May 1990, Page 12

Jews and Israel

By Andrea Barron

Presidents Conference Criticizes Bush's Statement on Jerusalem

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, umbrella group for more than 40 national groups, responded with a unified voice to President George Bush's March 3 statement opposing Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem as well as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Serious divisions over Israeli policy on the occupied territories have erupted lately between the liberal and more conservative members of the Presidents' Conference. But Seymour Reich, current chairman of the umbrella group, indicated he spoke for virtually the entire organized Jewish community when he expressed concern about "an erosion in White House support for Israel'' because of the President's remarks.

Bush made these remarks at a press conference in California, apparently worried about how the enormous influx of Soviet Jews into Israel, including Jerusalem, might undermine the Mideast peace process. So far, only 1 percent of Soviet Jews have settled in the West Bank and Gaza, but the President's concern was based on estimates that as many as 12 percent of the Soviet immigrants to date have established themselves in Jerusalem and its environs.

Bush insisted that he was not going beyond existing US policy, which supports a unified Jerusalem whose final status is to be determined in negotiations. He was right on this one, but wrong when he claimed that there are "divisions within Israel itself on this sensitive issue." Speaking for both his own right-wing Likud Bloc and the opposition Labor Party, the Israeli prime minister reacted to the President's statement by declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and that it 'will never be divided again."

In the United States, dovish Jewish groups, such as the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), which have criticized Shamir for refusing to discuss withdrawing from the West Bank, agree with him on the Jerusalem question. UAHC president Rabbi Alexander Schindler, a member of the Presidents' Conference, has encouraged Bush to restate his position on the issue so that "there is no room for doubt or fear that this administration considers East Jerusalem a part of the West Bank and thus a separate entity from what has been considered a unified city for more than 20 years."

One Jewish group which has refrained from criticizing Bush on the Jerusalem issue is the National Jewish Coalition, comprising Republican activists. Administration officials have assured Ben Waldman, executive director of the Coalition, that Jews have the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem, according to reporter Larry Cohler, writing in the Washington Jewish Week. Waldman said he expects Bush to make this statement public in the near future.

Gordon Zack, chairman of Bush's 1988 campaign committee in the Jewish community and a member of the Coalition, insisted that "George Bush is a rock bottom friend of Israel and the Jews. In the critical decisions he's had to make, he has fulfilled the commitments of the Republican platform."

National Jewish Coalition members recalled that American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Executive Director Tom Dine said in 1988 that the Republican platform plank on the Middle East was "the best statement of America's interests in that part of the world that has been produced by either party in history."

AIPAC Accuses the Administration of "Sugar Coating" Its Words

AIPAC Executive Director Tom Dine has accused the Bush administration of criticizing Israel unnecessarily while "sugar coating America's words toward the Arab side."

Dine was reacting to the administration's proposal to provide Israel with a $400 million housing loan guarantee only if it stops building settlements in the territories, and to the "clean bill of health" Secretary of State James Baker gave the PLO last month. Baker told Congress that the PLO has not reneged on its December 1988 commitment to renounce terrorism—an assessment hotly disputed by Israel.

AIPAC is so angry about the administration's recent behavior that it looks like it will start placing less emphasis on "executive branch lobbying" and more on Capitol Hill. Beginning in the mid- 1980's, AIPAC took advantage of President Reagan's strong pro-Israel sentiment by lobbying the executive branch for more US aid to Israel, an end to arms sales to the Arabs, and a closer US-Israel strategic relationship. Now, in light of the administration's apparent tilt away from Israel, the powerful lobby appears to be refocusing its efforts on Congress.

"Brothers and sisters," Tom Dine told 2,500 members of the United Jewish Appeal's Young Leadership Conference gathered in Washington to lobby Congress on Jerusalem, "remember that Israel's friends in this city reside on Capitol Hill."

Andrea Barron, a Ph.D. candidate in international relations at the American University in Washington, DC, is a member of the Jewish Committee for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.