Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Voices That Must Be Heard" Articles Description An account of the resource The Independent Press Association (IPA) translates articles from the ethnic press (when necessary) and distributes them via web and fax newsletter to mainstream and ethnic press, government offices, nonprofits, and interested individuals. Voices That Must be Heard was designed by the Independent Press Association staff in New York City in response to the horrifying events of September 11. After Sept. 11th, Voices focused on the South Asian, Arab and Middle Eastern communities in New York. Since February 2002, the project has expanded, selecting articles from the broad range of ethnic and community newspapers throughout the city. Here, the Archive has preserved the Voices collection from its inception until November 2002. VTMBH Article VTMBH Article: Edition 13 VTMBH Article: Article Order 4 VTMBH Article: Title Dovish group snags dinner talk by U.S. Envoy Zinni, activists read coup for signs of Bush's tilt VTMBH Article: Author Rachel Donadio VTMBH Article: Publication Forward VTMBH Article: Original Language English VTMBH Article: Translator VTMBH Article: Section news VTMBH Article: Blurb General Zinnis appearancethe first before an American Jewish audiencewill come at a particularly sensitive time, as American Jewish organizations are jostling influence on Bushs Middle Eastern policy. VTMBH Article: Keywords VTMBH Article: Body U.S. Middle East envoy General Anthony Zinni is slated to headline a gala dinner next month at the Israel Policy Forum, the dovish American group that was once synonymous with the Clinton administrations Middle East policy. Scheduled for April 7 at Manhattan's splashy Chelsea Piers, the dinner will be the retired Marine general's first major appearance as envoy before an American Jewish audience. It comes at a particularly sensitive time, as American Jewish organizations are jostling for a position to influence American Middle East policy. Although IPF said it had invited Zinni two months ago, before he was sent back to the region, his appearance prompted ample speculation about what he would say and to whom he chose to say it. IPF, which was founded in 1993 to rally support for the Oslo peace accords, points to the Zinni appearance as a sign of its growing clout with the Bush administration. IPF leaders said that in the last two months they had been holding frequent briefings with top administration officials, urging a more active U.S. role. Organizations that have been cooler to U.S. involvement since the collapse of the Oslo peace process publicly downplayed the significance of the Zinni appearance. Those opposed to Oslo harshly criticized Zinni's acceptance of the IPF invitation. Privately, many say IPF holds little sway with the administration. By continuing to advocate outreach to Arabs in an atmosphere in which most Jewish organizations are highlighting the futility of negotiating with the Palestinians, IPF has set itself apart. While more hawkish groups have blasted the proposal by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah calling on Israel to return territories to the Palestinians in exchange for rapprochment with surrounding Arab countries, IPF officials have called it "a good example of how other Arab parties can play a constructive role" in resolving the Middle East conflict. [The Jerusalem Post reported that a Palestinian delegation had traveled to Saudi Arabia last week to try to convince the Saudis to include an agreement reached at Taba in the fall of 2000, when Clinton's team was still brokering the negotiations. The Palestinians reportedly urged that the Saudi plan include a "just, agreed solution" to the refugee problem, putting the Saudis and Palestinians at odds with Syria and Lebanon which demanded explicit endorsement of the "right of return."] Some say the planned Zinni appearance highlights a growing rift between IPF and other more mainstream organizations such as the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, American Jewry's main consensus umbrella organization on Israel, which has maintained a more cautious approach to American involvement in the Middle East. Michael Sonnenfeld, chairman emeritus of IPF and one of its two co-founders, said that he had brokered the Zinni appearance. "It will be the most high-profile, largest Jewish audience that he will address," Sonnenfeld said. "We've been directly in touch with him and with his people, and we haven't been given indication that he will not be there, but it's obviously a very fluid situation," added Jonathan Jacoby, a consultant to IPF and its former executive director. A spokesman for Zinni at the State Department did not return calls for comment. Sonnenfeld said he met Zinni at a State Department lunch last November, shortly after the general was named special envoy, and had kept in touch ever since. IPF has maintained particularly close ties to the State Department, whose Middle East division includes Clinton administration holdovers, among them Zinni's deputy, Aaron Miller, who has long been a friend of IPF. Sonnefeld said that in the last two months IPF had begun briefing "senior members of the administration" privately on a study that it had commissioned in June and will publicly unveil at the gala. Carried out by IPF independent scholar Stephen P. Cohen, the study, "Foundations for a Future Peace," lists "ten principles for Mideast peacemaking." These include involving the United States "as the credible, effective primary mediator" and encouraging the Arab states to play an active role. In its briefings with the administration, "we've received extraordinarily warm feedback about the insight and how helpful the results of this first phase of our study