A Bush-Baker Ace in the Hole: Lift the US Cap on Soviet Immigration

By John Asfour

If Presidents Bush and Gorbachev invite parties to the Arab-Israeli dispute to a peace conference, few believe the intransigent Israeli government of Yitzhak Shamir will show up. In addition to the foreign aid card to get Shamir's attention, however, George Bush has another ace in the hole: The easing of restrictions on US visas for Soviet Jews.

Now that the Supreme Soviet has passed a law permitting travel for Soviet citizens if they can secure the promise of a visa of any kind, the Soviet government will issue passports with few if any restrictions.

Jewish emigres should have a choice of destinations.

If Secretary Baker should recommend that the president permit all Soviet citizens currently registered as refugees at the American Embassy in Moscow to enter the US in 1991 and 1992 without further restrictions, few will opt to go to Israel. When Soviet Jewish emigrants briefly had a choice, fewer than five percent chose Israel.

The beauty of this approach is that Bush, no high-risk taker, need not link his action to the peace process. It could be based on simple humanitarian concern that Jewish emigres should have a choice of destinations. Soviet Jews were willing to wait for years in Rome or Vienna for American refugee status visas until the administration suddenly changed the rules in 1989 and forced them to wait in Moscow. This turned the tide of Soviet Jews toward Israel in spite of their desire to go anywhere but there.

The US hope was that a million new immigrants, however reluctant, arriving in Israel after ii had suffered a period of a net loss of Jews, should create new Israeli confidence in itself, the US and the peace process. Instead Shamir and the Likud became more intransigent, even going back on their earlier agreement concerning composition of the Palestinian delegation.

What Washington did by simple administrative declaration two years ago can be undone. The more than 200,000 Jews already registered at the US Embassy and waiting for visas that might not come for five years would choose to come to the US immediately. And many of the remaining one million wanting to emigrate would choose to await the American option, gutting immigration into Israel from the Soviet Union.

The appeal of this proposal by Israeli peaceniks to force the Likud's hand is that it would be in accord with past US policies of free choice for refugees. And it would cost the US taxpayer far less, one eighth of the cost of present Israeli plans (See Frank Collins' article on page 8.)

Since no one seriously believes the Israeli government, unaided, can ever repay any of the $40 billion it hopes to raise to resettle one million Soviet Jews, US taxpayers would inevitably pickup most of the tab. Counting interest on the initial $10 billion alone, it is estimated that, over the period of expected repayment, the real direct cost to the US government would be closer to $22 billion. By contrast, the cost of resettling a million Soviets in the US would not exceed $5 billion in five years.

The administration is saying nothing about the possibility of reopening the refugee channels and diverting some of the flow of Soviet Jews back to the United States. But diplomatic contacts in Israel confirm that if such a change were threatened, it would be even more credible to Israeli hard-liners than indications that the US might curtail US aid or try to place conditions on the $2 billion loan guarantee due to be requested in September.

A welcome secondary result of such moves by Washington would be their strong positive impact on the Arab states and on Palestinians. Our fairness and willingness to absorb some Soviet Jews rather than forcing them to go to Israel and eventually displace Palestinians would facilitate the peace process. It also would be consistent with the slogans of the organized American Jewish community. Whatever happened to those signs outside synagogues that said "Free Soviet Jewry"?

Will George Bush and James Baker use this means to place real pressure on Israel to be more forthcoming? Now that the idea has surfaced, one can expect both sides to lobby hard: AIPAC and its allies to defeat any attempt to open up emigration to America from the Soviet Union and the peace network in the US to argue hard for saving money and giving choice to Soviet Jews.

John Asfour is a specialist in the political economies of Palestine and Israel.