November 1991, Page 14
As Others See It
Bush Faces Down Israel's Lobby
The Times
, London
Sept. 14, 1991
"Raising the Stakes"
"President George Bush is taking big political risks to secure
a Middle East peace conference. He is willing to challenge the sizeable
American Jewish lobby to achieve what he describes as 'a major chance
for one more tremendous step towards peace.' A peace conference
involving all the main participants in the Arab-Israeli conflict
would be a considerable prize, the best since Camp David and the
Israeli-Egyptian agreement of the late 1970s. But it is proving
elusive...
"The most serious threat arises from further Israeli settlement
in the occupied territories, long opposed by America as well as
by the European Community. Mr. Bush believes he has been misled
by the Israeli government's promises not to expand these settlements.
To win agreement of Syria and Palestinian representatives to attend
a conference, America gave them assurances that the settlements
will not be expanded...
"His stand contradicts the notion, widespread in Europe, that
America is in the pocket of Israel... The president is less dependent
in his election campaigns on money from Jewish groups than many
of his predecessors and than many in Congress. Mr. Bush also knows
that American Jewish opinion is today as plural as opinion in Israel
itself, and less willing automatically to agree with the Israeli
government.
"Since Mr. Bush became president in January 1989, Congress
has never been able to organize the two-thirds majority necessary
to override his veto. Mr. Bush hopes that he will have demonstrated
his good faith to the Arab world and that the Jewish lobby will
be seen to have overreached itself. Having embarked on the battle,
however, Mr. Bush needs to win to be sure that the peace conference
goes ahead. He has scored some remarkable foreign policy successes
of late. He is playing for high stakes in facing down Mr. Shamir."
Christine Toomey
The Sunday Times, London
Sept. 16, 1991
"Bush Standing Firm in the Face of Goliath"
"Faced with 1,000 Jewish lobbyists descending on Capitol Hill
to enter into battle with the president of the United States, Bush
described himself as just one lonely little guy down here'. . .
Not since President Eisenhower took on Israel during the Suez crisis
in 1956 has an American leader so openly faced up to the Jewish
lobby.
"By threatening to veto any move by Congress to guarantee
$10 billion in loans to Israel, Bush is confronting a machine that
not even the most powerful politicians in America care to alienate...
With an annual budget of $12 million ... AIPAC has a staff of more
than 100 researchers, political scientists, weapons experts and
strategic analysts briefing six registered lobbyists.
"Even the identity of the six professional lobbyists is not
readily disclosed. The agency's headquarters, close by Congress,
is as well guarded as many embassies, with bombproof doors, closed-circuit
television and metal detectors. Tom Dine, AIPAC's executive director,
is considered to be one of the 100 most influential people in Washington...
"Bush is publicly indifferent to the prospect that his stand
could damage him in an election year. 'That is not the question,
whether it is good 1992 politics,' he said. 'What is important is
that we give this peace process a chance, and I don't care if I
get one vote in next year's presidential election. "'
Clyde Haberman
The New York Times, Sept. 16, 1991
"The US and Israel Collide at a Crucial Time in the Mideast"
"Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir seems to have calculated that
he can go home with all the marbles: he would get $10 billion in
special loan guarantees to help resettle Soviet immigrants. He would
continue to receive some $3 billion a year in regular aid from Washington.
He would go to Middle East peace talks planned for next month with
no intention of giving up occupied territory and with the power
to dictate which Palestinians would be allowed to sit at the conference
table. Most important, he would do all this without having to slow
the expansion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
that he regards as his country's manifest destiny ...
"Israel's pursuit of an ever larger Jewish presence in the
occupied lands despite clear American opposition is what this dispute
is about, and it has now brought United States/Israel relations
to a level of mutual annoyance and sullenness not seen in some time...
"Israeli leaders insist that the money they plan to borrow
from commercial banks, with the United States acting as guarantor,
is purely for immigrant aid-for roads, schools, houses, and job
training; not a dime, they say, will go to settlement-building on
lands captured from neighboring Arab states in the 1967 Middle East
war.
"But critics, and they include many Israelis, consider that
a disingenuous assertion. Money, they say, is fungible, an accountant's
term that means one dollar looks like every other. Any American-backed
loans for projects intended to help immigrants free up Israeli government
funds that can be spent elsewhere for hospitals, for roads, for
garbage collection—and for settlements. In the end, there
is no way to tell whether a dollar, or 10 billion dollars, will
wind up in Tel Aviv or the West Bank. As a result, according to
this argument, there is virtually no weapon available to Mr. Bush
other than a suspension of the requested loan guarantees to get
Mr. Shamir to bend to his will.
"Even in Israel, many people have had it with settlements.
Opposition leaders say that Mr. Shamir has brought the crisis on
himself with his intransigence, and economists caution that the
Government's construction plans not only stand in the way of hoped
for peace but also impose a serious drain on the economy. Zionist
goals, they argue, are best served by making Israel a stronger place,
and not by spreading thin resources across the Judean hills."
William Pfaff
International Herald Tribune
Sept. 18, 1991
"Israel's Alliance with America Can be Damaged"
"Israel will make a serious mistake if its supporters in the
United States force a showdown in Congress over President George
Bush's request for a four-month delay in the debate over granting
loan guarantees to Israel.
"I do not say this because Israel will lose. It possibly will
win. Such a victory, would, however, prove a defeat in the end.
It would accelerate that larger withdrawal of popular American sympathy
from Israel that has been gathering momentum since Israel's invasion
of Lebanon in 1982 ...
"It is apparent to everyone that the guaranteed funds will
directly or indirectly support new settlements in the occupied territories.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's demand is actually that Congress
vote US taxpayer support to an Israeli policy of territorial annexation
formally opposed by the American government, a policy that the US
government considers an obstacle to peace in the Middle East. "
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