More than 220 Jewish environmental activists gathered in Malibu last weekend for this year\’s Mark and Sharon Bloome Jewish Environmental Leadership Institute, sponsored by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL). Professionals from Jewish educational, environmental and outreach institutions came from as far as Canada, Europe and Israel.
As the deadline draws ever closer for Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak to present his government for Knesset approval, his coalition negotiations are taking some surprising turns.
The luncheon menu reflected the confusion this week at the Washington policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group better known as AIPAC. The main course was hummus, falafel and baba ganoush, a Mediterranean medley that seemed to symbolize Israel\’s integration into a New Middle East. Dessert, however, was hamantaschen — the Purim pastry that recalls Israel\’s eternal battles against sworn enemies.
During the wild victory party in Tel Aviv\’s Rabin Square on Election Night, a chant went up in the crowd: \”Just not Shas!\” Ehud Barak heard the same chant when he spoke early this week to a gathering of campaign activists. A booth with a fax machine in Kikar Rabin has already sent more than 20,000 faxes to Barak from his supporters, who urge him not to invite the meteoric Sephardic fervently Orthodox party into his governing coalition. Thousands of e-mails have been sent to Barak with the same message.
As the election dust settles and coalition-building tensions grow, religion is emerging as the single most dominant factor in Israel\’s current political cataclysm.
Tom Bradley was buried Monday, hailed as Los Angeles\’ longtime mayor, statesman, leader and friend. His is a grand biography; a son of Texas sharecroppers and the grandson of slaves, Bradley broke down ethnic and class barriers and forged a new multiracial political base that re-created this capital city of the Pacific Rim.
Anger over the stalled Mideast peace process has clearlycontributed to Arab states\’ reluctance to help the United Statesdeter Saddam Hussein. That is one reason the United States is nowpressing Israel for a serious and credible plan for withdrawing fromthe West Bank, it has been widely reported. Yet the Israeligovernment and some hard-line American supporters not only mistakenlydeny the connection between the peace process and the maintenance ofan effective anti-Saddam coalition, but they also neglect the factthat such a coalition is in Israel\’s vital interests.
Binyamin Netanyahu has made peace, for the time being, with his own disaffected coalition by offering the Palestinians a further West Bank withdrawal that is vague, qualified and conditional. But in the atmosphere of distrust generated by the Israeli prime minister, few are convinced that he has advanced the prospects of a wider peace.
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