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The American Diplomat in Arafat's Corner
Jonathan Broder / Washington
 CONDOLENCE CALL: Edward Abington (center) visiting the family of an 11-year-old West Bank Palestinian killed in a stand-off with a Jewish settler in 1996 |
BY 1997, after three years as the United States consul general in Jerusalem, Edward Abington had reached the end of the line as a diplomat who had devoted most of a 30-year career to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Like others who had held the politically sensitive post, Abington conveyed Palestinian concerns directly to the State Department, where few officials wanted to hear his discomfiting assessments, and even fewer were willing to defend them and risk angering the powerful pro-Israel lobby.
Making matters worse, Abington had wrangled repeatedly over diplomatic turf with the U.S. ambassador, Martin Indyk, and was nearly fired by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for speaking out against then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu�s settlement policies without her authorization.
So while the more politically polished Indyk moved on to become assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs and early this year returned for a coveted second tour as ambassador to Israel, Abington found himself toiling at the State Department�s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the equivalent of a posting in Greenland. It was a humiliating close to a career that had included stints in Tel Aviv, Damascus and Islamabad before his ordeal in Jerusalem.
Under an arrangement dating back to the nineteenth century, American and other consulates in the holy city operated as independent missions. They continued to do so after Israel was established in 1948, when most countries refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital and located their embassies in Tel Aviv. Since the 1967 war, the consuls have acted as liaison with the Palestinians.
"In general, the careers of people who have served as consul general in Jerusalem don�t prosper after they�ve done it," Abington reflects without rancor. "It�s too much of a political hot potato."
The Texas-born Abington, 55, can afford such insouciance because he has left the State Department and gone to work as the Palestinian Authority�s first-ever Washington lobbyist. In his new position, he is now applying his years of experience to venture where other professionals have feared to tread -- helping Palestinians to be heard in the corridors of power and, no less important, teaching them to be more savvy to the ways of Washington.
"They haven�t done very much in Washington," Abington told The Jerusalem Report. "So what we�re doing is raising their profile here." That meant preparing the ground for Yasser Arafat�s meeting with Bill Clinton in January, when they discussed a framework peace accord and strengthened a personal relationship that would have been unthinkable in years past.
Since assuming his new job at the beginning of this year, Abington has also arranged Capitol Hill and media sessions for other Palestinian officials and personalities, like Hanan Ashrawi, to discuss the need for economic aid and other concerns about the peace process. During the late March round of peace talks in Washington, Abington set up meetings around town for Palestinian negotiators to make sure their concerns were heard in the never-ending battle for public and congressional opinion.
Such professional advice represents a quantum leap for Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, which had tried for years to hire a lobbyist in Washington but found little interest among the major firms because of Arafat�s unsavory past. Until Abington came along, the Palestinian Authority relied on its official representatives in Washington, who are viewed by both the White House and Congress as well meaning but amateurish. "They don�t even begin to get how things work in this town," says a senior official on the House International Affairs Committee.
"From a political perspective, Washington is an enormously complex city," Abington explains. "Power is dispersed, with different branches within the administration setting policy on many different issues and different committees in Congress weighing in. You can�t just go to one central point and find out what�s going on. While some Palestinians are sophisticated about it, others haven�t had much familiarity."
Abington�s expertise doesn�t come cheap. His new employer -- the respected Washington lobbying firm of Bannerman & Associates -- is being paid $2.25 million over the next three years by its new Palestinian clients, a fee that Abington�s critics are now using to question his switch from diplomacy to lobbying.
"It has the potential to corrupt diplomatic service if people go to work for the countries to which they were the representatives," argues Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "People will question whether their decisions are taken because they�re anticipating a position after their service ends. There has to be at least a proper waiting period because you have to think about the perception."
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, dismisses Hoenlein�s criticism as nonsense. "Someone who served the United States admirably and responsibly, when the United States and Israel needed a wise, experienced hand going back and forth to the Palestinians, is now going to work for them for the purpose of strengthening the peace," Foxman says of Abington. "I don�t have a problem with that. There used to be a time when we had problems with bias in the Foreign Service. But the Palestinian Authority today is not the enemy of Israel."
