Journalists Link Israeli Financial Woes to Shamir-Bush Confrontation

By Dr. Israel Shahak

Israel's current financial distress, and draconian tax increases advocated by Israeli Finance Minister Yitzhak Moda'i, are increasingly ascribed by Israeli journalists to the current political confrontation between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud government and the administration of US President George Bush. Details of a November meeting between Bush and US Jewish leaders carried in most Israeli newspapers supply the background to the disaster Israelis see unfolding around diem.

Two differing accounts of the White House meeting also illustrate the contrasts between reporting in the Hebrew-language press and the English-language Jerusalem Post, which Israelis regard as a newspaper edited with American sensibilities in mind. According to the Post, which relies for its information on its contacts with Jewish leaders in Washington, "the meeting was 'an honest and tough exchange of views. "' In the Hebrew-language daily Yediot Ahronot, however, senior political correspondent Shimon Shiffer declines to sugarcoat his account and proceeds directly to Bush's remark to the US Jewish leaders that, "The central question is the security of the American soldiers in Saudi Arabia. If you keep opposing the deliveries of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, I am going public to explain to the American nation who is with us and who is against us."

Strategic Ally or Security Risk?

According to Shiffer, Israel is regarded by Bush and his advisers as a risk factor endangering the security of American soldiers in the Gulf. In the conversation, Bush also observed that he failed to understand the reasons for Israel's refusal to accept the envoy of the UN secretary-general. He also turned down the Jewish leaders' request that he commit himself to a US veto against any Security Council resolution not approved by Israel to convene a meeting of the Geneva Convention signatory states. Shiffer reports that, when the Jewish leaders asked again for US loan guarantees that would raise funding for the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, "that request outraged Bush."

"I am informed that Jerusalem is a symbol of the Jewish nation's unity," Shiffer quoted Bush as saying, "but why are the settlements of so much concern in Israel?"

"One of the Jewish leaders present intervened: 'There have been no new settlements.' [Bush adviser] Scowcroft responded: 'We are informed that an expansion of the existing settlements has been underway."

The only thing Bush's guests received was his confirmation of the $700 million grant in the form of weaponry supplied from the US army stores in Europe.

Empty Hands

Shiffer's version of the encounter was corroborated by Haaretz military correspondent Reuven Padatzur, writing under a Nov. 13 headline, "The US turns down Israel's request to increase military assistance by $700 million yearly. " Padatzur reports that an Israeli Ministry of Defense delegation in Washington to attend a meeting held every six months under terms- of the US-Israeli Strategic Understanding Agreement returned with empty hands.

Ilan Kfir and Yoel Esteron nevertheless report in Hadashot of Nov. 13 under the headline, "US officials: If Israel accepts UN envoy, it will receive immigration funding guarantees for one billion dollars," that if amicable US-Israeli relations are restored, the US will provide the requested guarantees totaling one billion dollars. The two reporters stress that the Americans are particularly concerned about "misunderstandings" over the Temple Mount events. Yet the current official Israeli position on the affair in the Haram Al-Sharif has been stated in two mutually irreconcilable versions. On the one hand, Foreign Minister David Levy said that Israel would be ready to accept a UN envoy, but only within the framework of ordinary diplomatic relations. But the director general of Prime Minister Shamir's office, Yossi Ben-Aharon, told The New York Times that Israel continues to oppose the Security Council resolution categorically.

The very next day, however, Ilan Kfir and Yoel Esteron were forced to admit that they had been approached by the State Department in Washington with a rectification. This is that the US position remains unchanged in that the US will give no guarantees to Israel as long as tension in the Middle East persists. It can be inferred, therefore, that Israel's financial hardships will also persist.