“If Bill Clinton is looking for a job, he can come over here and run for prime minister. He’d win easily,” said a caller from Israel the other morning. “He’s still the most popular politician in the country.”
And he remains popular at home as well, particularly in the Jewish community, despite the controversies that plagued his administration. The peace proposal he revealed recently in a farewell speech to peace activists included items that made even the most dovish lefty followers uncomfortable, but no reasonable person could challenge the sincerity of his desire to help Israel find peace.
Nor can anything overcome the hysterical frenzy of the Clinton haters and those extremists who see any concessions to the Palestinians as selling out Israel.
No other president has been so closely identified with Israel’s search for peace. He may have been motivated in part by a desire to leave a historic legacy, but as one of the savviest politicians ever to occupy the Oval Office he long ago figured out there were far better ways to do that than by plunging into the Middle East morass.
Look instead to his relationship with the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who brought the completed Oslo agreement to Clinton with an appeal for help in implementing it. Clinton promised to minimize the risks for Israel and help smooth out the tough decisions. After Rabin’s assassination, Clinton’s commitment became a mission.
He can be faulted for pushing too long and too hard, especially after it should have been clear that he wanted peace more than the parties themselves, particularly Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat.
He wrongly relied on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s faulty political instincts and novice politician’s enthusiasm. The President ignored the advice of his own advisors, the Palestinians and some Israelis when he bowed to Barak’s desire to convene last summer’s abortive Camp David summit.
More recently, he has been trying to salvage a last-minute agreement before leaving office while failing or refusing to hear the window of opportunity slam shut.
Clinton consistently overestimated his ability to affect Arafat’s behavior, and he may have badly miscalculated the level of the Palestinian leader’s commitment to a genuine peace.
Clinton has succeeded on so many fronts by dint of charm and personality, and he thought he could do it with Arafat as well. No other foreign leader has been to the White House as often, and Clinton’s mistaken failure to demand Arafat pay more for that access only encouraged the Palestinian leader’s obstinacy.
“He played Clinton masterfully,” said a former White House official. “Clinton felt he was giving peace every chance, but, like Rabin, Peres and Barak, he failed to hold Arafat’s feet to the fire.”
Clinton admonished Arafat in his speech earlier this month to Jewish leaders, for fostering “the culture of violence and the culture of incitement.” But his persistent reluctance to deal with Palestinian incitement was interpreted as a sign of weakness and may have fueled the current crisis.
Echoing a hopeful Israeli leadership, he wrongly expected Israel’s surprisingly forthcoming offers would elicit positive responses. But his blindness to Arafat’s faults and deceptions may have encouraged the semi-retired terrorist to cling more tightly to his maximalist demands and let the Israelis negotiate with each other and with the Americans.
American and Israeli insiders say Clinton never pushed Israel without being encouraged by leaders there to give them a nudge and some political cover for tough decisions. But at the same time, Clinton mistakenly listened too much to some of his left-leaning Jewish friends who gave him bad advice on such things as his wife’s meeting with Mrs. Arafat and his counter-productive confrontations with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If Clinton was too intensely involved in the nitty-gritty of the peace process, there is a greater risk that his successor will be too disengaged.
Whatever his shortcomings, there can be no questioning Clinton’s commitment to Israel and its search for peace. He brought an unprecedented warmth and understanding, even as he demonstrated a genuine empathy for the Palestinians that won their trust.
A key to Clinton’s winning the confidence of the Israelis and the vast majority of Jewish voters was his high comfort level with the Jewish community at home. It is unmatched by any president, as is the affection and support he got in return.
That backing was bolstered by domestic policies that were in sync with most Jewish voters, particularly on issues such as church-state separation, civil liberties, reproductive rights, the environment, education and social welfare.
Jewish voters rewarded him and his vice president with nearly 80 percent of their votes in three national elections.
There were more Jewish officials at all levels of the Clinton administration than in any prior government; at one time there were six in Cabinet level posts, compared to none so far in the incoming Bush administration.
American Jews never felt on the outside during the Clinton years; that was particularly important since he followed a president who publicly questioned their patriotism.
He deserves enormous credit for his historic contribution to the struggle to bring a measure of justice to the survivors of the Holocaust after decades of frustration and inaction. His personal commitment and the intense involvement of his administration, particularly through the outstanding work of Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, helped end half a century of Swiss denial and stonewalling.
That personal involvement produced progress in such areas as the restitution of stolen property in other nations, compensation for slave and forced laborers, the settlement of insurance claims, the return of cultural artifacts and aid for the neediest of Hitler’s remaining victims.
Both the administration and Congress worked closely with the World Jewish Restitution Organization, representing both Israel and the diaspora, to bring about historic results.
I will leave it to others to chronicle Clinton’s many shortcomings. I expect history will judge this flawed president more kindly than his contemporaries. He alone robbed his presidency of greatness as he demonstrated that in Washington most of the slings and arrows politicians suffer are self-inflicted.
But the Jewish community should be very grateful for his stewardship, for his dedication to assisting Israel in its search for peace, for his contribution to the survivors of the Holocaust and for his undeniable friendship.