While he criticized the summit’s “ad hoc” nature, Dole seemed to back away from the charge he had leveled just last week.
“Well, there were some good pictures, but does it fall in that category? I don’t know. I want to be very serious,” Dole said.
“The Mideast is very difficult, but it seemed to me, just as an observer, that, you know, before you’d call somebody to America, you’d have some notion what the end result might be.
“Now maybe it’s better just to get together and sit down and talk. Maybe that was the purpose, and I know talks have started again today,” said the Republican candidate.
Clinton replied with a strong defense of his strategy of support for the peace process and invoked the memory of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
“We have a very consistent policy in the Middle East. It is to support the peace process, to support the security of Israel and to support those who are prepared to take risks for peace,” he said.
“It is a very difficult environment. The feelings are very strong. There are extremists in all parts of the Middle East who want to kill that peace process.
“Prime Minister Rabin gave his life because someone in his own country literally hated him for trying to bring peace,” the president said.
The president went on to defend his decision to call the summit on such short notice.
“I would like to have had a big organized summit. But those people were killing each other — rapidly: innocent Arab children, innocent Israeli people.
“They were dying; so much trust has broken down in the aftermath of the change of [Israel’s] government. I felt that if I could just get the parties together to say, `Let’s stop the violence,’ start talking, commit to the negotiations, that would be a plus,” Clinton said.
In reply, Dole said he was “disappointed the president did not call for an unconditional end to the violence.”
Some Dole supporters in the Jewish community say Clinton’s failure to make such a call was an indication that the president had tilted toward the Palestinians and away from Netanyahu.
After the debate, spokesmen for the Democrats in “spin alley” — where each party produced celebrities to tell the media that their candidate had “won” the debate — asserted that Dole had backed off from what they considered “inappropriate” criticism of the president’s Middle East policy.
“Senator Dole backed away from his attack,” said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), who is a longtime friend of the president.
“Something was accomplished at the summit. It was definitely more than a photo op,” Lieberman said.
Spinning from the other end of the spectrum was Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), an ardent supporter of Israel. “Dole didn’t back down,” said Mack.
Republican National Chairman Haley Barbour minced no words in his assessment of the Mideast summit.
“It was a failure. The people can judge that for themselves from the results. The president shouldn’t squander the prestige of the United States in that manner. Senator Dole was clearly right in his criticism.”
Most mainstream American Jewish groups have praised Clinton for holding the summit.
But in the immediate aftermath of the debate, one group, which has been highly critical of what it believes has been Clinton’s unwillingness to hold Arafat accountable for violating the peace accords, quickly issued a news release to denounce one of Clinton’s comments.
Morton Klein, president of Zionist Organization of America, denounced Clinton’s claim that “innocent Arab children” were being killed by Israelis.
“Rioters throwing rocks and firebombs are not innocent children,” Klein said.
The two candidates failed to differ significantly on another issue of importance to the Jewish community: the question of school choice or vouchers for parents to send their children to private and parochial schools.
Most national Jewish organizations have traditionally opposed vouchers on the grounds that it would break down the wall of separation between church and state that protects religious minorities.
But some Conservative and Orthodox Jews have favored vouchers because it would help the Jewish day school movement.
In reply to a question about his proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, Dole said school choice was an important alternative to the current system.
Clinton said he, too, was for students “having more choices,” including public school choice and charter schools.
Clinton added that it would be “wrong” to take money away from public schools, which serve a larger number of students than private schools.
Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew who is an outspoken advocate of vouchers for private and parochial schools, said he was “very encouraged” by the president’s ambivalent stand on the issue.