November 1991, Page 11

Words to Remember

Fifteen Days in September: The Battle of the $10 Billion

"We do not accept any linkage with the problem of settlements and not with other political problems."

—Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Sept. 8, 1991

"We're the United States of America and we have a leadership role around the world that has to be fulfilled. And I'm calling the shots on this question in the way I think is best...

—US President George Bush, Sept. 11, 1991

"On Capitol Hill yesterday, anxious senators continued to seek a way of avoiding a choice between going against Bush—and possibly upsetting the peace process—or going against the politically powerful pro-Israeli lobby. While such Israel supporters as Bill Bradley (NJ) , Edward M. Kennedy (MA) and Barbara Mikulski (MD) spoke out Tuesday in a closed-door caucus against delaying a vote on the guarantees, Democratic leaders have been publicly noncommittal."

—Journalist John Yang, Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1991

"Let's give the president a chance on this one. Let's give him, at least, the benefit of the doubt. Those who seem anxious to throw a peace conference into confusion and risk its fragile prospects ought to remember the commitments we have just fulfilled to Israel, to stability and peace in the region."

—Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV), Sept. 13, 1991

"A fight like this may only serve to reinforce the siege mentality among Israelis that has worked against the peace process in the past."

—Harry Wall, B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, Sept. 14, 1991

"The administration has drawn the conclusion from the past that the only way to get Shamir to the negotiating table is through pressure. That more or less explains the very strong and repeated public noises on settlements and other issues in the administration's first year, and it also explains why they feel they must link the $10 billion loan guarantee proposal to the negotiations."

—Dore Gold, director of US Foreign and Defense Policy Project, Jaffee Center, Tel Aviv University, Sept. 14, 1991

"This was the week when an immovable President George Bush squared up to the hitherto irresistible force in US politics: the American Jewish lobby... Mr. Bush has cast the loan guarantee in terms of an historic opportunity for peace... At the same time, Mr. Bush may be gambling on a cruder calculation. The signs are that the US Congress is taking a much harder-nosed attitude to foreign aid, even to long-time allies such as Israel."

—British journalist Lionel Barber, Financial Times Weekend, Sept. 14, 1991

"I believe we should oppose linking this humanitarian issue with political issues even if it means a confrontation with the Bush administration. If there is a confrontation, it will be the fault of the administration alone."

—Washington representative Rabbi David Saperstein, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Sept. 14, 1991

"Most members of Congress and lobbyists who want the guarantees have some reluctance about an all-out fight with a president who threw down a veto threat personally and early in the game."

—Journalist Adam Clymer, Sept. 14, 1991

"In my judgment, this is the single most gratuitous and unnecessary confrontation in the history of the American-Israeli relationship. I think both parties are culpable and both the Israelis and the president are being unnecessarily provocative."

—Author Leonard Fein, Sept. 14, 1991

"This is the fault of Shamir, not Bush... The Bush government has been pushing for guarantees that the loan guarantees won't be used for housing on the West Bank since last year. Shamir has been trying to create facts on the West Bank that would make a land for peace exchange impossible. Now he is demanding that the United States give him the money to subvert American policy. What kind of chutzpah is that?"

—Editor Michael Lerner, Tikkun magazine, Sept. 14, 1991

"The settlement juggernaut rolls on. I find people incredulous and deeply offended at the spectacle of Mr. Shamir taking American money, asking for more, going back on land for peace, tangling up the peace conference, refusing to halt settlements and rejecting Mr. Bush's entirely reasonable plea to 'give peace a chance' by letting the loan guarantee request wait for a conference to get underway. Certainly America will not profit from this policy. Can anyone imagine that Israel will either?"

—Editor Stephen S. Rosenfeld, Washington Post, Sept. 14, 1991

"This is the largest exodus of Jews since the creation of the state of Israel, I think we should be there and we should stand at this moment with Israel. "

—Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ), Sept. 15, 1991

"We really should not connect humanitarian aid with the overall peace process."

—Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), Sept. 15, 1991

"The aim of the president in the fairly unanimous view of US government officials, diplomats and others who deal with the region is to use Israel's desperate need for the aid as a lever to advance his belief that solving the Arab-Israeli conflict will require Israel to withdraw from most of the land it has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in exchange for Arab acceptance ... Sources say Shamir privately is counting on the American Jewish community and its friends in Congress to win the struggle to get the loan guarantees approved quickly. However, despite the pro-Israel lobby's legendary reputation for clout on Capitol Hill, it has never won a fight in Congress against a president who was willing to put the prestige of the White House on the line.”

—Journalist John Goshko, Washington Post, Sept. 15, 1991

"Previous US administrations have shied away from such direct attempts to put pressure on Jerusalem, arguing that the best approach was that of friendly suasion of a US ally. The Bush administration, however, from the outset has appeared determined not to repeat what it sees as the mistake of Ronald Reagan's secretary of state, George P. Shultz, who cultivated Shamir only to be rebuffed each time he sought Israeli movement toward a peace process."

—Journalist Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, Sept. 15, 1991

"I said he is very close to it—to being an anti-Semite and anti-Israel. Israel has to fight the administration. "

—Israeli minister without portfolio Rehavam Ze'evi of Moledet party, Sept. 15, 1991

"The friendship of the United States was one of our greatest assets during the 43 years of Israel's existence. Through your militant fanaticism, you may negate this asset and turn the friendly attitude of the United States to open hostility."

