ABSTRACT
Even though through Martin Indyk Israel already had the ears of President Clinton before he took office, some Israelis were not satisfied with the make up of Clinton’s foreign policy team when it was first formed. Chief among their complaints was that the team had a number of people from the days of the Carter Administration, individuals who were not deemed to be “sympathetic” to Israel by Israeli standards. For example, Samuel Berger, appointed as Deputy National Security Advisor, was considered to be “worrisome,” according to an opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post of January 20, 1993, because he had contributed financially to “Americans for Peace Now.” Similarly, according to an article in The Jerusalem Post of December 23, 1992, Israel was concerned that Anthony Lake, National Security Advisor, had been “unsympathetic to Israel during his time under Carter.” This was despite the fact that Lake was the one who “offered Indyk the White House job in mid-December 1992” (The Washington Post, February 2, 1995). But The Jerusalem Post of December 23, 1992 expressed concern about newly appointed Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who was the former Deputy Secretary of State under Carter. It stated:
American Jews are concerned about Christopher’s policy toward Israel and the peace process. When his name was first floated as a possibility for secretary of state, there were widespread reports of American Jewish opposition. However, Aipac later publicly issued a statement saying that it had not found “a scintilla of evidence” that Christopher had ever made statements critical of Israel.
