JerusPost

Sharpton: 'I have nothing to apologize for' By Etgar Lefkovits

JERUSALEM (October 30) - The Rev. Al Sharpton declared yesterday that he has never fostered or supported anti-Semitic views, and that he has always dealt "fairly and squarely," with the Jewish community in his home town of New York.

"I have nothing to apologize for, because I cannot apologize for fabrications," the controversial civil rights leader said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post during a three-day visit.

Sharpton stirred more controversy on his first day here, paying an unscheduled visit to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in the Gaza Strip.

Seen as an effort to mend, or at least soften his harsh image in the eyes of New York Jewry, Sharpton made his sudden decision to visit immediately after the September 11 terror attacks in the US.

He said he decided to visit after a 12-year-old friend of his daughter's came to his home just after hearing that his mother was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center.

"I saw how regular civilians who had nothing to do with politics or foreign policy were targeted. At that time, I felt that we have to reach out beyond ourselves and deal in a more inclusive way with issues of terror," he said.

So Sharpton picked up the phone and called Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom he often debated in the past, and told him that he wanted to visit Israel.

There were those who told him not to come, particularly at such a dangerous time, but Sharpton rejected their views.

"My whole idea was that we must raise the issue of civilians being killed and put the human face on this," he said.

He pointedly declined to say whether he endorses the view that that there is no difference between the terror that has plagued Israel and the attacks on the US, stating only that "killing civilians is wrong anywhere."

Still, on day one here, Sharpton managed to unnerve Boteach by making the unplanned visit to Arafat, even though it was not on the schedule of what was billed as a sympathy trip to see the victims of terror.

Boteach boycotted the meeting, but Sharpton said it was scheduled in part at the suggestion of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, with whom who he met earlier in the day. Sharpton said Peres suggested that he pass on the message of no violence against civilians to Arafat.

"It is our duty as human rights activists to put continual pressure on leaders so they find a way out of this," he said, noting that only time will tell if Arafat will heed his words.

"His actions will speak," he said.

Sharpton is viewed as anathema by many in the New York Jewish community for helping fan the flames of black-Jewish tensions for more than a decade, which peaked in the Crown Heights riots of 1991, and for the events leading up to the burning of a Jewish-owned clothing store in Harlem four years later.

Asked whether his visit will prove to be a watershed in improved relations with the New York Jewish community, Sharpton said it is not for him to make that proclamation.

Still, he stated that he has "no regrets" in either episode and dismisses as "fabrication and lies" any connection to either event.

"While I supported the boycott of the store, I never advocated burning it down," he said.

"Just like if I say I support Israel, it does not mean I support targeting Palestinians or that if I support a Palestinian state, it means I support targeting Israeli civilians," he said.

In a similar fashion, Sharpton deflected blame for the killing of Yankel Rosenbaum, an Australian yeshiva student studying in Crown Heights, in 1991, saying that he was not even called to the scene until the day after the murder.

Sharpton blames the claims of his indirect involvement on "merchants of division" who want to keep the two communities divided. And 13 years after he embraced the cause of black teenager Tawana Brawley, whose lurid account of her rape by white police officers was later found be a hoax, Sharpton voiced no regrets over his direct role in the affair, despite $65,000 in damages he had to pay. "I believed her then, and I still do today," he said.

Sitting in his suite at Jerusalem's King David Hotel, Sharpton was asked yesterday whether just last year he could have imagined coming.

"I could not have envisioned this trip even on the 10th of September," he said. "But God has a way of using unusual people to do extraordinary things."

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001

Answers

NYDailyNews

Sharpton Furor in Israel

By DEBORAH BLACHOR Special to The News

GAZA CITY he Rev. Al Sharpton, who was supposed to be mending fences in Israel, caused an uproar yesterday when he canceled a meeting with Jewish terrorism victims and instead had lunch with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The detour to Gaza infuriated organizers of his three-day trip, who said the Harlem minister had assured them he would not meddle in Mideast politics.

"He represented to me and to others that he was not going to meet with Palestinian leaders," said Rabbi Marc Schneier, head of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, a group that has been trying to foster better relations between blacks and Jews.

"I worked on his itinerary with the Israeli consul general, and he was supposed to meet with the students who survived the Tel Aviv disco bombing attack," Schneier said. "The purpose of the trip was to demonstrate solidarity with Jewish victims of terror.

"If I was going to reconcile with the Jewish community, I would not be meeting with Yasser Arafat," he said.

Sharpton, however, insisted he did not mean to show disrespect for the victims — friends of the 21 Israeli teens killed in June at a disco by a suicide bomber.

The meeting with the youngsters had been planned in advance, but Sharpton did not let organizers know of his meeting with Arafat until yesterday, they said.

Sharpton said the meeting had the blessing of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, which organizers confirmed.

"We talked about peace, not policy," Sharpton said of his meeting with Arafat in Gaza City. He added: "Arafat said [Osama] Bin Laden was wrong and that [the Saudi terrorist] had nothing to do with the Palestinian cause."

Controversy Last Time, Too

This was the second time a Sharpton visit to Israel was marked by controversy.

Twelve years ago, he landed in Tel Aviv hoping to serve court papers on the Hasidic driver who ran over and killed a child in Crown Heights, sparking a race riot. He infuriated Jews by barking out, "I already am in hell" in response to a heckler.

Sharpton insisted later that he was referring to the airport, not the country. But the damage was done.

This time, thanks to Schneier's group, Sharpton was received by Israeli leaders like a visiting head of state.

Among those traveling with Sharpton was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, best known for his "Kosher Sex" book and his friendship with Michael Jackson.

At Peres' Tel Aviv office, the foreign minister said the Israelis and the Palestinians have no alternative but to reconcile to a common future. Sharpton responded that "the world must try to make this happen."

After the meeting with Peres and a shorter sitdown with former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Tel Aviv, Sharpton headed south to the Gaza Strip to meet Arafat.

While Sharpton and Arafat met in an upstairs room, Boteach stayed downstairs and grumbled when the two men left the office arm-in-arm.

He later told the Daily News: "I absented myself from the meeting with Arafat because it would be insensitive for me to be there while my people are burying their dead."

Five Israelis died in Palestinian attacks Sunday.

"It is my opinion that Arafat has not done enough to reduce the violence," Boteach said.

Sharpton will get another chance to meet terror victims today, when he visits the Hadassah Hospital Trauma Unit. He'll alsovisit Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial.

Original Publication Date: 10/30/01

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001

"Just like if I say I support Israel, it does not mean I support targeting Palestinians or that if I support a Palestinian state, it means I support targeting Israeli civilians," he said.

Just like if I say

I support Israel means I support targeting Israeli civilians

Huh, what?

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001