Israeli Premier Talks Tough as Clinton Lands

With impeachment talk swirling through Washington and a seemingly perpetual Middle East brawl awaiting him, President Clinton arrived in a darkly divided Israel late Saturday, his journey one of symbolism and substance intended to renew peace efforts and, just possibly, restore some luster to his presidency.

The waiting Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, greeted him with a diplomatically polite but no-nonsense message.

The Israeli-Palestinian agreement that Clinton brokered not even two months ago in Maryland is already teetering, and Netanyahu told the president, and an Israeli and international television audience: “You yourself, Mr. President, have wisely said that agreements without compliance are worthless. . . . In the last few weeks, our partners have not kept these commitments.”

Clinton largely ignored the prime minister’s tough language, pledging instead that on the path toward peace--and in the immediate attempt to revive the Wye Plantation agreement--the United States “will walk the road with Israel every step of the way.”

Accompanied on the trip by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, the president descended the long steps from Air Force One shortly before midnight, barely two hours after the House Judiciary Committee had approved a fourth article calling for his impeachment.

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said he believed that the president was informed of the vote shortly after Air Force One landed.

However, in the Middle East, regional politics and controversies are drowning out Clinton’s troubles. Israelis and Palestinians are far too focused on the peace process and the foibles of their own leaders to worry much about Clinton’s predicament.

A Weakened Clinton Worries Both Sides

Some Israelis and Palestinians fear that a weakened Clinton could lose the clout needed to persuade the two sides to adhere to the Wye agreement.

The Palestinians, enjoying what they see as a new and warmer relationship with Washington, are especially worried.

The nub of the trip will begin today, when Clinton confers with Netanyahu, with whom he has been at pains to maintain the simpatico relationship typical of U.S. and Israeli leaders.

On Monday, he will go to the Gaza Strip, becoming the first American president to visit Palestinian-ruled territory. He will confer there with Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority.

The substance of the Gaza talks notwithstanding, simply by landing aboard his Marine One helicopter at the just-opened Gaza International Airport, Clinton will stamp on the densely populated and impoverished refugee camps of Gaza the imprimatur of the White House. It will represent the most visible symbol yet of future statehood.

Even before he completed the negotiations in October that led to the resumption of the Israeli withdrawal from occupied West Bank territory, Netanyahu was under attack from the most conservative elements in his coalition, who feared that he was compromising Israeli security.

The uproar that greeted the Wye agreement has only intensified, threatening Netanyahu’s grip on power and forcing him to stall further compliance with its provisions. He might be forced to call new elections before the end of the year.

Arafat too has faced stiff opposition from Palestinian activists who feel betrayed that the agreement did not secure the release from Israeli jails of those Palestinians whom they consider political detainees. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated Saturday at the funerals of two young men killed Friday after a week of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops over the prisoner issue.

Handshakes to Come From Great Naysayers

Thus Clinton, who has cultivated a reputation for never encountering an issue in which compromise could not be reached, will find himself up against some of the great naysayers of the late 20th century.

Within the constraints of diplomacy, the Israelis could not have been less hospitable. Earlier in the week, Netanyahu had as much as said to Clinton, “Don’t come.” In the end, he traveled to Tel Aviv to greet the president, albeit with a frost to his words of welcome.

The schedule for the trip, Clinton’s fourth here as president, was established by the Wye agreement.

He is to attend a meeting of the Palestine National Council, where members will ratify an earlier decision to remove clauses from the Palestine Liberation Organization charter that call for the destruction of Israel.

One Washingtonian Calls Timing ‘Surreal’

The timing could not have been better--or worse.

Worse because the path of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is highly uncertain. Better because any opportunity for Clinton to project himself onto the world stage--and American consciousness--as a statesman cannot help but draw a contrast with the squabbling on Capitol Hill.

“It’s surreal,” claimed one Washington hand, a Republican veteran of senior-level White House service since the 1970s.

Among Israelis, the focus on Clinton’s political problems did not go beyond the impact they could have on the Middle East.

Yehoram Gaon, a Jerusalem City Council member and popular singer, said Clinton’s predicament leaves the president open to attacks from Israeli opponents who normally would have kept quiet.

