Secretary of State James Baker said Thursday that a reduction of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union is more likely to occur than direct flights between Moscow and Israel.
But Baker called them “two different questions” during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Bush administration’s 1991 foreign aid budget request.
Soviet Jewry activists have linked the two issues, arguing that signs of growing popular anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union necessitate swift implementation of an agreement El Al and the Soviet airline Aeroflot signed last fall to initiate direct flights between their two countries.
Baker said he raised both the issue of direct flights and “emerging anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union” in his meetings with Soviet officials in Moscow last month.
The secretary expressed confidence that Soviet leaders “will do what they can to get a handle” on anti-Semitism.
“What we are seeing is some old ethnic tensions and rivalries breaking out” under the new Soviet policy of free expression, he said. “I think that it is not being condoned or permitted or in any way acquiesced to by the leadership of the Soviet Union.”
But as to direct flights, he said, “I am not as optimistic with respect to that question, because there are serious concerns within the Soviet Union that the people making use of that direct flight will be settled in the occupied territories.”
QUESTIONED ABOUT DOLE PROPOSAL
When pressed on that issue by Rep. Mel Levine (D-Calif.), Baker said that over 99 percent of Soviet Jews immigrating to Israel have not settled in the territories.
“But I don’t think that it’s accurate to say that there’s not a genuine concern on the part of some that some of the people that have gone out of the Soviet Union will be settling in the territories,” the secretary added.
Baker also was asked about an idea recently proposed by Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.) to make 5 percent cuts in U.S. foreign aid to the five largest recipients, including Israel, so that more funds could be made available to emerging democracies in Eastern Europe.
Baker said that the Dole proposal, if implemented, should be modified to “shave” funds from all foreign aid recipients, not just the top five.
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