Thomas Pickering, United States Ambassador to Israel, told the opening convocation of the Jewish National Fund of America that U.S. – Israel relations “couldn’t be better, and our capabilities to withstand what always arises in the relationship between two countries as close as ours” surmount the obstacles of “the Pollard case and what has come up in the past year.”
Pickering arrived at the opening ceremonies of the JNF Third National Assembly in Israel, in the community center of Neve Eliezer in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva quarter, directly from the Ramat Aviv airport, where he witnessed the arrival of the first three F-16C fighter jets, which he called “an indication of the renewed cooperation between our countries” and the “further strengthening of the very significant strategic relationship between Israel and the United States.” He spoke of U.S. “commitment to provide Israel with a qualitative edge.”
Pickering referred favorably to the recent visit to Israel and the Middle East by a senior U.S. government official — presumably Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Richard Murphy — as an indication of strong cooperation for the Middle East peace process, which Pickering called “second to nothing” among American priorities.
Although “we have a way to go,” he said, it is possible to find some acceptable Palestinian participation “to come forward with King Hussein.” Pickering added that he felt “cautiously optimistic.”
In the spheres of military and defense cooperation between the two countries and U.S. aid to Israel, Pickering said that following U.S. aid to Israel’s military security and her economic stability, Israel has now taken “a number of very difficult decision to bring its economy first into a period of stability and restructuring.”
Israel, he said, is “now facing a series of hard economic decisions, taken after close consultations with the U.S., to try to mold the economy from what I call a plateau of stability into an era of economic growth.”
This would not be easy, he said, but he looked forward to the opening of the capital market in Israel to the private sector, the privatization of public companies, and the process of tax reform.
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