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The swing vote may be New York's Jewish community, which makes up almost a third of the Democratic voters. Both candidates are bidding furiously for its support. Hart's first stop in the state last week was the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The man who has been accusing Mondale of catering to interest groups promised Jewish leaders that he would never sell arms to Arabs, never criticize Israel in public, and never disturb existing West Bank settlements, which are "as legal as any others in the world."
Hart claimed that his pro-Israel record is even purer than Mondale's, a contrast in shades of white. He accused Mondale of having lobbied for the Carter Administration's sale of F-15s to the Saudis in 1978 (Mondale insists that he was privately opposed until the planes were modified to be "defensive" weapons). Hart also blamed Mondale for trying, as Vice President, to "intimidate and coerce Israel into taking unacceptable risks that could jeopardize its very existence," by which he meant signing the Camp David accords in 1978. "Unlike others," Hart declared, "I have no apologies to make and no explanations to offer."
Within a matter of minutes, however, Hart was apologizing and explaining. In his speech to the Jewish leaders, Hart gave his unqualified support to moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the disputed capital of Israel. (Legislation mandating the relocation of the embassy as an expression of U.S. faith in Israel has 37 co-sponsors in the Senate and 208 in the House.) But after the speech, Hart was asked why he had earlier stated in a letter to a Jewish group that such a move should only occur after negotiations involving all sides, presumably meaning Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Mondale eagerly pounced on this letter, scoffing that the chance of Arab nations going along "is the same as the sun coming up in the west," and calling Hart's new position a "blatant political flip-flop."
Hart squirmed, explaining that the letter had been sent out by a junior Senate staffer, without his authorization. But when reporters pointed out that Hart had echoed the letter in a campaign speech only two weeks before, he was forced to describe his new position on Jerusalem as an "evolution" of his views.
The glitch was more revealing of Hart's campaign woes than of any lack of fealty to Israel. It was another in the series of flip-flops that have plagued his candidacy. In Illinois, Hart claimed that Mondale was attacking him with television ads that in fact were never aired. Then Hart put on television ads picturing Mondale as a tool of Chicago Boss Edward Vrdolyak, only to try to yank them when it appeared that they would enmesh Hart in local politics. Hart's staff was unable to pull some of the ads for almost two days. Crowed Mondale: "Here's a person who wants to be President of the United States and he can't get an ad off television he's paying for in 48 hours. There's a question about who's in charge here."