Arafat and the Holocaust Museum (Cont'd)
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In his Oct. 19 letter, "Arafat and the Holocaust Museum," Afif Safieh, head of the PLO Mission to the United States, claimed that "on an official visit to Washington in 1998, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expressed a strong desire to visit" the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, "but his request was rejected by the museum." I was the director of the museum at the time and feel obliged to correct Mr. Safieh's misstatement of those events.
Yasser Arafat didn't request a visit to the Holocaust Museum. Before he came to the United States, he was invited by White House and State Department officials -- who were also presidentially appointed members of the museum's board of trustees -- with the agreement of the board's presidentially appointed chairman but without my knowledge.
When I learned of the invitation, I objected that the museum shouldn't be used as a prop for a photo op. The invitation was, in my judgment, aimed at convincing American Jews, who mistrusted Arafat because of his support for terrorism during the years after the Oslo accords, that he genuinely felt the pain of the Jewish people and could be trusted to keep any word he would give in his upcoming negotiations with President Bill Clinton. I said that exploiting the memory of the Holocaust victims to sway public opinion in the service of achieving diplomatic objectives was unconscionable. I pointed out that Arafat had been invited to Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to and museum about the Holocaust, but hadn't been interested in going there -- even though he was living in nearby Gaza.
The invitation to the Holocaust Museum was withdrawn. However, following pressures from the administration, Arafat was reinvited by the chairman of the museum's board -- again without my knowledge. But the day Arafat was scheduled to come, he canceled the visit. The Washington press corps, including the photographers, had decamped to the White House to cover the breaking Monica Lewinsky scandal. There would be no photo op.
Given this history, anyone saying that the planned Arafat visit was a product of his request and his "strong desire" to see the Holocaust Museum is trying to fool either himself or everyone else.
WALTER REICH
Chevy Chase
