c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ American Jewish and evangelical Christian leaders have rallied to the defense of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the White House should desist from pressuring Netanyahu into ceding another 13 percent of the Israeli-controlled West Bank to Palestinian control.

The support for Netanyahu came as the Israeli leader met here Wednesday (May 13) with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in another effort to break the deadlock in the Middle East peace process.

No immediate progress was reported after the 90-minute meeting, which followed by two days Netanyahu’s rejection of what was widely interpreted as a White House ultimatum to accept a 13 percent pullback.

Netanyahu maintains that anything greater than a 9 percent pullback at this point would endanger Israeli security. Both the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and a group of prominent evangelicals, including Gary L. Bauer and Pat Robertson, agreed.

The Jewish and evangelical leaders criticized the White House for seeking to pressure Netanyahu despite repeated assertions by Albright and President Clinton that they did no such thing.

The Conference of Presidents, a coordinating body for 55 national Jewish organizations, said”recent events and statements by United States officials have created perceptions of a shift in U.S. policy toward Israel.” The group, which voted 27-3 to send a critical letter to the White House, noted in a statement that White House insistence on a 13 percent pullback violates earlier agreements giving Israel sole discretion in deciding how much land it will turn over to the Palestinians during the current phase of the peace process.

The action by the Conference of Presidents marked the first time it has been overtly critical of Clinton’s actions toward Israel in the nearly two years Netanyahu has been prime minister.

However, a spokesman for one of the three Jewish groups that voted against sending the letter said national Jewish leaders are out of step with most American Jews, whom he believes support the president’s actions.

Lewis Roth, assistant director for public affairs of American for Peace Now, pointed to a new poll released by the Israel Policy Forum that found 54 percent of American Jews agreeing that the”current level of American diplomatic pressure”on Netanyahu is”about right”or”too little.” Eighty percent voiced”support for the Clinton administration’s current efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.”The survey polled 500 American Jews and has a margin of error of about 4 percent.”The American Jewish community, in terms of the public, very broadly supports Clinton’s efforts to push the peace process forward,”said Roth.”Regretably, there seems to be a division between what the Jewish public thinks and what the organizations who supposedly represent them are saying in Washington and New York.” The evangelical criticism of Clinton came in an open letter in which the White House was castigated for”pressuring Israel”to cede 13 percent of the West Bank”to Yasser Arafat in return for more empty promises”of Palestinian measures to combat extremist terrorism.”We believe it would be a serious mistake for the United States to change from its traditional role as facilitator of the peace process to using public pressure against Israel,”the leaders said.”This would be particularly unfair and counterproductive since Israel has kept the promises it made at Oslo”_ a reference to the Norwegian capital where the framework of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement was agreed upon.

In addition to Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, and Robertson, chairman of the Christian Coalition, the open letter was signed by:

Brandt Gustavson, president, National Religious Broadcasters; Beverly LaHaye, chairman, Concerned Women for America; Forest Montgomery, counsel, the office of government affairs, National Association of Evangelicals; William J. Murray, chairman, Religious Freedom Coalition; syndicated radio talk show host Janet Parshall; the Rev. Robert Schenck, general secretary, National Clergy Council; the Rev. Louis Sheldon, president, Traditional Values Coalition; and Randy Tate, executive director, Christian Coalition.

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