c. 1999 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ President Clinton urged historic enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere to reconcile and work for peace in a National Prayer Breakfast talk Thursday (Feb. 4) that one of his spiritual advisers said was as much about his own impeachment problems as the global issues he cited.”I ask you to pray for all of us, including yourselves, to pray that our purpose truly will reflect God’s will, to pray that we can all be purged of the temptation to pretend that our willfulness is somehow equal to God’s will,”Clinton told more than 3,500 religious, political and diplomatic leaders gathered at a downtown hotel.

Among those on hand was Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whose attendance prompted some conservative Christian and Jewish groups to boycott the 47th annual breakfast. Arafat’s critics charged him with being soft on terrorism and had unsuccessfully sought to get his invitation to the event rescinded.

Following the breakfast, Clinton and Arafat met for about 20 minutes to discuss the stalled Middle East peace process.

In his remarks, the president made no reference to his own impeachment woes as he noted tensions between India and Pakistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea; in Kosovo, the Middle East and elsewhere.

However, evangelist Tony Campolo _ one of three ministers Clinton has relied on for spiritual guidance in recent months _ said he interpreted the president’s comments also to be about himself and the partisan political bickering that has characterized the impeachment process on Capitol Hill.”Beneath the message of peace and reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians, and in Northern Ireland and everywhere else, I heard a deep desire on the president’s part to see a coming together on the Hill when the Senate trial is over, as it appears it soon will be,”said Campolo, a Baptist from Eastern College in St. David’s, Pa.”I think he was really thinking today about people coming together across all sorts of lines so that they may work together to the benefit of all. It would have been self-serving to try and solicit support for his own situation here, so to speak of peace and reconciliation globally was the best path for him to have taken,”Campolo said in an interview.

As the president’s troubles have mounted since word of the Monica Lewinsky affair first surfaced just over a year ago, Clinton has, on occasion, used speeches before religious leaders as settings for asking for forgiveness for his own admitted wrongdoings.

That did not happen at Thursday’s prayer breakfast, a Washington institution largely organized by evangelical Protestants that attracts Christians from around the world, who use the occasion to network. Although evangelical in tone, non-Christians also attend.

But Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., an Orthodox Jew, took note of Clinton’s problems in his concluding prayer.

Lieberman asked God”at this time of difficulty for our president”to”hear his prayers, that you help him in the work he’s doing with his family and his clergy, that you accept his atonement.”Lord, we pray that you will not only restore his soul and lead him in the paths of righteousness for your name’s sake, but help us join with him to heal the breach, begin the reconciliation and restore our national souls so that we may go forward together and make this great country even greater and better,”said Lieberman.

In his remarks, Clinton talked about the need to overcome past differences for real peace to take hold. He asked his audience dining on fresh fruit, breads and granola”to remember that all the great peacemakers in the world in the end have to let go and walk away, like Christ, not from apparent but from genuine grievances.” As he urged his audience to pray for peace and those who work for it, Arafat and Leah Rabin, widow of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, were among the listeners.”If Nelson Mandela can walk away from 28 years of oppression in a little prison cell, we can walk away from whatever is bothering us,”the president said.”If Leah Rabin and her family can continue their struggle for peace after the prime minister’s assassination, then we can continue to believe in our better selves.” Clinton said”no faith is blameless”when it comes to claiming”God’s will”underpinned their attacks on members of other religious, racial or ethnic groups.”Martin Luther King once said we had to be careful taking vengeance in the name of God, because the old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.” Arafat’s presence at the breakfast prompted the Christian Coalition, the Traditional Values Coalition, the National Jewish Coalition and other conservative Christian and Jewish groups to boycott the event. Two New York congressmen _ Republican Rep. Michael P. Forbes and Democratic Rep. Michael R. McNulty _ also declined to attend.

Arafat’s critics said he has not fully renounced his terrorist past, and that his Palestinian Authority has freed prisoners responsible for terrorist attacks that have killed Americans _ an argument disputed by the State Department.

Christian Coalition executive director Randy Tate said that by inviting Arafat, breakfast organizers had provided legitimacy”to an unrepentant terrorist.” However, conservative radio talk show host Michael Reagan, President Ronald Reagan’s son, said the breakfast’s religious nature warranted Arafat’s inclusion.”As Christians, we pray for peace and love all human beings,”said the younger Reagan, who recently became chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, a leading Washington political action committee started by Gary Bauer, a Republican presidential hopeful favored by many in the religious right.”We’re here today to put aside politics and praise Jesus and hope he will touch Arafat as well,”Reagan said.

Tate and others had urged this year’s prayer breakfast chairman, Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., to uninvite Arafat. Largent declined to do so, saying Arafat’s name has been on the official invitation list the past three years. After the American father of one terrorist victim complained about Arafat, Largent invited him to attend the breakfast as well.

Stephen M. Flatow, a Jewish New Jersey man whose daughter Alisa died in a 1995 Palestinian terrorist attack while she was in Gaza, said he decided to attend the breakfast”because terrorists want us to be fearful of them. I’m here to confront Yasser Arafat and show him we are not afraid.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also invited, but did not attend.

Clinton’s remarks at the breakfast followed those of evangelical Christian author Max Lucado, who also stressed the need for reconciliation. He cited Jesus’ washing of his disciples feet as an example of reconciling behavior.”To wash someone’s feet is to touch the mistakes of their life and cleanse them with kindness,”said Lucado.”It’s the one in the right that takes the initiative. When the one in the right volunteers to wash the feet of the one in the wrong, both parties end up on their knees.” Also among the breakfast attendees from more than 160 countries were former senator and astronaut John Glenn, talk-show host Laura Schlessinger, Vice President Gore, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and a handful of foreign heads of state.

Prayers were offered for those who could not be there because of health problems, including Jordan’s King Hussein and evangelist Billy Graham. Prayers also were offered for victims of the recent earthquake in Colombia.

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