<![CDATA[
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
Commitment to tolerance
<br>
<br>Governor lends poignancy to unveiling of plans for
<br>Jerusalem museum
<br>
<br>By Margaret Talev -- Bee Capitol Bureau - (Published
<br>May 3, 2004)
<br>
<br>JERUSALEM - Starstruck Israelis sat spellbound under
<br>the bright sun in this holy city Sunday as California
<br>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offered his devotion to the
<br>Jewish state, expressed a poignant sorrow over the
<br>Holocaust and unveiled plans for a museum promoting
<br>peace in the Middle East.
<br>
<br>"I think to myself, if only those who were cramped
<br>into the dark boxcars and crowded bunks could have
<br>glimpsed what we are doing here today," the movie
<br>star-turned-politician told hundreds gathered at a
<br>parking lot in the city center, where the Center for
<br>Human Dignity and Museum of Tolerance is to be built
<br>over the next three years. "If only those in the camps
<br>could know that we have them in our heart a half a
<br>century later."
<br>
<br>Today, Schwarzenegger was to travel to Jordan by
<br>helicopter to lunch with King Abdullah II, his only
<br>scheduled meeting with an Arab official during this
<br>trip. He also was to fly to Ramstein Air Base in
<br>Germany to visit U.S. troops wounded in Iraq.
<br>
<br>But for the 56-year-old Schwarzenegger, an
<br>Austrian-born Catholic and the son of a Nazi soldier,
<br>the museum event that prompted his first foreign
<br>mission as governor and a hushed and somber trip later
<br>in the day to Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem to lay a
<br>wreath atop the ashes of Jews killed in concentration
<br>camps marked high points of the three-day trip and of
<br>his two decades of activism on behalf of Jewish
<br>causes.
<br>
<br>But Israeli politics and a related spate of violence
<br>cast a shadow over the day.
<br>
<br>As Likud Party members voted to oppose Prime Minister
<br>Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from settlements in
<br>the Gaza Strip, Palestinian militants in the occupied
<br>territory killed an Israeli mother and her four
<br>children and wounded two soldiers. Hours later,
<br>Israelis were reported to have launched an airstrike
<br>on a car in the West Bank, killing four Palestinian
<br>militants.
<br>
<br>Palestinian leaders distrust the withdrawal plan, and
<br>hard-line Israelis see it as capitulation.
<br>
<br>Schwarzenegger for weeks avoided California reporters'
<br>questions about his position on the Palestinian land
<br>question. But at a joint news conference Sunday
<br>morning with Sharon, packed with Israel-based
<br>reporters, he left the impression he supported the
<br>prime minister's plan.
<br>
<br>"I hope the election will turn out the way the
<br>basketball game turned out yesterday, a great
<br>victory," he said, referring to the Maccabi Tel Aviv
<br>team's decisive win in the Euroleague championship
<br>final. His aides said later that he was not
<br>necessarily endorsing Sharon's Gaza proposal but
<br>rather expressing his support for whatever voters
<br>wanted.
<br>
<br>At the museum unveiling, a hard-line heckler
<br>interrupted the governor's speech, yelling out, "Hey
<br>Schwarzenegger, there's no terminating occupation!"
<br>Guards promptly grabbed the young man around the neck
<br>and forced him into his seat.
<br>
<br>Schwarzenegger urged Israelis in the crowd to "look
<br>past the suicide bombers, past the terrorists, past
<br>the blood, the violence and the hatred."
<br>
<br>But even as political dignitaries took to the stage to
<br>agree on the need to reach an understanding with their
<br>non-Jewish neighbors, their rhetoric revealed their
<br>own fears and political biases. Finance Minister
<br>Benjamin Netanyahu talked of what he saw as a need
<br>sometimes to kill in order to achieve peace, to combat
<br>"the demons of militant Islam."
<br>
<br>Despite Sunday's violence, the museum ceremony began
<br>on an upbeat note.
<br>
<br>A boys choir dressed in white suits and blue shirts
<br>serenaded Schwarzenegger with their rendition of the
<br>1960s classic "California Dreamin'," and a crowd of
<br>teenage boys who apparently idolized the governor's
<br>role as a robot in his "Terminator" action movies went
<br>wild when he acknowledged them from the stage.
<br>
<br>A hush fell over the crowd as Schwarzenegger turned
<br>his comments to Holocaust survivors, community leaders
<br>and early citizens of the Jewish state created in
<br>1948.
<br>
<br>In a speech rich with biblical references and personal
<br>revelations, Schwarzenegger spoke of the legacy of
<br>King Solomon, and of once seeing a quilt made from the
<br>clothes of Jews shipped to concentration camps.
<br>
<br>"I remember thinking, 'What happened to the people who
<br>wore this clothing? Did they survive or did they
<br>perish?' " he said.
<br>
<br>Schwarzenegger called on God to "make a covenant with
<br>Israel." And he said, "Let this building begin a new
<br>Passover, when hatred and intolerance passes over
<br>Israel, passes over the Middle East, passes over all
<br>of those who would carry vile things in their hearts."
<br>
<br>Edna Chen, a 54-year-old nurse from the Jerusalem
<br>suburbs, listened with moist eyes. Her mother was an
<br>Austrian Jew who fled Vienna for England during World
<br>War II and moved the family to Israel during the
<br>Zionist movement. Chen said she liked Schwarzenegger's
<br>movies but also appreciated his efforts to call
<br>attention to the Nazi horrors that swept in so many
<br>Germans and Austrians, including Schwarzenegger's
<br>father.
<br>
<br>"It's very nice he's come to Jerusalem," she said.
<br>
<br>Israel's top political figures, including Sharon,
<br>President Moshe Katsav and Labor Party leader Shimon
<br>Peres, praised the $200 million museum project being
<br>directed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los
<br>Angeles-based Holocaust remembrance group for which
<br>Schwarzenegger is a top fund-raiser.
<br>
<br>And at a Wiesenthal Center dinner Sunday night,
<br>Schwarzenegger put aside his prepared remarks and told
<br>the guests his support for the museum is genuine, not
<br>political.
<br>
<br>"Let me tell you something, I'm not doing anyone a
<br>favor here - no one," he said. "It is my duty."
<br>
<br>Not all Israelis are embracing the museum plans. An
<br>editorial Sunday in the newspaper Haaretz said that
<br>the "outrageous cost" of the project was making "a
<br>mockery of the city's large number of poor." Others
<br>noted there already are a number of centers in Israel
<br>that offer social tolerance programs, including Yad
<br>Vashem and a smaller museum that sits on the line that
<br>once divided Jerusalem between Israel and Jordan.
<br>
<br>Many in the crowd at the unveiling admitted they
<br>hadn't paid attention to the museum project until they
<br>heard Schwarzenegger was visiting to promote it.
<br>
<br>"I think it's a great idea," said one of his movie
<br>fans, 20-year-old Judah Hirsch. "There are a couple of
<br>nice Arabs here, but for the most part it's difficult
<br>because our cultures are so far apart, our religions."
<br>
<br>Still, Hirsch had limited expectations for the museum.
<br>"It'll be a nice tourist attraction," he said. "But I
<br>doubt very much it's going to lay the pillars for
<br>peace." <b on></b><!-- 2480 -->
</body>
]]>