Netanyahu Calls for Expulsion of Arafat

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew thunderous applause Sunday when he told an audience of more than 2,000 Jewish donors that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat should be expelled from the Holy Land.

“He should be thrown out,” said Netanyahu, who spoke at the Century Plaza Hotel as part of a multinational tour to drum up support for the Jewish state. “That is what we should do.”

Netanyahu’s words were a welcome call to action for many in the audience, who said the media and the U.S. government have been overly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. They say President Bush should be more supportive of Israel, the only democratically elected government in the region.

“We need to let Israel do what it needs to do,” said Eric Klein, 42, a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles. “We can’t well fight terrorism in one part of the world and ignore terrorism in another part.”

Netanyahu spoke as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made his way to Washington for meetings this week with Bush about the Mideast peace process. Bush supports an Arab initiative to recognize Israel in exchange for territorial concessions and the creation of a Palestinian state.

Bush administration officials have opposed the idea of exiling Arafat, arguing that regardless of his record, Israel will be unable to make peace with the Palestinians without dealing with him. Sharon has personally favored the idea of exiling Arafat, but has held off at U.S. urging--one of several actions that have opened him to criticism from political figures on the right, most notably Netanyahu.

The speech, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, was the public kickoff of a $10-million fund-raising drive to aid victims of terror in Israel. The federation said it will use the funds to upgrade medical facilities, provide security at schools and synagogues, counsel terror victims and enhance mobile clinics.

The event also served as a somber remembrance of Jewish victims of suicide bombs. Photographs of the victims were projected onto the walls of the hotel’s grand ballroom, and each table had a fact sheet with personal information about those victims.

Among the speakers was Alan Hayman, whose daughter died in a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizzeria in August.

“There can be no doubt about where responsibility for the violence in the region lies,” said Hayman, a retired engineer.

His daughter, Shoshana Greenbaum, grew up in an Orthodox community in Los Angeles and had taught at Emek Hebrew Academy in Sherman Oaks. A student at Yeshiva University, she had been completing a study trip to Israel and was five months pregnant with her first child.

Audience members paid at least $50 to hear Netanyahu speak, and they were solicited for additional contributions. The former prime minister also spoke at a dinner Saturday night, which raised nearly $2million. And earlier Sunday, he privately briefed the federation’s largest donors, who give more than $25,000 annually.

“It’s very gratifying, but these are very tough times,” said Herbert Gelfand, chairman of the federation’s Jews in Crisis campaign, which began last month.

Citing an increase in anti-Semitism throughout Europe and rewards given by Iraq to the families of suicide bombers, Gelfand said Jews see the current Mideast crisis as a “call to arms.”

“The Jews of the world will never forget the Holocaust,” Gelfand said, adding that many Jews failed to act as Nazis slaughtered their brethren. “This is going to be different.”

In April alone, Jews nationwide raised $100 million for Israel, according to H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, director of media affairs for United Jewish Communities. The organization has taken in $5 million daily for its Israel Emergency Campaign since April 8.

Many synagogues are participating in the Jews in Crisis campaign. Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles said his congregation raised more than $1.5 million in humanitarian aid last month. Members of the synagogue will soon travel to Israel to visit victims of terror in the hospital and get a firsthand look at the physical damage and economic fallout from the Mideast crisis.

At Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Wolpe said, bomb victims require costly injections because nails in some suicide bombs are tipped with rat poison. “We can make sure they are never in short supply” of treatment, Wolpe said.

Netanyahu said it is wrongheaded for the Bush administration to continue dealing with Arafat on the theory that he is the democratically elected leader of the Palestinian people.

Adolf Hitler, he noted, was also democratically elected by the people of Germany before World War II.

“We don’t deal with these people,” he said. “We throw them out.”

Netanyahu has taken his message about Arafat to the Capitol in Washington and to numerous television programs. Last week, he criticized Sharon’s decision to allow Arafat to leave his compound in Ramallah after a month in confinement.

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Times staff writer Zanto Peabody contributed to this report.