Ron Brown criticized Bush’s Middle East policy as an “ally-of-the month strategy.”
“That strategy has left Saddam Hussein in power,” he said, and it has “left the Kurds fearing for their lives.” It has also left “our only true ally in that region,” Israel, “more embattled in my judgment than ever before,” he said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Clayton Yeutter declined an invitation to speak to the Orthodox group.
Before the meeting Wednesday, the O.U. was hailed by White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater as “the largest American Jewish organization to formally and publicly oppose” a civil rights bill approved Wednesday by the House of Representatives and opposed by Bush.
The O.U. represents 800 synagogues with nearly 1 million members, Fitzwater said.
Pinchas Stolper, the group’s executive vice president, explained that the high 1 million figure includes Orthodox Jews belonging to 1,000 non-O.U. synagogues or minyanim who identify with it.
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