Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (914)	1/25/1998 3:04:00 PM
From: Mr Metals	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

It really doesn't matter to me. Just watch what happens and then post back to me. BTW, you have some stocks that will get creamed if what I think happens does. Mr Metals

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (914)	1/25/1998 4:03:00 PM
From: Mr Metals	Respond to of 20981

JERUSALEM (AP) - Will the Middle East peace process become a casualty of the burgeoning U.S. presidential sex scandal? Like practically everything else here, that's being argued about. Some view the crisis in Washington as a serious setback just as there were hopes of getting faltering negotiations back on track. Others say it makes little difference because the peace process wasn't going anywhere anyway. Because the region tends to be so obsessively inward-looking, questions surrounding President Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky are being viewed through the lens of Israeli and Palestinian concerns. And as often happens here, some are quick to claim there's a conspiracy afoot. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were in Washington last week for talks with Clinton just as the sensational allegations of an affair and a coverup began surfacing. Clinton has denied both having had a sexual relationship with the young woman and asking her to lie about it, but her reported willingness to affirm the affair in exchange for immunity from prosecution could leave him open to perjury charges and threaten his presidency. Just how quickly and thoroughly the controversy overshadowed other matters was explicitly demonstrated at Clinton and Arafat's joint news conference after their White House meeting on Thursday. With the Palestinian leader looking on bemusedly, Clinton fielded question after question about the sex scandal. The peace process got short shrift. In Israel and the Palestinian lands, the Lewinsky affair has for days dominated news coverage by major newspapers and broadcast outlets. Generally, the Palestinians believe they have much more to lose from the crisis, because they see relentless White House pressure on Israel as crucial to their cause. The Clinton administration has repeatedly urged Netanyahu to move ahead with troop pullbacks from the West Bank and rein in new building of Jewish settlements. The leading Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, in a commentary on Saturday, fretted that Clinton's distraction would provide a ''new escape hatch'' for the Netanyahu government. Palestinian leaders were trying to put the best face on the matter - even if the crisis should escalate to the point that Clinton was forced to step down. ''We don't deal with individuals; we deal with the office of the president of the United States of America,'' Arafat adviser Marwan Kanafani told reporters Sunday. Palestinian commentary - echoed elsewhere in the Arab world - has made much of the fact that Lewinsky is Jewish. Sheik Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the radical Islamic group Hamas, ascribed the affair to a conspiracy by the ''Zionist lobby'' and Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. If Clinton eases pressure on Israel, Yassin told reporters last week in Gaza, ''they will stop the scandal.'' More measured commentary from both sides emphasized the fact that crisis or no crisis, last week's White House meetings pointed next to a round of on-the-ground diplomacy by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her envoys. ''The affair does influence the U.S. administration's involvement in the peace process, but Clinton won't do the work of the Jews and the Arabs,'' lawmaker Haim Oron told the Yediot newspaper. Still, the theme of Netanyahu as beneficiary of the turmoil was getting plenty of airing, since the prime minister was a onetime opponent of the Oslo accords and has moved only reluctantly to implement them. One joke in circulation had the peace process caught in a traffic jam on a major Tel Aviv thoroughfare - which happens to be called Lewinsky. Other observers said the key to moving ahead with any accord lies with the Mideast principals, not the U.S. president. ''The American ability to meaningfully push a peace agreement has always been overrated,'' said Shlomo Avineri, a political science professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. U.S. pressure, he said, was usually only effective ''in the face of a major conflagration or crisis, or during an ongoing peace process with goodwill on both sides ... Right now, neither one is the case.'' Mr Metals