—Open letter to Prime Minister Shamir from left-leaning members of Israeli parliament, Sept. 16, 1991

"I would like to make one thing very clear that I think I share with nearly all my European colleagues. We completely and unequivocally support the president's initiative for a peace conference... I am rather surprised that he is being criticized. No one has done more for Israel than George Bush."

—German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Sept. 16, 1991

"US officials have said they hope that if a peace conference between Israel and its Arab neighbors is held, it will lead to a deal in which Israel would freeze settlement activity in exchange for an end to the Arab world's trade boycott of Israel."

—Journalists David Hoffman and Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, Sept. 16, 1991

"The president took his case directly to the American people on Thursday and headed toward a showdown for far-reaching reasons: to break the back of the Israeli lobby in Congress and put himself in the negotiating catbird seat. "

—Columnist Leslie H. Gelb, New York Times, Sept. 16, 1991

"US aid, although carrying a demand that it be used only in Israel, frees Israeli funds for use in tightening its hold on the captured land. Washington is aware a West Bank building boom has gone oir since it approved $400 million in earlier loan guarantees ... Shamir shows no sign of abandoning his lifelong desire for an Israel larger than that created in 1948. In his terrorist days, when he was a leader of the murderous Stern Gang, his concept of Israel included what is now Jordan ... Bush's stand carries the warning that Shamir cannot continue to pour Jewish settlers into occupied areas without paying a price in the other Israeli goal, immigration."

—Journalist Jack Redden, Reuters, Sept. 17, 1991

"Our main discussion is on how to ensure that the aid will in fact be given, that there will be no linkage. We're talking about an understanding about January."

—Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy, Sept. 17, 1991

"American Jewish lobbyists here said support is growing in the government for a proposal by Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-NY) that Congress pass a resolution promising to grant Israel the aid package in January."

—Journalists David Hoffman and Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, Sept. 17, 1991

"I think that what they want us to do is to agree that come January, we would not ask for any conditions on this aid respecting their continued settlement practices. But that's just something we're not going to agree to, if we only get one vote."

—Secretary of State James Baker, Sept. 17, 1991

"When Israeli Finance Ministry official David Brodet told a closed-door meeting of congressmen last week that it is 'essential' not to make it appear that the United States can 'deliver' Israel to the Arabs, GOP Rep. Bob McEwen of Ohio strongly disagreed. What is essential, he politely told Brodet in private, is to show the Arabs 'that Israel cannot deliver the United States' and that the United States has an agenda of its own."

—Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, Washington Post , Sept. 18, 1991

"Mr. Shamir acknowledged the relationship between settlements and aid last spring when he said that 'a great aliyah (immigration) requires a greater Israel.' Now the linkage created by his policies has jeopardized the loans and put Israel on a dangerous collision course with its most important ally."

—Prof. Michael Walzer, board member of Americans for Peace Now, Sept 18, 1991

"Mr. Bush is serving America's best interests, and Israel's too, by making a successful peace conference his top Middle East priority ... Using US financial leverage to nudge along a promising peace process amounts neither to duplicity nor anti-Semitism. The president deserves credit, not abuse, for spending his political capital in the cause of Mideast peace."

—The New York Times, Sept. 18, 1991

"There is a genuine need to lobby today, and to lobby hard. But the place to do it is in Jerusalem, not on Capitol Hill. Israel's real friends must part company with the unholy alliance of Sharon and the settlers of the occupied territories. They should join Likud's moderates and the majority of Israelis in the struggle against the suicidal policies of Israel's radical right."

—Prof. Ehud Springzak, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Sept. 18, 1991

"Jerusalem ... simply cannot win a fight with an American president over what most Americans would see as an aid package. Israel cannot play the role of the ingrate, spurning one offer of charity and demanding something else on its own terms."

—Columnist Richard Cohen, Washington Post, Sept. 18, 1991

"How can any friend of Israel ... stand by and watch as Israel engages in a settlement policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip home to 1.7 million Palestinians—which can only turn Israel into a binational state with a permanent civil war between Arabs and Jews and with a government that can only control the Palestinians by repressive means? Shamir has no answer to that."

—Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrani, quoted in the Sept. 19 New York Times

"An especially sad aspect of this dispute is the role of American Jewish organizations. Many of their leaders are deeply opposed to annexation, but they have got themselves into the position of supporting just about anything that Yitzhak wants, even when annexation is going to be the result. President Bush is courageous to resist the demand for a blank check in loan guarantees. His position is essential to the hope of peace—and to the future of Israel."

—Columnist Anthony Lewis, New York Times, Sept. 20, 1991

"The Kentucky public's apparent sentiment against the loan guarantees seems to have helped persuade several of the state's members of Congress, including its two traditionally pro-Israeli senators, to remain largely silent on the issue."

—Journalist Clifford Krauss, New York Times, Sept. 21, 1991

"I think that it is possible, even likely, that we are going to reach an accommodation with the administration. I believe that's the best course of action.

—Sen. Robert W. Kasten Jr. (R-WI), Sept. 22, 1991

"I think a delay will be granted on terms that will be acceptable to both sides."

—Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), Sept. 22, 1991

"My view is that if they push it, that President Bush will be sustained in the Congress ... It shouldn't be the tail wagging the dog. It shouldn't be Israel telling us what to do."

—Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS), Sept. 22, 1991

"I think most of my colleagues do not want to frustrate the president in his role in conducting the nation's foreign policy. I don't think there's any doubt about the 120 days. In fact, it may be longer."

—Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Sept. 23, 1991

"I assume people are smart. People will recognize that the argument is over. The sooner people recognize that, the better off they will be."

—Rep. David Obey (D-WI), Sept. 23, 1991