As for the question of a cooling-off period, as Abington himself points out, he served more than two years at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research after leaving Jerusalem -- a year longer than government ethics regulations prescribe as an acceptable waiting period before lobbying the administration.
Abington is hardly the first diplomat to leave the State Department for the greener pastures of professional foreign lobbying. What distinguishes him from others was his performance as the first post-Oslo consul general in Jerusalem. Abington arrived in October, 1993, a month after the accords were signed at the White House. No longer restrained by rules that had prevented official U.S. contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization, he set out to cultivate a personal relationship with Arafat and his top aides, frequently visiting them in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem to earn their confidence in America�s diplomatic efforts.
"I took every opportunity I could to see Arafat," Abington says. "I just felt it was important to be seen as very active, as understanding Palestinian positions, showing sympathy and empathy, but also making clear that I was a representative of the United States and my objective was to further U.S. policy."
ABINGTON TURNED UP AT stone-throwing demonstrations between Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers. The Arabic-speaking consul general paid a condolence call on the family of a Palestinian boy killed in a confrontation with Israeli settlers. He peppered the State Department with cables, advising U.S. officials to urge Israel to halt its frequent closures of the territories, which he said were turning the area into "pressure cookers." And when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, it was Abington who called Arafat in Gaza to deliver the terrible news and to reassure him on America�s behalf that the peace process would continue.
In 1996, after Israeli police had failed to halt a spate of drive-by shootings at the East Jerusalem home of the Palestinian Authority�s point man in the city, Faisal al-Husseini, Abington criticized the police publicly and got them to intervene and change the traffic pattern. His comments infuriated Indyk, who had been trying unsuccessfully to resolve the problem through diplomatic channels. A year later, Abington ran afoul of Albright when he told The New York Times that Netanyahu�s settlement campaign was "ideologically driven."
"At first, she was going to fire me," Abington recalls, "but after she cooled down, she ended up issuing a letter of reprimand. She very much wants to control what is said publicly on sensitive issues. I think she felt I was out of line, even though what I said obviously was correct."
Abington says he was just as tough with the Palestinians. In March, 1996, when a terrorist bomb blew up a bus during the morning rush hour only a few hundred yards from his home and office on Agron Street in West Jerusalem, Abington arrived moments later at the scene to survey the carnage. He then called Arafat on his cell phone to insist that he do more to prevent terrorism, which was endangering the peace process. He kept up these demands until the Palestinian Authority started to show some results.
He also went after the Palestinian Authority over its spotty human-rights record. In 1997, he waged an effective campaign to win the release of Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab, who had been arrested by Arafat�s security forces for having the temerity to televise sessions of the Palestinian Legislative Council, where some of Arafat�s policies were criticized.
"I worked the phones, calling many of my Palestinian contacts," Abington says. "I stated the obvious -- that this was giving the Palestinian Authority a black eye on Capitol Hill and in the media. They stonewalled me at first, but over time, they released him."
Another reason why Abington enjoys support among some Jewish leaders is the example he set in reaching out to local Jews. Unlike most previous American consuls general in Jerusalem, who shunned contact with Israelis, Abington placed his daughter, Alex, in a nursery at Kol Haneshamah, a Reform congregation, and later in a Reform kindergarten, where she learned to speak Hebrew. Through the schools, Abington cultivated friendships with many Israelis, including associates of Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert.
Armed with his contacts and his understanding of both sides in the conflict, Abington says he is still committed to the peace process, even though he is no longer an official part of it. He finds his job easier because Washington has had nearly seven years to get used to Palestinian participation. But, he concedes, there are still those who remain wary and need convincing that what is good for the Palestinians is also good for U.S. and Israeli interests.
Ever the diplomat, Abington smiles: "It also doesn�t hurt to help the Palestinians understand the depth of those concerns."
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