About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 9, 2018)
r L VIEWPOIN Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com She Sttnes gainesvilletimes.com Sunday, December 9, 2018 For The Times Hall County Sheriff’s Capt. Judy Mecum is seen in this photo with President George H.W. Bush when he made a whistlestop in Gainesville during his 1992 presidential campaign. Bush 41 stopped, chopped in Hall Many people have memories of when Presi dent George H.W. Bush came through Gaines ville and Cornelia during his 1992 whistle-stop campaign. But none, per haps, is more vivid than those of Dick Mecum, who did double duty as Hall County sher iff and with C.V. Smith led the local Republican Party in preparations for the event. Mecum was the point man to handle the estimated 18,000 people who jammed around the Norfolk South ern train depot on Industrial Boulevard in Gainesville. Many of those had lined the tracks just to see the “Spirit of America” train if not get a glimpse of the 41st president running for re-election against the Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton, and independent candidate Ross Perot. Of course, Mecum had help from the Secret Service and the Capitol Police, who had con tacted him days before to plan and coordinate security. They established inner and outer perimeters, and the sheriff would station depu ties as snipers at strategic points. Campaign staff asked for bleachers to be placed in front of where the train would stop for special guests to sit. Mecum said he bor rowed some from East Hall High School. The elder Bush’s sons, Jeb and George W., got out of the train when it stopped and sat in those stands. The president spoke from the back of the train for about 15 minutes, but the whistle stop lasted for about 35-40 minutes, Mecum estimated. A gate with metal detectors was set up to let people near the depot to get a close-up view of the proceedings. Brian Rochester of Gaines ville was one of the gatekeepers and took up unauthorized signs. A few protesters showed up with anti-Bush signs and some supporting Clinton or Perot. Other dignitaries accompanied the presi dent on the 18-car train, including Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. A retired U.S. Treasury agent, whom Mecum knew, had asked him to get his 10-year-old granddaughter on the train to meet President Bush. Mecum’s wife, Judy, then a captain with the sheriffs department, was able to do that. She and Sheriff Mecum also were able to pose for pictures with the president. The Atlanta Braves were in the World Series, and Bush wore a Braves jacket to cel ebrate the occasion with Georgians. He even performed a tomahawk chop while criticizing his opponent, Clinton. High school bands entertained the crowd, and when the whistle stop concluded 30,000 red, white and blue balloons were released. Mecum had 120 deputies on duty, and the Secret Service had 80 agents. “It was a mam moth job for the Secret Service,” he said, “but it was not that difficult, and we had no trouble with the crowds.” The Times published a souvenir edition for the occasion, its front page headline reading “Bush Stops and Chops.” Several thousand people also cheered the president at his whistle stop in Cornelia. Bush’s Georgia campaign came just two weeks before the general election. Clinton won the state’s electoral votes and 43.47 percent of the popular vote to 42.88 percent for Bush. Bush carried Hall County with 16,108 votes to Clinton’s 11,214 and Perot’s 5,043. Bush also won Habersham County. In the 1988 election, Bush had won Georgia by a landslide and car ried Hall County 17,414 to Democrat Michael Dukasis’s 7,782. ■ ■■ Mecum’s career included rubbing elbows with other dignitaries as he became a U.S. marshal after his service as sheriff. That included a visit with George H.W. Bush’s son, President George W. Bush, in the Oval Office in the White House. When the president asked Mecum where he was from, he replied, “Gainesville, Ga.” Bush apparently misunder stood and jokingly asked him to take care of his brother “down there,” meaning Jeb Bush in Florida. “I didn’t know what to say,” Mecum said. “Do you correct the president of the United States?” He described both father and son as very cordial and down to earth. ■ ■■ An Oakwood man, Grady Hughes, had served on the Navy aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto with George H.W. Bush during World War II. In a 1989 interview with The Times, he described the youngest Navy pilot as a dare devil, not a “wimp” as some had described Bush, who flew 58 missions during his service. JOHNNY VARDEMAN vardeman! 956@att.net TSAFRIR ABAYOV I Associated Press Moshe Gordon sits outside his guest house advertised on the Airbnb international home-sharing site, in the Nofei Prat settlement in the West Bank. Is Airbnb wrong to bar Israelis from using its room rental services? Airbnb unfairly sides with Palestinians in West Bank dispute BY LAWRENCE J. HAAS Tribune News Service “We are most certainly not the experts when it comes to the historical disputes in this region,” Airbnb stated in announcing that it would no longer list rentals by Israeli citizens in the West Bank. Arbnb’s mod esty is commendable, but its ignorance is insidious. Its policy for the West Bank subjects Israel to a singular global standard and reflects an all-too-common narrative about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By empowering one-sided Israel-haters, it also makes peace less likely, not more. The West Bank is obviously disputed territory, but Airbnb sees the dispute only through Palestinian eyes. After