Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 2, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 13, 2005 Page: 2 of 24
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TJP V59-01 01-13-05 p01-04 1/11/05 8:17 PM Page 2
-e
Texas Jewish Post
In Our 59th Year
January 13,2005
PEACE
continued from page 1
Sharon will have new flexibility to
pursue his Gaza disengagement plan
with the unity coalition, which brings
the Labor Party and United Torah
Judaism together with his own Likud
Party.
In addition, the leading opposi-
tion in the Knesset, which voted
58-56 to approve the government,
has made clear that it, too, will back
his plan.
On Tuesday, Sharon called Abbas
to congratulate him on his victory
Sunday. Abbas won 62 percent of the
vote in his effort to succeed Yasser
Arafat, who died in November, as the
president of the Palestinian
Authority.
According to Israel Radio, Sharon
and Abbas agreed to stay in contact
and to meet in the coming weeks.
In outlining the Israeli position
toward the Palestinians, Sharon has
made clear that Abbas must disarm
recalcitrant terrorist militias before
substantive peace talks can begin. But
Abbas says he hopes to achieve a
cease- fire without confronting the
militias, and that should be enough
to get negotiations restarted.
Sharon aides retort that unless
there is a sea-change on the Pales-
tinian side, a cease-fire, even if
achieved, will not last. Therefore, they
say, Israel will not re-engage in peace
talks based on the internationally
approved "road map" unless the
Palestinians take steps to ensure that
violence does not flare up again.
Those steps include collecting ter-
rorist weapons, ending incitement
against Israel and instituting key gov-
ernmental reforms.
A senior Israeli official told JTA
that Sharon sees a cease-fire that does
not entail disarming of the militias as
a dangerous trap, because then, if the
Palestinians don't get what they want
at the negotiating table, they simply
can revert to terror.
"Israel wants to take terror out of
the negotiating equation," he said.
"Unless the terrorist militias are dis-
armed, it's like negotiating with a
pistol on the table."
The official said the road map
incorporated proposals made by two
former American mediators, George
Tenet, who tried to negotiate security
arrangements between the two sides
in 2001 when he was the director of
the CIA, and Anthony Zinni, who
served as a U.S. peace envoy in 2002.
The proposals, which outline spe-
cific steps to crack down on
terrorists, stipulate how many
weapons have to be collected every
day.
"A cease-fire can't be a substitute
for action against the terrorist infra-
structure," the official said.
The official also emphasized the
importance of Palestinian govern-
mental reforms, arguing that they are
essential to enable the Palestinians to
control terror.
"For example, if they don't carry
out legal reforms, they won't be able
to try terrorists. And if they don't
build jails, they'll have nowhere to
put them," he said.
Although Abbas, like his prede-
cessor Yasser Arafat, shows little
willingness to tackle the militias head
on, there is no denying that there is a
new mood on the Palestinian side
that could lead to progress.
The buzzword among Palestinians
is "change." There is a widespread
belief that change is necessary and
possible.
In his victory speech, Abbas, who
won 62 percent of the vote, spoke
about the "struggle ahead" but that
struggle was not in confronting
Israel, or, in Arafat-like vein, in
sending "a million martyrs to
Jerusalem."
Rather, Abbas said, the big task
would be to build a Palestinian state
in which people could live in secu-
rity. "There is a difficult mission
ahead: To build our state, to achieve
security for our people," he said.
The mission, he said, means giving
"our prisoners freedom, our fugitives
a life in dignity, to reach our goal of
an independent state."
Abbas' strategy, it seems, will be to
get the international community to
press Israel to make concessions. He
will try to convince Palestinian radi-
cals that diplomatic pressure by the
international community is likely to
be far more effective than Palestinian
military pressure ever was or could be.
The key to future progress could
lie in how he goes about drumming
up this pressure. He could simply
aim for a cease-fire and avoid any
further reform.
But, Israeli pundits note, there is a
lot of talk on the Palestinian side
about state-building, reform and
putting an end to the prevalent
chaos.
One of the ways to do that would
be to cut the number of armed Pales-
tinian organizations from 14 to 3,
and place them under a single com-
mand, as the road map demands.
Abbas would not necessarily
disarm the militiamen, but rather
persuade them to join one of the
three new legitimate forces with their
weapons. If he succeeds — and that's
a big if—it will be extremely difficult
for Israel to go on claiming that he
hasn't carried out his part of the road
map reforms.
For their part, the Palestinians are
demanding that Israel lift roadblocks,
release prisoners and freeze building
on Jewish settlements. They say they
need these gestures to persuade the
Palestinian people that their new
peace-oriented policy is getting them
somewhere.
Abbas has said he is afraid Sharon
may "let him down" again, the way
he did when Abbas was prime min-
ister in 2003, by failing to meet
Palestinian expectations for whole-
sale prisoner releases.
Israeli leaders are signaling that
they don't intend to make the same
mistake again.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz
says he is ready to hand over West
Bank cities to Palestinian security
control as soon as Abbas says he is
ready. And Sharon says he intends to
meet Abbas as soon as possible to dis-
cuss security issues.
Clearly, if there is a breakdown,
neither side wants to be blamed for it.
Both the United States and Europe
have indicated that they will be ready
to help the Palestinians economically
and to aid them in carrying out secu-
rity and governmental reforms.
But whereas President Bush made
it clear that American aid would be
contingent on the Palestinians
fighting terror, combating corrup-
tion and instituting democratic
reforms, the Europeans have not laid
down any conditions.
