Pro-Likud Jews, Christians Gather at ‘Unity Conference’

The National Unity Conference demonstrated that being pro-Israel is a relative term.

In contrast to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference held here last month, the recent Unity event stacked speakers against the peacemaking efforts of Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

Participants at the Unity conference, several of whom stood on the sidelines at the AIPAC event, hammered away at the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, the concept of a "new Middle East" and U.S. policy toward the region.

"The U.S. bipartisan Middle East policy appears to be geared more toward appeasement of the Arab demands for regional hegemony than toward a sincere pursuit of durable peace," declared the conference policy statement, which was unanimously approved by the roughly 200 participants.

The Unity conference, sponsored by Voices United for Israel – an organization of Christians and Jews dedicated to a "safe and secure" Israel – featured mostly supporters of the opposition Likud Party in Israel.

Among the speakers were Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America; Yigal Carmon, former adviser on terrorism to Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin; and Yoram Ettinger, Israeli embassy congressional liaison under Shamir.

At one session, Ron Nachman, a Likud Party Knesset member and mayor of Ariel in the West Bank, told participants that differences between Israel and the Palestinians appear to be irreconcilable because Arafat demands Jerusalem as the capital of a new Palestinian state and intends to bring another million Arabs into the territories formerly controlled by Israel.

He asked the crowd whether it would accept these demands and the audience responded with chants of "No. No. No." Nachman replied, "If that is the answer, then we are going on a collision course."

Several Washington policy experts provided analyses on issues related to the Arab-Israeli peace process, including Rand Fishbein, former special assistant for national security affairs to Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy and Thomas Moore of the Heritage Foundation.

Discussing policy statements, members pondered a proposal to condemn efforts by the Clinton administration to "interfere in democratic elections in Israel." That suggestion was dropped after drafters said it could alienate members of Congress from Clinton’s Democratic party.

The conference’s final statement urged immediate hearings "on the wisdom of our attempt to gain the assent of Syria’s Hafez al-Assad to a peace accord with Israel" and a move by Congress to cut off aid to the Palestinians due to "the PLO’s abject failure to comply" with the agreements it signed with Israel.

Outside the conference room, organizers sold copies of Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s new book "A Place Among Nations" and journalist Steven Emerson’s videotape "Jihad in America" about the Islamic fundamentalist network in the United States.

Representatives of two Jewish organizations, Jews for Judaism and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, protested the event, accusing some organizers of being "proselytizers."

Rabbi Phillip Abromowitz, director of Jewish communal affairs for the New York JCRC, also criticized the involvement of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem with the conference. The embassy, he claimed, supports various groups involved with proselytizing.

However, according to Christian and Jewish participants, there were no efforts made in connection with the conference to convert Jews to Christianity.