"Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has Arthur Finkelstein -- who managed the senate campaigns of US Republicans like New York's Alfonse D'Amato and Jesse Helms of North Carolina -- on monthly retainer, along with paying his $300,000 fee." US Campaign Advisers Work in Israel By MARK LAVIE .c The Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's American adviser hadn't counted on Israel's unruly politicians. His daily sheet of talking points, designed to get campaign themes across more effectively, was simply ignored by Cabinet ministers. ``I don't need anyone giving me instructions,'' fumed Science Minister Silvan Shalom. In the rival political camp, American pollsters told Netanyahu's main challenger, Ehud Barak, that criticizing ultra-Orthodox Jews for relying on generous state handouts would bring more secular votes. But Barak's aggressive style backfired. The imported campaign gurus and their clients are learning that what works in the United States doesn't always work in Israel. It's a costly conclusion. According to various estimates, Netanyahu and Barak are paying a total of $600,000 to their American advisers. Arthur Finkelstein -- who ran the senate campaigns of conservative Republicans such as New York's Alfonse D'Amato and Jesse Helms of North Carolina -- reportedly receives a fee of $300,000 from Netanyahu, plus a monthly retainer of $4,000. Finkelstein and a member of Barak's team, pollster Stanley Greenberg, did not respond to questions submitted by The Associated Press. In the 1996 elections, Finkelstein devised a negative campaign in which Netanyahu portrayed the incumbent, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres, as willing to hand part of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Netanyahu won by a margin of less than 1 percentage point. In the 1999 re-election bid, it was Finkelstein's idea to describe Netanyahu as ``a strong leader for a strong nation,'' Likud insiders said. The opposition complained that the slogan evoked Nazi-style propaganda. Finkelstein scoffed at his critics, saying in an interview with the Israeli daily Maariv that ``stupid people say stupid things.'' Senior Likud officials said they have no problem with Finkelstein's tough approach or the large fee he commands because they count on him to help keep Netanyahu in power. However, Likud Cabinet ministers, independently elected leaders in their own right, were less enchanted with the daily talk sheet. Science Minister Shalom, a regular on radio and TV talk shows, said he never looked at it. The sheets stopped arriving after a few days, said a source in Netanyahu's government, speaking on condition of anonymity. Finkelstein comes to Israel once or twice a month for a few days, and is in touch with Netanyahu by phone more frequently. At Barak's Labor Party, the subject of American advisers -- James Carville, Robert Shrum and Greenberg -- appears touchy. ``We are not interested in having news reports written about them,'' said Moshe Gaon, a Labor campaign activist who works with the Americans. It wasn't like that at first. When Carville, who engineered the 1992 and 1996 election victories of President Clinton, arrived here in December, he gave frequent interviews. He pledged to turn Barak, an ex-chief of staff of the Israeli army, from a wooden-sounding intellectual into a sharp communicator. Greenberg made headlines in Israel after his Washington office was broken into twice and thieves allegedly stole Barak campaign material. No suspects are in custody. His polls indicated that most Israelis are uncomfortable with huge subsidies handed to Orthodox Jewish seminaries, and with large budget allocations to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This led Barak to campaign hard against the seminaries and the settlements, until his Israeli aides warned him that he could not afford to alienate entire voter groups, such as the Orthodox, if he wanted to win the close race. Barak's attack on the Orthodox and the settlers also helped Netanyahu take the wind out of Barak's main claim -- that the prime minister has fanned divisions in Israel for his political gain. Netanyahu charged that Barak is the divisive one, ``taking from the children of the settlers to give to someone else.'' Barak aide Alon Pinkas said the American advisers don't pick up on all the nuances in Israel and that this can be both helpful and damaging. The outsiders can give candidates a clearer picture of what the people feel, he said, or they can give ``idiotic advice.''
