Reports that Israel provided China with Patriot missiles or technology are a “provocation designed to poison relations between the United States and Israel,” a leading American Jewish group has charged.
The reports appear to be “a deliberate attempt to sow discord between Washington and Jerusalem at a time when decisions are about to be made on the issue of Israel’s request for loan guarantees,” the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said in a statement Thursday.
The strongly worded statement was signed by Shoshana Cardin, the conference’s chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, its executive director. They and others have been lobbying the Bush administration to approve guarantees for $10 billion in loans Israel is seeking to help absorb up to 1 million immigrants.
The Senate Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations is expected to consider proposed loan guarantee legislation on Tuesday. But while the senators have reached tentative agreement on a bill, they have not yet won backing from the administration.
The Conference of Presidents statement came after the Israeli Defense Ministry vehemently denied a report Thursday in the Washington Times that senior administration officials were examining the possibility that Israel had transferred Patriot technology to China. The report also was picked up by television networks.
‘TOTALLY FALSE AND BASELESS’
“Israel has not transferred any Patriot missile or technologies of the missile to China,” Danny Naveh, media adviser to Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens, said in a statement released by the Israeli Embassy here.
“Those are totally false and baseless reports,” said the statement, which, unlike some denials, was unequivocal.
Bush administration officials would not confirm or deny that an investigation is in progress, insisting that they never comment on intelligence matters.
At the White House, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater noted the Israeli denial when asked about the reports.
“There certainly have been contacts and consultations between the countries — between us and Israel,” Fitzwater said. “That would take place on a normal basis. And there’s intelligence information and conclusions that we have.”
But it was not clear that he was talking specifically about information relating to the Patriots.
Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams and his State Department counterpart, Richard Boucher, had no comment at all. But while stressing that he was not referring to the Times story, Boucher pointed out that the Arms Export Control Act requires any country receiving U.S. arms or military services to agree not to transfer technology to a third country without U.S. permission.
Israel has two Patriot batteries, each con- taining five launchers and 64 missiles. The Patriots were used during the Persian Gulf War to shoot down incoming Scud missiles from Iraq.
Since China’s bloody crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in June 1990, there have been reports that Israel has become a “back door” supplier of Western technology to the Communist country. Although China established diplomatic relations with Israel only in January, Arens visited China last year.
At the same time, China is considered the leading arms supplier to the Third World, including Arab countries such as Syria.
ARENS TO MEET WITH CHENEY
The Conference of Presidents statement said “it makes no sense whatever that Israel would supply anti-Scud missiles or missile technology to China, the same country that is selling Scuds to Israel’s enemies, including Syria.”
Rather than supplying U.S. secrets to other countries, “Israel has shared great amounts of intelligence information with our country, to America’s benefit,” Cardin and Hoenlein said.
The newspaper report also came after a North Korean ship entered the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Monday. The ship had been watched by U.S. naval forces because of the suspicion it carried Scud-C missiles or related equipment destined for Syria.
The Navy said the North Korean ship eluded it, but pro-Israel supporters here said they believe the Navy lost the ship on orders from above.
The charge that Israel is supplying China is likely to come up Monday morning when Arens meets here with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.
Arens, who arrived in New York on Thursday, is in the United States on a private visit and will be in New York and Los Angeles before coming to Washington.
On Monday, he is scheduled to address the United Jewish Appeal’s National Young Leadership Conference here. On Tuesday, Arens will meet with members of Congress and visit a U.S. Armed Forces base.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
