Analysis: Powell piles pressure on Israel
By MARTIN SIEFF, Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Sherlock Holmes was wrong in the famous story "Silver
Blaze." Sometimes the curious incident is not when dogs do not bark in the night,
but when they do.
That happened at the State Department on Monday, when spokesman Philip Reeker blasted
Israel for its latest incursions into Palestinian-controlled territory. The criticism
was expected and it came on time. In other words, the dog did bark when it was expected
to. But it was a more than routine occasion. Secretary of State Colin Powell was sending
two important messages to Tel Aviv and Capitol Hill.
The first message was that Powell was prepared not just to maintain his diplomatic
pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon not to retaliate against Palestinian
acts of terror, he was prepared to increase it.
Powell, who presided over the U.S. military as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
during the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq, remains determined to restrain Israel now against
the Palestinians just as the first Bush administration restrained it against Iraqi
Scud missile attacks then.
Reeker, speaking Powell's script, made that message clear. He called on Israel to
pull all its forces out of Palestinian Authority-controlled areas and demanded that
no further retaliatory operations into them be carried out. It was the strongest,
harshest language yet to come out of a State Department that since the Sept. 11 mega-terror
attacks on New York City and Washington, has become increasingly critical of Israel.
Reeker told reporters, "Israeli Defense Forces should be withdrawn immediately from
all Palestinian controlled areas and no further such incursions should be made." And
in a highly unusual and pointed criticism, he added, "We deeply regret and deplore
Israel Defense Forces actions that have killed numerous Palestinian civilians over
the weekend. The deaths of those innocent civilians under the circumstances ... is
unacceptable."
The statement angered supporters of Israel because it appeared to them to tilt unfairly
on behalf of the Palestinians. Reeker made no reference to the fact that the Israeli
operations were carried out in response to the first ever assassination of a senior
Israeli politician, Rehavam Zeevi, last Wednesday, right after he resigned as Israeli
tourism minister.
Reeker's tough language was also notable coming five days after three prominent
Democratic congressmen, Tom Lantos of California and Eliot Engle and Gary Ackerman
of New York, had roasted Assistant Secretary of State William Burns at a hearing of
the House International Relations Committee for operating what they said was an unfair
and hypocritical "double standard" against Israel for assassinating terrorist leaders.
They argued that the United States was acting the same way in its hunt for Osama bin
Laden and his al Qaida terrorist organization for allegedly carrying out the Sept.
11 destruction of the World Trade Center.
But no House Republicans joined the attacks on Burns and Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and
the chairman of the HIRC, while generally accounted sympathetic to Israel, is not
an outspoken figure on the issue as his predecessor Ben Gilman of New York was.
Reeker's outspoken comments Monday also sent a second message, this time to Capitol
Hill. They were widely seen in Congress as a sign that Powell and the administration
remained unconcerned by the Democratic criticisms of their policies on Israel and
that they remained determined to increase their pressure on the Jewish state.
Powell and his own boss, President George W. Bush, can still do that. Bush is still
riding high with 90 percent approval ratings over his initial conduct of the war against
bin Laden and al Qaida in Afghanistan. And Bush also enjoys the crisis and wartime
consensus of a population rallying around its embattled president. That gives him
-- and Powell -- a much freer hand to make controversial and even distasteful foreign
policy decisions and carry them through.
The clash at the HIRC hearing last week showed that Democrats are indeed prepared
to be openly critical of the Bush-Powell policies. Burns, an amiable and not particularly
forceful Arabist who is the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan, was raked over the coals
for his boss's policies.
Engle then said he was "furious at what he called the "double standard" that Burns
and the administration were applying to criticize Israel. Lantos, who had been a prominent
member of the U.S. delegation that walked out of the U.N. anti-racism conference in
Durban, South Africa used equally strong language.
He blasted another State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, for hypocrisy for
criticizing Israel's successful targeted assassination of Abed Rahman Hamad on Oct.
17. Israel held Hamad responsible for the Tel Aviv disco suicide bombing in June that
killed 22 Israeli teenagers.
"I am wondering what degree of hypocrisy prompts a State Department spokesman to
criticize an Israeli sharpshooter for successfully putting an end to the life of a
man who planned, organized and directed the assassination of 22 Israeli teenagers,"
said the Hungarian-born Lantos, a Holocaust survivor.
Ackerman used even stronger language. He said the United States was using a hypocritical
double standard in denouncing Israel's targeted assassination policy. He said that
when Israel hunted down "the miserable SOBs (who had ordered and planned terrorist
attacks) ... they have every bit as much evidence as we have (against bin Laden)."
When three congressmen from the same party use such strong language against a senior
administration official at a congressional hearing, as strong message is being sent.
They were saying there are limits to consensus and that even in a time of crisis,
such policies are legitimate targets for criticism.
But Reeker's attacks on Israel Monday sent Powell's answer back to Capitol Hill.
The Democrats there can blast his policies on the Middle East peace process all they
like, but they will not get anywhere.
Powell can afford to take that confident line because he knows that House Republicans
remain loyal to the president, including longtime supporters of Israel, and they are
not prepared at the present time to break ranks and join the Democrats.
Therefore, fierce as Lantos, Ackerman and Engle were in their language, they were
only isolated straws blowing in the wind. Republicans continue to have a majority
on the House of Representatives, giving them control over all its committees and the
power to set their agendas. And no prominent Republicans have so far joined in the
criticisms of administration policy.
Also, so far, no Democratic political heavyweight such as New York's Democratic
Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton has made any sustained effort to
join the chorus of criticism of administration policy towards Israel and the Palestinians.
And so far, the Democrats have not tried to make the double standard a major issue
in the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, which they control.
That can still change. Another major successful terrorist attack in the domestic
United States could strip Bush and Powell of the impressive but still superficial
aura of public trust they have built up since Sept. 11. And if the escalating campaign
against Al-Qaeda and its Taliban protectors in Afghanistan stumbles, then the political
gloves will be off against Powell's policies too. But so far, at least, the Afghanistan
military operations appear to be going well.
Powell has been criticized for caution undue meekness in cutting deals with authoritarian
governments like Syria and Pakistan in the hunt for bin Laden. But when dealing with
Israel and his Democratic critics in Congress at least, he has shown himself capable
of determination and sustained toughness.
His admirers say that is a good start. His critics counter that he should better
use those qualities against bigger, badder targets.
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