A Member of Bush’s Cabinet Promises to Help Get Loan Guarantees Approved

A member of President Bush’s Cabinet pledged here last week that he would do what he could to win approval for U.S. guarantees that would allow Israel to borrow $10 billion for immigrant absorption.

“It is not a political issue — it is a humanitarian issue, and this country owes it to Israel to help,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp told a State of Israel Bonds dinner here Jan. 15.

The wave of immigrants flocking to Israel from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia poses “enormous challenges” for the Israelis, Kemp told the Israel Bonds leaders.

“They need our help,” he said. “I plan to see to it that Israel works out a compromise with America to get those loan guarantees to house the Soviet and Ethiopian Jews.”

The secretary’s remarks were probably the strongest pledge of support for the loan guarantees made by a senior Bush administration official to date. But whether they reflect a determination by the administration to come through with the guarantees remains to be seen.

Kemp has been a steadfast supporter of Israel, while President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker have been highly critical of the Israeli government’s settlement policies in the administered territories.

It is widely believed Bush and Baker will make an Israeli settlement freeze a condition for receiving the loan guarantees. Kemp’s statements here could be seen as an indication that he will oppose such a move and lobby against it within the administration.

But the housing secretary suggested that Israel’s biggest hurdle may not be the administration, but the “creeping American neo-isolationism” beginning to sweep the country that may erode public support for foreign aid.

DECRIES ‘AMERICA FIRST’ RHETORIC

He decried the “America first” rhetoric being espoused by presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan, who has mounted a hard-hitting campaign against Bush in the New Hampshire primary.

“Of course, America first,” said Kemp. “But America first with friends and allies.”

Referring to the isolationist mood that allowed the Nazis to come to power unchecked, he said, “I pledge I will not let it happen again — what happened to this country in the 1920s and 1930s, when we turned out back on our friends.”

Kemp also spoke about the recent Middle East peace process, saying that peace cannot be reached until the Arab nations undergo democratic change. The United States should foster democratic reform in the Arab world as zealously as it does in Eastern Europe, he said.

Kemp, 54, visited Israel for the first time in 1972, while a U.S. congressman from Buffalo, N.Y. That is when his “love affair” with the country started, he said.

Calling Israel and America “products of the same cloth of faith and freedom,” he said it is the “American way” to support Israel.

Kemp lashed out at the United Nations for its record in condemning Israel.

“The U.N. strongly condemned Israel for deporting a dozen Palestinians recently, but two days later, I read a little article that the Chinese police rounded up and deported 15 Canadians who merely met with the families of the student dissidents. Did you hear a word from the U.N.?” he asked.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was also at the dinner. He told the audience of more than 600 people that “Israel always has a friend in me.”