Albright speaks of ‘trouble;’ Ross heads back to capital

WASHINGTON, March 30 (JTA) — Just what did Madeleine Albright say to American Jewish organizational officials when she prevailed upon them to help convince Israel to take concrete steps forward? “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in trouble here on this process. We need your support,” the U.S. secretary of state said in a conference call last Friday with some two dozen Jewish officials. “We need help in having the Israeli government understand that we are doing our very best to protect their security and that this, in our best judgment, is the best way to go about it,” Albright said, according to an unofficial transcript obtained by JTA of the 30-minute conference call with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The extraordinary plea to ask U.S. Jews to help convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a U.S. peace plan came on the eve of a shuttle mission to the region by U.S. Special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents, downplayed the significance of Albright’s statement, stressing that it came in response to a question and not as part of her opening statement. “She was not in any sense making a pitch for a reaction,” Hoenlein said. “If a question had not been asked, she would have never said it,” Hoenlein said. Albright’s comments received widespread media coverage and renewed speculation about whether the administration was ready to walk away from the Middle East. In meetings with Netanyahu and Arafat, Ross failed to convince the two leaders to agree on a road map for an Israeli redeployment tied to specific Palestinian moves on security. Ross and Netanyahu reportedly never discussed the specific size of a redeployment because Arafat would not commit to moves on security. Israel has said a reported American proposal for a 13 percent pullback in the West Bank is unacceptable, while the Palestinians have insisted that they would accept nothing less than a further redeployment that would give them control over a third of the West Bank. Netanyahu on Monday played down reports of growing American frustration with the stalemate in the peace process, saying that Israel and the United States were not headed for a confrontation. Ross was scheduled to leave Israel on Tuesday and return to the State Department to brief Albright. Ross may return to the region in a couple of weeks depending on the outcome of a Middle East policy meeting with President Clinton scheduled for later this week. But the parties should understand, Albright had said on last Friday’s conference call, that the United States would not stand by indefinitely while the parties refuse to make the hard decisions an agreement would require. “I have to tell you, in all honesty, we are coming towards the end of the road here,” said Albright, who has had several previous conference calls with Jewish leaders. “I have to say that one of the options is to let them deal with each other and for us to walk away.” Albright, who at times sounded defensive of U.S. policy, attacked some members of the Jewish community, although not by name, for “portraying us as if we are shoving something down Israel’s throat which we are not. We are trying to make this process move forward.” Last week, Howard Kohr, executive director of the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, criticized some in the State Department for “their idea of promulgating a so-called American plan and then using pressure tactics to try to coerce Israel into accepting it.” In what some participants on the conference call perceived as a response to AIPAC, Albright said, “I am very disturbed by the sense of some people that we have somehow lost our rudder and have forgotten what is basic to all of us in the Clinton administration. “Clearly from the president, the vice president and myself on down, we are dedicated to Israel’s security and to the well-being of the Israeli people.”