Clinton Says U.S. Must Give More to End Terrorism

Calling terrorism the “dark side” of globalization, former President Bill Clinton on Monday urged Americans to promote international security by easing the world’s disparities in wealth, technology and health care.

The former president, speaking before a sold-out crowd at the Universal Amphitheatre, said that to reduce the pressures that drive the dispossessed toward terrorism, Americans must share their remarkable freedoms and extraordinary wealth.

“If you really want the world you want for your kids, the United States has to be involved in a world where we share the benefits and reduce the burdens,” he said in the address sponsored by the University of Judaism.

Clinton said that despite technological advances that could lift millions out of poverty, half the people on Earth live on less than $2 a day.

The former president was greeted with whistles, cheers and a standing ovation when he walked onto the stage.

Peter Lowy, board president of the university, introduced Clinton as “a great friend to the state of Israel and the Jewish people.”

Clinton is one of the most popular presidents among American Jews, drawing 79% of the national Jewish vote in the 1996 elections, according to a Los Angeles Times exit poll.

Among other things, the former president endeared himself to Jews because of his passionate interest in trying to resolve the Middle East conflict and his record in appointing Jews to his administration, said Rabbi Robert Wexler, president of the University of Judaism.

The Clinton talk kicked off the return of the university’s public lecture series after a decade’s absence. With Clinton as headliner, the school’s four-lecture series on the Middle East peace process became an instant hot ticket. All 3,000 seats at the original venue, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, sold out in 45 minutes. The university then shifted the event to the 6,200-seat amphitheatre and all those seats sold out too.

University officials denied reports in the New York Post that the school paid Clinton $200,000, “the most expensive lecture fee in U.S. history.” Gady Levy, the university’s dean of continuing education, said the fee was “in the neighborhood” of $100,000. The four-lecture series is priced at $180 for general seats and $2,500 for tickets that include a reception, dinner and picture with the speaker.

Other speakers in the series include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and political strategist James Carville, who ran election campaigns for both Clinton and Barak.

For many Jews, the lecture series offers a chance to hear an insider’s view on why the Mideast peace deal that seemed so tantalizingly close collapsed so abruptly. Since the Oslo peace process disintegrated amid the violence of the current intifada, a lot of Jews have become pessimistic about prospects for peace, many community members said.

In addition, Wexler said, a general sense of gloom among American Jews has been triggered by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the recent discovery of arms shipments from Iran to the Mideast and the world racism conference last fall in Durban, South Africa, at which attempts were made to equate Zionism with racism.

“Even in pessimism, there is always some degree of optimism because we couldn’t have survived so long without it,” Wexler said. “But our optimism has really, really suffered a blow.”

For Clinton, the event offered a chance to help shore up his legacy. The former president reportedly is frustrated that his image has been battered since leaving office and has launched an aggressive campaign to remind the public of his administration’s achievements.