all, it isn’t leaving the West Bank. If you want a place to rent there, you can use Airbnb to find one that’s owned by a Christian or a Muslim. You just can’t find any of the 200 or so owned by an Israeli Jew. Airbnb concluded that “Israeli settlements in the occu pied West Bank” are “at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.” So, Airbnb believes, what’s not “at the core of the dis pute” is the rejection of Israel’s right to exist that’s broadly shared among Palestinians and their leaders; or the incite ment to violence against Jews on Palestinian TV and social media; or textbooks that teach Palestinian school children that a future Palestine should encompass all of what’s now Israel; or Palestinian claims that Jews have no historical ties to key religious sites in Jerusalem. Interesting. So, too, is Airbnb’s apparent ignorance that Palestinians have rejected numerous offers of a state, including Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s offer of 2008 that would have given the Palestinians about 97 per cent of the West Bank and divided Jerusalem between the two sides. Airbnb isn’t offended by territorial disputes per se. It operates in such disputed lands as the Western Sahara, Northern Cyprus, Kashmir and Tibet. Nor is it concerned about the issue that lies behind such disputes, which is the human rights of those involved. That’s true for two reasons: First, while Israel occupies the West Bank, the Palestin ian Authority runs it. The successor to Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PA is headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term in 2005 and has prevented elections to his office ever since. Though the PA routinely abuses the human rights of Palestinians, Airbnb has nothing to say. Nor — while blaming the conflict on Israeli settlement policy — does it seem to care that, under Palestinian law, a Palestinian can face the death penalty for selling real estate to a Jew or that two Palestinians were sentenced last month to 15 years of hard labor for doing so. Second, Airbnb has business in some of the world’s worst human rights-abusing countries. In its 2018 “Freedom in the World” report, Freedom House lists 88 countries as “free” — that is based on their political rights and civil liberties. Airbnb has no choice but to comply with international law BY JOHN B. QUIGLEY Tribune News Service Airbnb, the company that connects travelers with tem porary housing, has announced that it will no longer list housing in Israeli settlements in the Pales tinian West Bank. In a press statement, Airbnb explained that it had studied carefully the status of the West Bank, which is territory of Pales tine occupied by Israel. “We concluded,” states the company, “that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.” Airbnb had 200 listings of available temporary housing in the West Bank. The company’s concern that it was tak ing a side in a dispute of international sig nificance is based on a long-standing view of the United States and other countries. A commission appointed to study the matter and chaired by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, concluded in 2001 that “the freezing of Israeli set tlement activity” was necessary if there was to be a hope of a negotiated Israel-Palestine peace. The settlements, more over, are considered illegal by the international community. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids a state that takes territory in warfare to plant its own people there. Israel took the West Bank in warfare in 1967. At that time, Israel’s government consulted its own legal adviser, Theodor Meron, to see whether it would be legal to set up settlements in the West Bank. In a formal opinion letter, Meron replied that civilian settlement “contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” Ignoring Meron, Israel helped thousands of Israelis settle in the West Bank. That posed a problem for the United States, which gives Israel aid. Were we helping Israel do something illegal? In 1978, members of Congress asked the White House if the settlements were legal. Herbert Hansell, legal adviser to the Department of State, wrote back that “the establishment of the civilian settlements in those territories is inconsistent with international law.” Hansell explained, “Territory coming under the control of a belligerent occupant does not thereby become its sover eign territory.” That is the consistent view internationally. In 2004, the International Court of Justice said the settlements are illegal. In 2016 the United Nations Security Council said they are “a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle” to peace. U.S. companies like Airbnb that operate internationally are sensitive to being on the wrong side of the law. The settlements would not be so harmful if they were small. But over three quarters of a million Israelis have been settled. They take up territory that Palestine needs to be viable as a state. That is why, as Airbnb says, the settlements are central to the overall Palestinian-Israeli dispute. As a violation of laws of warfare, the establishment of settlements in occupied territory is not only illegal for gov ernments, it is a crime for individual persons. Lawrence J. Haas is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council John B. Quigley is a distinguished professor of law at the Ohio State University Johnny Vardeman is retired editor of The Times. He can be reached at 2183 Pine Tree Circle N.E., Gainesville, Ga. 30501; phone (770) 532-2326; email vardeman1956@att.net. ■ Please see HAAS, 4D ■ Please see QUIGLEY, 4D
