Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Ahmadinejad In New York’
The Sun’s editorial condemning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s plan to lay a wreath at Ground Zero contained a historical error — that an invitation issued to Yasser Arafat to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum during the Clinton administration was ultimately canceled, presumably by administration or museum officials [Editorial, “Ahmadinejad In New York,” September20,2007].
In fact, Arafat cancelled it. The administration had issued the invitation with the agreement of the Clintonappointed chairman of the museum, Miles Lerman, to improveArafat’simage.
When the museum’s director, Walter Reich, heard about it, he protested that the museum mustn’t be used as a tool for diplomatic purposes. Lerman disinvited Arafat.
Then, under administration pressure, he re-invited him. When the museum’s board asked Mr. Reich to escort Arafat, he refused. Arafat was all set to come when the Monica Lewinsky affair erupted. With the press converging on the White House, not the museum, there would be no public relations value to a visit — so Arafat canceled.
Prominent Jews supported Arafat coming to the museum in the hope that he’d be changed. And today, many Jews support Columbia’s decision to invite Ahmadinejad in the hope that he would be changed. That such a change will take place is naïve wishful-thinking. “History,” Marxfamouslysaid,”repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” At the Holocaust Museum, the Arafat visit was the tragedy. At Columbia, the Ahmadinejad visit is thefarce.
RABBI AVI WEISS
Bronx, N.Y.