Gaon used a weekly radio program he hosts to decry Clinton’s “great personal weakness,” which has left Clinton vulnerable to abuse while disappointing his supporters.

“Does this open the door to a universal mess, to a world that has discovered that the emperor has no clothes?” Gaon asked. “Sometimes so much so that we feel like shouting: ‘Why did he do this to us? Why did he collapse in front of our eyes, leaving us without a U.S. president we had leaned on so much?’

“Either way, we welcome his arrival, and it may be that he is better off here than in his own country, as at least here no one is trying to impeach him.”

Two blocks from the elegant Hilton Hotel, Clinton’s quarters, a group flashed an illuminated sign onto the walls of the ancient city center: “Welcome, Dear President.”

Also on Saturday night, a small group of protesters displayed anti-Clinton banners outside the hotel.

Al Quds, the main Arabic-language newspaper in Jerusalem, used an editorial Saturday to ask rhetorically whether Clinton will be able to exact concessions from the Israeli leadership.

“As Clinton arrives in the sacred land, he continues to fight to stay in the presidency, yet he can be proud of his country’s democratic heritage and respect for law. Will the American president be a new messenger for peace and restoring rights? Will he be able to confront a king [Netanyahu] who reneges on peace and international law? Will he be able to force him to release the prisoners, open the safe passage [between the West Bank and Gaza], withdraw from the land and stop settlements?” the paper asked. “Will the American president begin his trip with a new history that enables him to regain the trust of his country and to face the dragon of war in the Holy Land . . . or was he too late for all of this?”

Peace Dominates Talk in Jerusalem

On the streets of Jerusalem, people were blase Saturday about Clinton’s predicament but wondered what effect it will have on the peace process.

Many thought the pressure to salvage his reputation will force him to work for peace in the region.

“If he were to be impeached, this could even stop the peace process,” worried Eran Himmel, a 27-year-old economics student at Hebrew University. “But one of the good things about the [Monica] Lewinsky story is that it obliges him to produce positive headlines in the world.”

Eyli Hasson, a newly graduated aspiring political consultant, also took the silver-lining approach. “Politically, he has to score points, and the peace process could put a notch in his belt,” she said. “The peace process is one way for him to get immediate results, even though the average American Joe does not necessarily care about the peace process.”

Despite such concerns about Clinton’s future, U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley said that the president’s message of reconciliation will reach the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. However, he acknowledged that the impeachment debate will frame the trip.

“I’m not trying to be unrealistic,” said Daley, who accompanied Clinton to conduct separate meetings intended to encourage investment in Gaza. “It will be an issue that will dominate the weekend.”

Aboard Air Force One, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) told reporters: “Certainly, there’s going to be a lot on [the president’s] mind, and a lot churning inside him.”

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said: “It’s not that he projects arrogance. He projects obliviousness.”

Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.), among the small group of Republicans who have not disclosed how they will vote on impeachment, was invited along, and he said he will announce his decision after the trip--which concludes Tuesday--but before the vote.

“I’m sure he’s laboring under a good deal of anxiety, about this trip and about the outcome of the vote,” Lazio said of the president.

He added that if Clinton admitted that he had lied in his statements about his relationship with Lewinsky, “it would be an important statement. The president must look himself in the mirror and decide what’s more important--his career or the health and future of the country.”

As the trip and the House committee’s vote came together, Clinton was described by an acquaintance as being much more concerned than he was being portrayed by his aides, and as expressing amazement that the move to impeach him had gone as far as it had after the congressional elections trimmed the Republicans to a razor-thin majority and polls showed across-the-board opposition to impeachment.

“There’s a certain depressed sense. Everybody thought it was over, and this is like a train that won’t slow down,” said the acquaintance, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

So, as the Clintons left Washington before sunrise, with the morning headlines aboard Air Force One reporting the Judiciary Committee’s first votes on articles of impeachment, the White House senior staff had only an innate optimism and the adrenalin of a foreign journey to keep them on keel.

“I think we’re going to win,” one Clinton advisor said before the trip began. “Don’t ask me how.”

Times staff writer Rebecca Trounson contributed to this report.

* APPOINTMENT IN GAZA: Ex-guerrillas will be among those who greet Clinton. A36