This week the debate over gun control — already not a model of civil democratic dialogue — reached new depths when the National Rifle Association (NRA) accused President Bill Clinton of tolerating gun violence to further his own narrow political ends.
The all-but-certain nominees are now turning their sights on each other. The campaign for the general election will be bloody, but hardly inspiring; all indications suggest it will be another low-turnout, high-spending exercise.
Spending 90 minutes in a small room with Yasser Arafat doesn\’t quiet old qualms. In military garb and his trademark headdress, Arafat still evokes images of the stubble-bearded terrorist mastermind who caused so much misery and fear for Jews worldwide.
David Ivry isn\’t the slickest or most media-savvy envoy in recent years, but he knows what he wants, and has the right credentials to get it.
Despite what many analysts see as a modest conservative shift in the Jewish electorate, even some Jewish GOP leaders say the party could be poised for yet another disaster when the Jewish votes are tallied in November.
They were called \”Syrian-Israeli\” talks, but this week\’s second round of negotiations between the two countries was very much an American affair — in a storybook small town chosen by the White House, with President Clinton playing host and mediator.
So it was no surprise that when the talks were snagged over a disagreements over what to talk about, it was Clinton who held the negotiators\’ hands, cajoled, nudged and pleaded.
The revived Syrian-Israeli talks, which began this week in Washington, could be yet another false start on the twisting road to peace. Or the two countries could move with blinding speed to conclude an agreement that will transfer the Golan Heights back to Syrian control.
This week, a bevy of presidential candidates paraded before the Republican Jewish Coalition to display their political wares. The RJC did its best to pitch the event as a watershed in Jewish politics, but that\’s a stretch; in reality, the first election year of the new millennium is shaping up as a yawner, from a Jewish perspective.
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