For now, even if the Palestinians
don't stop the terror altogether, Israel
is likely to try to coordinate its
planned unilateral withdrawal from
Gaza and part of the West Bank with
them.
The question is what will happen
after that. If the Palestinians don't
fight terror, Israeli officials say, Israel
will simply "park" along the new
lines and stay put for as long as nec-
essary.
But if they do fight terror, the sky
could be the limit.
"They will find Israel ready to do
things that only a short time ago
seemed totally out of the question,"
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
declared in a recent TV interview.
CHERT0FF
continued from page 1
tools to protect our safety — and
also not to destroy our American
values."
Chertoff himself emphasized the
need for balance in his short speech
accepting the nomination.
"If confirmed, I pledge to devote
all my energy to promoting our
homeland security, and as impor-
tant, to preserving our fundamental
liberties," he said.
Chertoff has strong ties to the
Jewish community. Born and raised
in Elizabeth, N.J., Chertoff is the son
of a rabbi, his two children have
attended Jewish day schools and his
wife, Meryl, was a co-chairwoman of
the regional Anti-Defamation
League's civil rights committee when
he was the U.S. attorney in New
Jersey in the mid 1990s.
He lives in Bernardsville, N.J.
Beyond his Jewish ties, Chertoff
has an impressive resume: Harvard
Law School, U.S. Supreme Court law
clerk, partner with the law firm of
Latham & Watkins, U.S. attorney,
assistant U.S. attorney general. He's
now a federal judge on the Philadel-
phia-based Third Circuit Court of
Appeals.
But his biggest asset may be that
he is not Bernard Kerik, the former
top New York City cop who with-
drew his own nomination for the job
following sordid stories about favors
he accepted and women he pursued
— all of which had prompted criti-
cism that the Bush White House did
not do enough to vet nominees.
"He's been confirmed by the
Senate three times!" Bush exclaimed
with a smile at the outset of his
introduction of Chertoff, a rake-
thin, bearded and media-shy man
who hesitantly approached the
microphones to accept the nomina-
tion Tuesday.
Chertoff also represents a change
of pace from Tom Ridge, the out-
going secretary, who is considered by
many as a little too attached to sym-
bolism and the media spotlight and
not concerned enough with running
the unwieldy bureaucracy created in
the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Chertoff has a reputation for
toughness, and it is clear that Bush
expects him to tame the Homeland
Security beast.
"When Mike is confirmed by the
Senate, the Department of Home-
land Security will be led by a
practical organizer, a skilled manager
and a brilliant thinker," he said.
More substantially, Jewish leaders
say, Chertoff would bring a rare ten-
dency to reach out to an
administration with a reputation for
insularity. Many Jewish groups have
chafed at what they say is the Bush
administration's "with us or against
us" ethos.
Chertoff, a moderate Republican,
is well-liked on both sides of the
aisle.
"Judge Mike Chertoff has the
resume to be an excellent Homeland
Security Secretary, given his law
enforcement background and
understanding of New York's and
America's neglected homeland secu-
rity needs," U.S. Sen. Charles
Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a state-
ment.
Chertoff was the sole Republican
U.S. Attorney who Bill Clinton kept
in place after assuming the presi-
dency in 1993, on the
recommendation of then-Sen. Bill
Bradley of New Jersey, himself a lib-
eral Democrat, and largely on the
basis of his su ccess in pursuing mob
figures.
Chertoff also was the lead figure
in persuading Israel to send back to
the United States "Crazy" Eddie
Antar, the discount electronics
mogul who had sought refuge in the
Jewish state and was convicted of
stock fraud.
He went on to become a special
counselor for the Whitewater com-
mittee from 1994 to 1996, and had a
reputation for toughness, although
he quit just before that investigation
of the Clintons turned rancorous.
Still, Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-N.Y.)
was the sole dissenter in his most
recent confirmation, for appeals
court judge.
But Chertoff is not partisan in his
toughness: His 2001 investigation
into charges that New Jersey State
Supreme Court Judge Peter Verniero
had as attorney general suppressed
evidence of racial profiling led
Verniero to resign. Verniero had
been a prince in the New Jersey
Republican establishment.
Chertoff is a classic Rockefeller
Republican, a moderate who knows
how to talk to all sides, said David
Twersky, who was an editor of the
New Jersey Jewish News in the 1990s
when Chertoff was U.S. Attorney in
the state.
That political positioning makes
Chertoff the right choice for running
Homeland Security as the depart-
ment has come under increasing
criticism for heavy handedness, said
Twersky, now the international
affairs director for the American
Jewish Congress.
"On the one hand we have people
who say, Arrest everybody and
throw away the key'; on the other
you have those who say, 'Don't you
ever profile Arabs,'" Twersky said.
"The point is to find someone
who reconciles these different
imperatives. Chertoff is precisely the
guy to pull this off."
Stuart Deutsch, the dean of Rut-
gers Law School, said Chertoff
exhibited sensitivity to both sides of
the issue when he delivered the
school's 2003 lecture named for
Miller, the AJCongress president
who is also a Rutgers benefactor.
"The lecture was a historical
analysis of how we have swung back
and forth between security and civil
liberty situations," Deutsch said. "He
clearly felt that it was important to
react to Sept. 11, 2001; on the other
hand he certainly said we need to be
worried about how far we go to the
extent that we go too far on the side
of security."
It is also seen as a plus that
Chertoff, like Kerik, is from the
region most immediately affected by
the Sept. 11 attacks, and also the area
see CHERTOFF p. 14
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Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 2, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 13, 2005, newspaper, January 13, 2005; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188062/m1/2/?q=architectural+drawings: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .