The Jewish Chronicle, 15th December, 2000:
Jews
to the fore in likely Bush
cabinet
By Martin Sieff, Washington
It is yet another paradox in a presidential campaign year that has
abounded with them: Texas Governor George W. Bush won less
than 20 per cent of the Jewish American vote, and far more
Arab-American votes than his opponent, Vice-President Al Gore.
Yet in the end, Bush may be surrounded by even more pro-Israel
advisers than Gore would have been.
His top two foreign-policy officials are expected to be
African-Americans - General Colin Powell, former chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as Secretary of State; and Condoleeza
Rice, former head of the Soviet desk at the National Security
Council, as National Security Adviser. Both have strong Jewish
connections.
Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants, speaks Yiddish, which he
learned as a boy while working for a Jewish grocer in New York
City.
He has won the hearts of American Jewish audiences, including
those at the annual policy conferences of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, with a fluency few of them could have
matched.
General Powell was an advocate of sending Patriot anti-ballistic
missile batteries to defend Israel from Iraqi Scud attacks during the
1991 Gulf War.
He has always shown strong sympathy with the Jewish
state.
Ms Rice numbers among her own close advisers Richard Haas,
director of foreign policy and security studies at Washington's
prestigious Brookings Institution, and Dov Zakheim, former
deputy under-secretary of defence under President Reagan. Both
are Jewish. Zakheim, in fact, has semichah.
He and another prominent Jewish Republican, Paul Wolfowitz,
former deputy-secretary of defence under President George
Bush, have been in Governor Bush and Ms Rice's inner circle of
advisers - nicknamed "The Magnificent Seven."
If the younger Bush is confirmed as president by the Electoral
College on December 18, Wolfowitz can look forward to cabinet rank,
and Zakheim a high sub-cabinet posting - probably as a deputy to the
Secretary of Defence. Bush is seeking to recruit a Democratic senator
for that post.
Mr Wolfowitz, who had his eyes set on becoming Secretary of
Defence, looks like being moved sideways - possible as director of
the CIA, still a powerful post.
Colin Powell has always been close to Governor Bush's
vice-presidential nominee, Dick Cheney. Cheney, as President
Bush's Secretary of Defence, was broadly sympathetic to Israel - if
strongly opposed to releasing convicted Israeli spy Jonathan
Pollard, who has served 15 years of a life sentence.
If Bush is confirmed, one familiar face from Middle East
policy-making will finally be missing after more than a decade in
that role. Wolfowitz, Zakheim and other key Bush advisers are said to
want to replace US peace negotiator Dennis Ross, who has
already announced he did not wish to stay on in the post. Mr Ross,
however, may be replaced by another Jewish policy expert, with Mr
Haas seen as a front-runner.
Former US Secretary of State James Baker - bete noire to
pro-Israel activists during George Bush Sr's administration - has
been key in the younger Bush's transition team. But Neither General
Powell nor Ms Rice is said to favour his having a major
foreign-policy role.
