Plea by Clinton Unleashes Ire Among Israelis

JERUSALEM —  Unwittingly stepping into an emotional minefield, President Clinton faced a firestorm Tuesday over comments that appeared to equate the pain felt by the children of both Israeli victims and their Palestinian victimizers.

In words laced with reconciliation and justice, Clinton intended to make a plea for Jews and Arabs to forgive one another. He spoke tenderly of children of Palestinians imprisoned for attacking Israelis, and the children of Israelis killed by Palestinians, and how both sets of children suffer loss and loneliness.

But the “I feel your pain” president apparently miscalculated the pain in this case. In the view of many Israelis, he was placing the murdered on a par with their murderers.

The U.S. Embassy switchboard was inundated with angry calls Tuesday. Protesters rallied outside Clinton’s hotel. And Israeli officials were undiplomatically furious.

Clinton’s comments, made Monday at a speech in Palestinian-ruled Gaza City, lighted a fuse across ideological lines in Israeli society. Israeli officials complained bitterly to Clinton at a summit meeting meant to cap the president’s three-day visit here; the issue helped poison an already tense atmosphere.

What Clinton said was that the tears of three little Palestinian girls who begged him to help free their imprisoned fathers had moved him. And so had the plight of the children of slain Israelis whom he said he had also met.

The continued detention of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is one of the most emotional issues in this region. Palestinians want their people freed as an essential element of peace. Israelis, with memories of bombings always fresh, remain extremely sensitive about the victimization of their people by Palestinian terrorists.

“Rage in Israel,” newspaper headlines screamed Tuesday morning. Callers to radio programs, including several who said they admire Clinton and support the peace process, said the president had made a mistake. Leaders of the opposition Labor Party joined in.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tried to explain the president’s intent, saying: “I think that what he was doing was drawing the parallel of the children being in pain and the fact that there were tears by both groups of children. In no way did he draw any parallel about the cause of the pain, because the president has made very clear that there is no room for terrorism or murder.”

Israeli television, purporting to quote senior officials, used some rather undiplomatic language to describe Clinton’s comments. One official allegedly said Clinton had become a Peace Now activist, a reference to a leftist group scorned by the Israeli right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office denied that the comment was made.

“How can you compare between a child of a murderer sitting in jail and a child whose father was murdered and will never be able to see him again?” Netanyahu was reported to have demanded of U.S. officials.

During the marathon summit in the United States in October that produced the newest Israeli-Palestinian land-for-security accord, Israel agreed to release 750 prisoners. But the first batch of 250 included a large number of common criminals, not fighters on behalf of the Palestinian cause, infuriating the Palestinians and unleashing a wave of violent protests.

Israel continues to refuse to free murderers, but the two sides dispute how many people that involves.

Meir Indor, who runs a small organization called the Terror Victims Assn., rallied a few dozen people Tuesday outside Jerusalem’s Hilton Hotel, where Clinton was staying. They stood in place for about four hours, hoping for an audience with the president. But Clinton was long gone.

“The comparison he made is a shame to the American people,” said Indor, 49. “Terrorists should not be forgiven, because to forgive terrorists only builds more terrorism.”

The Jerusalem Arabic newspaper Al Hayat, by contrast, published a large front-page photograph of Clinton meeting with the three Palestinian girls. Albright and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat are also in the picture, and everyone appears on the verge of tears.

The curly-haired girl who spoke to Clinton was 11-year-old Fida Zaqout. Her tearful plea for help in freeing her father was repeated throughout the day Tuesday on Palestinian radio.

Her father is serving a life sentence for killing an Israeli.

In his speech, Clinton said that both sides hurt. Neither side, he said, has a “monopoly on pain or virtue.”

In fact, neither side in this conflict has been particularly willing to acknowledge the suffering of the other, making the uproar all the more acute.

Nahum Barnea, a commentator whose son was killed in a bombing, said Clinton’s comparison was “unjust” because Clinton surely knows that “not all tears are equal.”

Barnea added that part of the problem for Israelis is the sense that they are being placed on an even footing with the Palestinians, whose relations with Washington are improving steadily.