Jews not allowed at negotiating table?

S. BERT GORMAN

I recently found myself thinking again about President Bush's recent "road map for peace" meeting in Egypt. The meetings were hosted by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and attended by several key regional leaders including Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah, Bahrain's King Hamad, and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz. Conspicuously absent and not invited to this important meeting was a major player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Can anyone guess who that non-invited party was?

Of course, the non-invited party was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Not only was he not invited, most of the participating leaders stipulated before the "road map for peace" meeting that they would not attend if Sharon was invited. Therefore, Sharon had to wait in the wings until the following day to meet with Bush, Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah on Jordanian soil.

With this official "snubbing" of Ariel Sharon by the region's leaders, a thoughtful person must now address a most troubling series of questions. Did they refuse to meet with Sharon because he is Sharon or because he is a Jew? Would these same Middle Eastern leaders have agreed to the meeting if some other high-ranking member of the Israeli government had attended in Sharon's place?

Perhaps a case could be made for their unwillingness to allow Sharon to attend the meeting because of their hatred of him and his policies towards Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian people. On the other hand, if these same leaders would not meet with Sharon because he is a Jew, then one needs to think very carefully about the present and far-reaching implications of such a refusal. How can Israel's neighbors accept and recognize a Jewish State on lands that they consider to be their personal back yard, if they refuse to directly meet in person with the leader of Israel?

Consider the following. Assume for a moment that Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, becomes the Democratic presidential nominee and then goes on to defeat George W. Bush in the presidential election.

If leaders in the Middle East would not meet with Sharon based on the fact that he is a Jew, how could Americans expect these same leaders to meet with a president who is also a Jew? Would a Jewish American president allow them the right to dictate to America which of our leaders they will deal with based on religious beliefs? I think not. This being the case, why then did the Bush administration allow them to dictate which leaders they would meet with and which leaders they would reject at the "road map for peace" meetings?

This commentary is not about the electability of Lieberman. The most compelling questions to be considered isn't the political future of Lieberman, but rather why wasn't Sharon invited to attend a meeting that most directly affects the future of Israel, Jews and the Palestinian people? Why did Bush agree to attend a meeting that excluded one of the central parties to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict? If Sharon was not invited to the meeting because he is a Jew, then these regional leaders have just shown their "hand" - and the "hand" they are showing does not bode well for the future of Israel and Jews all over the world.

If these leaders where committed to accepting Israel in their midst, they could have shown the world that they were serious about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by inviting Sharon to be part of the "road map for peace" meetings.

Bush should have insisted that Sharon be included in that meeting.

Until all of the Middle East leaders are prepared to meet face to face with the leader of Israel, whomever that might be, I remain highly suspicious and skeptical of their motives and desire for peaceful solutions to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I strongly suspect that the families of more than 700 innocent dead Israeli citizens at the hands of Palestinian terrorists are equally suspicious of the regional leaders' intentions.

S. Bert Gorman, Peoria resident, can be reached at gfsinc@cox.net

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