are," Sonnenfeld said. "I think the combination of the briefings that we've had, the participation by members of the administration through our weekly briefings and our materials have all combined to create a set of building blocks on which the relationship had been built." Jacoby declined to specify which individuals IPF had briefed. He said the group had met with "basically every key person in the State Department, Defense Department, White House and vice president's office that deals with the Middle East." He said the most recent briefing was with Senate staffers last week. Some hawks saw the Zinni appearance as a sign that the Bush administration did not have Israel's best interests at heart. "In politics, everything is carefully planned out, and I believe this has policy implications," said Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America. "Zinni speaking to a far-left group that supports one-sided concessions makes one question whether those are the real views of the administration that Zinni represents." "Just as [Former Prime Minister] Ehud Barak made his first major speech in the U.S. to the IPF, sending a clear signal of one-sided concessions to come," Klein said, "I think Zinni's choosing, as his first major public forum in the Jewish world, a group founded by the Labor party from the far left sends a very disturbing message." Klein said it was "a mistake" that Zinni "has chosen to speak to an organization that represents a fringe element of the American Jewish world, and certainly doesn't represent in any way, shape or form the policies of the Israeli government." "I hope Zinni will share what's really going on with Arafat rather than IPF trying to share with him their outdated philosophies," said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, a right-wing Orthodox group. "It's too much already! How can anyone honestly believe that Arafat's a partner that can be trusted?" For its part, IPF calls itself a "centrist" group and claims that it represents the mainstream of American Jewry, which it said was in favor of Oslo. "If the Conference of Presidents by consensus were to conclude that the most important thing that could happen in the peace process is that the American government be central to it, then I guess there never would have been an Israel Policy Forum," said Theodore Mann, a member of the IPF executive committee and a former chairman of the President's Conference during the Carter administration. Other groups downplayed its significance. "AIPAC thinks it's great that Gen. Zinni is addressing the Jewish community about his recent trip," said Rebecca Needler, a spokeswoman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby. "I make nothing of it except that they were smart enough to issue an invitation, and he accepted in advance," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "However, if he is successful he may not be here for April 7." To say IPF was the new address for the administration in the Jewish community "would be an overstatement," Foxman said. He dismissed the idea that IPF was overshadowing the Conference of Presidents in the administration's eyes. "I think this is making something out of nothing," he said. The Zinni appearance "doesn't mean that they won't be in touch with other groups and will ignore them," said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations, referring to the Bush administration. Rather, he said, "people who've advocated an American involvement are an address for this kind of presentation." Yet some of the same groups that downplayed the Zinni appearance have had their own share of bad blood with IPF in recent weeks. Earlier this month the Presidents Conference and AIPAC boycotted an IPF-brokered meeting in Washington with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after it emerged that the Egyptians had banned Foxman from the meeting because of his harsh criticism of anti-Semitic tirades in the Egyptian press. IPF representatives attended the March 5 meeting, which was co-organized by the American Jewish Committee, as did representatives of Americans for Peace Now and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Other members of the Conference of Presidents said they were agnostic on the Zinni appearance at IPF. "I don't think it's an endorsement of the IPF," said Mandell Ganchrow, executive vice president of the Religious Zionists of America. "I don't think it sends any statement except from the point of view of IPF. They believe in the peace process; it's something they're trying to push." The IPF dinner will honor Marcia Riklis, a Jewish community activist who chaired the IPF's study group on Middle East diplomacy; Gail Furman, a Middle East peace activist and clinical psychologist at New York University Medical School who has compiled a book of drawings by Israeli and Palestinian children, and Peter Joseph, a Manhattan investment banker who is the president-elect of the new Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. <i>The Forward is the English-language sister paper of the Yiddish Forward and Russian Forward, Jewish papers that cover the national and international news in Manhattan.</i> VTMBH Article: Line Breaks 1 VTMBH Article: Date 2002-03-29 VTMBH Article: Thumb VTMBH Article: Article File v13n4.doc VTMBH Article: Hit Count 163 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dovish group snags dinner talk by U.S. Envoy Zinni, activists read coup for signs of Bush's tilt 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. unknown Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. article Original Name The original name of this item. General Zinnis appearancethe first before an American Jewish audiencewill come at a particularly sen Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-03-29