President Bush Asked to Clarify Remarks About Clinton Administration Diplomacy
Listed in: Other Domestic Policy, NJDC News, Press Releases
Washington, DC: According to the Associated Press on Friday, April 5th, "President Bush says the Mideast summit sponsored by former President Clinton resulted in a 'significant intefadeh,' or uprising, repeating an accusation his press secretary got in trouble for uttering. 'It wasn't all that long ago where a summit was called and nothing happened, and as a result we had significant intefadeh in the area,' Bush told Britain's ITV network in an interview taped for his weekend talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair."
"It may appear to some that President Bush is making the same accusation that White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer made in February and later apologized for," said National Jewish Democratic Council Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "Ari Fleischer very correctly noted later that 'No United States president, including President Clinton, is to blame for violence in the Middle East.' Fleischer was wrong to suggest that President Clinton's Herculean efforts to bring about Middle East peace were to blame for the Palestinian decision to resort to violence, and he was right to retract his remarks.
"We hope that President Bush on Friday did not mean to infer that President Clinton is somehow to blame for tragic decisions made by the Palestinian leadership. In this difficult time in the Middle East, we - as Jewish Democrats - have been very careful to support the President in this regard and to not second-guess every one of his decisions. We would hope that the President would want to do the same for prior administrations, and that he will clarify that he did not mean to criticize President Clinton's praiseworthy efforts to seek Middle East peace or to infer that President Clinton's efforts are to blame for Palestinian violence."
